Clog Dancing

• Clogging is a traditional style of dance sometimes also called stepping. It developed from the melding of cultures from European, African and Native American inhabitants of the Appalachian region in the 18th and 19th centuries. Observers see traces of Irish and Scottish jigs, English clogging and African buck dance. This form of dance is a fluid combination of stepping or elaborate walking in time to music. Dancers try to use the sounds of the shoes hitting the wooden floor to make the dance interesting to hear as well as watch. Fancy costumes and precise step patterns were less important than enthusiasm for the dance.
  
  

Country Hoedown

• A hoedown originally referred to a friendly dance competition where dancers tried to out perform each other as the audience watched and loudly shouted their approval. The form of dance was most commonly clog dancing or a jig, performed at top speed to fiddle music. Dancing skill was judged by the speed and sound of the dancer's footwork. The term hoedown has been carried over to refer to many similar competitions, including fiddling.
  
  

Fiddler's Convention

• Georgia's Official State Fiddler's Convention occurs every autumn as part of the Georgia Mountain Fall Festival. Fiddlers of all ages and various musical styles come together for this annual festival to compete in different categories. In addition to stringed fiddle, contestants compete on harmonica, guitar, dulcimer, dobro, 5-string banjo and old-time banjo. There is also a category for bluegrass bands with four to six members and one for buck dancing, a style of clogging or step dancing. On the last evening the festival ends with a "fiddle-off" in which the winners of each category compete. The overall winner is named the Georgia Mountain Fiddle King.
  
  

Music Festivals Abound

• Hiawassee's musical traditions are so entrenched and the festivals so many in number that custodians of the Georgia Mountain Fairgrounds call the town "The Country Music Capital of Georgia." Bluegrass and fiddle music are part of all the annual festivals from the Rhododendron Festival in spring through the Fiddler's Convention in the fall. All events are held at the Georgia Mountain Fairgrounds, which sits alongside Lake Chatuge of Towns County.