Champion buck dancer, fiddler performs at Homestead National Historical Park

BEATRICE – During a holiday weekend focusing on the fiddle during Homesteading times, visitors to a national park near Beatrice were treated to a fiddling performance from a national champion buck dancer.

Hillary Klug, a Tennessee fiddler and buck dancer…with albums and competition victories to her credit…put on a performance outside the education center of the Homestead National Historical Park.

Klug says the art of buck dancing itself, goes by different names….depending on where you’re from…"If I do this dance in Missouri, they're going to call it clogging. If I do this dance in Virginia, the're going to call it flat foot. If I do it in middle Tennessee, they call it buck dancing. If I do it in Kentucky, they call it jig dancing....if I do it in Pennsylvania, they call it jigging. Go figure."

Part of the Sunday event at the historical park was a workshop teaching the basics of buck dancing…..with several attendees getting a quick lesson on the basic steps, and how to put it all together.  Area musicians also got the chance to come up on the stage for a jam session prior to the performance, with Klug and musicians David Marsh and Terry Keefe, helping with back-up.

Klug, self-taught as a dancing fiddler….started as a street performer and has gained notoriety online by posting videos and competing in contests. She’s now producing albums with new material soon to come out.