Robert Spicer

Robert Spicer was born January 28, 1921, in Dickson County, Tennessee, and became one of the most influential keepers of Middle Tennessee flatfoot buck dancing. At age seven, he witnessed a Black dancer performing on a horse-drawn wagon bed in Charlotte—an encounter that fixed his attention on the relationship between visible footwork and audible rhythm. This early exposure shaped his entire artistic life.

Spicer developed a distinctive flatfoot style: improvised solo footwork kept close to the floor, with an erect but relaxed body and economical arm use for balance. He mastered named steps including Cutting the Grass, Shining Your Shoes, Rock the Cradle, The Wing, and the Old Time Double Back Step. Beyond dancing, he became a musician in his own practice, clapping and playing spoons for other dancers when instruments were unavailable. He matched foot sounds and musical accents through what he called a "tuned" clap, a technique the NEA profile connects to African American juba rhythm and gospel clapping traditions. His work thus belongs to a multiracial southern history of body percussion and social dance.

Spicer won numerous flatfoot contests and learned square-dance calling from his neighbor, fiddler Arthur Smith. He worked as a professional caller and organizer at music clubs across Tennessee, and performed in exhibition troupes associated with the Grand Ole Opry and other stages—part of the first generation to move community flatfooting into professional exhibition settings. Teaching became equally central to his work. Rather than isolate steps in a studio setting, he recreated social atmosphere in parks and community centers, accompanying learners with claps and guiding them toward rhythmic response. Archival records describe him coaching dancers at Granny's Restaurant, and later accounts credit him with training generations of dancers throughout Middle Tennessee.

In 1990, Spicer received an NEA National Heritage Fellowship, recognition of his mastery and his role in preserving and transmitting flatfoot dancing while keeping its low, improvised, rhythm-first aesthetic intact. He died in 2002. His legacy persists through the Robert Spicer Tennessee State Buck Dance Championship and through the dancers he mentored—a legacy both archival and embodied in the living regional practice of those who learned in his orbit.