Rodney Sutton

Rodney Sutton is a prominent and highly respected representative of the dance and music traditions of his home state of North Carolina. He is particularly known as a traditional step-dancer, adept at both flatfooting and clogging, and also as a dance caller. In 2013 and 2014, he recorded Bobby extensively as a part of the Bobby McMillon Anthology Project. Over the past 25 years, Sutton has videoed many of the “Old Masters” concerts during Old-time Week at the Swannanoa Gathering, archiving what has turned out to be the final concert of many of these noted musicians!  Sutton has danced with the Green Grass Cloggers for 50 years, serving as its director from 1977-79. He was co-founder and principal dancer with the Fiddle Puppets Dance Company – now known as Footworks – from 1979-1990. In 2012, he received the Sam Queen Award from the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival Folk Heritage Committee in Asheville, NC.

 

In 2019, Sutton was one of 9 artists selected to receive a first ever Folk and Traditional Arts Master Artist Fellowship from SouthArts. He currently is participating as a mentor on a yearlong NC Appalachian Folk Life Apprenticeship Grant where he is teaching Willard Cline Watson III dance steps that Sutton learned back in the 1970’s from renowned flatfoot dancer, Willard Watson Sr.