Join a lively, beginner-friendly Asheville square dance

Step into a classic Appalachian-style community square dance with live calling and music—running select Saturdays through early May in Asheville.

Start date

7 February, 2026 7:00 PM

End date

2 May, 2026 9:30 PM

Event details

On the first Saturday of each month from September through May, something remarkable happens at Haw Creek Commons, 315 Old Haw Creek Road, Asheville, NC 28805. By 6 p.m., old-time musicians have gathered for a jam session, fiddles, banjos, and mandolins warming up in a venue surrounded by fire pits and picnic tables. By 7:30, the square dance begins.

The Asheville Community Square Dance runs on these 2026 winter/spring dates: January 3, February 7, March 7, April 4, and May 2 (final dance of season). The format follows a precise rhythm: flatfoot lessons at 7 p.m. (a percussive step dance related to tap and Irish dance), followed by dancing until 10 p.m. A cake raffle at 8:30 provides comic relief.

This isn’t Western square dancing with its uniform formations. It’s the older Southern Appalachian tradition, big circle “running sets” where couples break into smaller formations for figures, then rejoin. Phil Jamison, a 2017 Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame inductee and author of Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics: Roots and Branches of Southern Appalachian Dance, serves as one of the host callers. According to Jamison’s scholarship, the caller tradition itself is a Black invention, originating from enslaved musicians who called moves to dancers, one of many contributions that shaped this distinctly American art form.

Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for children 12 and under (cash, Venmo, or Zelle). No partner or experience required. Hard-soled shoes work best, but aren’t mandatory.

Where to dine nearby: The closest option is RendezVous in Haw Creek, a French farmhouse restaurant in a converted church with pétanque courts, owned by Michel Baudouin (raised on a 200-year-old farm near Lyon). For something historic, Little Pigs Bar-B-Q (384 McDowell Street), opened in 1963 by Joe and Peggy Swicegood, holds the title of Asheville’s oldest continuously operating restaurant, hickory-smoked pork cooked 15 hours, served in a converted Pure Oil gas station with the original hand-painted menu still on display.