Square dancing

[firecat]

The OH is learning to be a square dance caller and he sent out an email promoting square dancing that include some YouTube videos. I'm sufficiently mobility impaired that I don't do any kind of partner dancing that involves standing up ;) but this one made me wish I could:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs8j4AezAUQ (Kilt tip at a Chicago Gay Square Dance Convention)

And this one helped me better understand some of the skills involved in calling:

http://youtu.be/qBe_fBmURcI (Teen square at convention)

Here are some videos for Bay Area square dance groups:

http://youtu.be/Je2bchbUJiw (Stanford Quads graduation dance)
http://youtu.be/w46EBHyvXAc (Ad for easy square dancing)

Comments

[stardreamer]

Disclaimer: I'm a contradancer, and don't much care for square dancing even though they're nominally similar.

First video: Wow, I've never seen so many Utilikilts outside a Celtic festival! But I'd be nervous about dancing in something that short (my preferred skirt length is mid-calf) because I do high-kick balances like that one guy in the blue shirt, and that's enough to take the kilt into I See London territory.

Second video: That's a singing caller, which is an entirely other set of challenges on top of the ones involved in regular calling. Which I used to do when I was in Nashville, and the hardest thing to master is that you have to call ahead of the beat or your dancers will be late. You get used to it after a while, but boy howdy, it was hard to pick up at first! I did a lot of practice calling in the living room with dance-band tapes, trying to get the timing into my reflexes.

Third video: This is one of the reasons I don't much care for square dancing. They wanted me to take 6 months of expensive lessons before I would be allowed to set foot on the dance floor. The contradance people said, "Just show up half an hour early for the beginner session, and we'll walk you thru the basics." The other main reason I prefer contra is that it's phrased with the music, which much of modern square dance is not. I have really low-end sound-filtering software in my head, which means that when the music is playing I have trouble parsing out what the caller is saying; I pick up the steps in the walk-through, and after that the music is telling me what to do.

Fourth video: I cannot express how much I disagree with his assertion that you can't keep the dancers' interest without ever-changing complexity. Contradances range from easy to medium to challenging to OMG, but there are a finite number of different steps; it's all in the arrangement. Some specific dances have a step that's original to them, but in many of those cases the step itself gets borrowed and used by other dance composers (cf. "Petronella turn"). I would estimate that 80% of the dances I've danced over the course of 30 years were made up of some combination of (in no particular order):

- Circle [left / right] [halfway / three-quarters / once around]
- Star [left / right] (usually once around, sometimes "until you meet your next neighbor")
- Do-si-do (the see-saw is much less common, and the mirror do-si-do very rare)
- [Swing / balance & swing] [partner / neighbor]
- Pass thru (no hands)
- Right-and-left thru (with hands)
- Allemande [ right / left] [halfway / three-quarters / once around / once and a half]
- Ladies' chain
- Promenade
- Long lines go forward & back
- Down the hall in a line of 4, turn [alone / with partner], come back up
- [Hey / half hey / hey for 3 / circular hey]
- California twirl
- Wavy line (usually with "balance the line" next)
- Contra-corners

... there are probably a few I'm forgetting, and then there are some oddities peculiar to Beckett-formation dances, and steps like "come back cozy" that only occur in a few dances, and we occasionally borrow things like square-thru from the square dancers -- but like I said, 80% of contradances, even the most challenging, don't use more than those.

[firecat]

I've only done a tiny bit of contra and no kinds of dance that didn't involve being taught the moves first, and I doubt I'd like dance that involved hearing and reacting in the moment.

The OH doesn't do social media, but I sent him your comment and he says: "I've been doing both contra and square dancing for more than a quarter-century and I also have Strong Opinions on the subject. ;-) I'm happy to talk with her in e-mail if she wants."

[stardreamer]

No need -- this is absolutely a topic upon which reasonable people can agree to disagree. :-)

[selki]

I'm not much of a square dancer either (I prefer contra for the social and musical aspects), but I enjoyed the kilt tip vid. Some of the contra dancers around me (men/women/etc.) wear bike shorts under their skirts. I generally wear longer shirts, unless it's filthy hot, when I'll wear shorts (or not dance).

[st_aurafina]

OMG, those videos are amazing. I honestly had never even thought that calling a square dance was a thing that people did, and now that I've watched those videos I can see that it's really complicated and strategic. I hope your OH is enjoying it!

[leafrider.livejournal.com]

I can imagine that's a complex skill to learn. I once loved square dancing, though I was never very good at it - two left feet, plus once I get at all tired my brain goes south on me and it became harder and harder to respond properly to calls. But what good, fun exercise.