It’s Fall…which means square dance classes are starting around the country, which means that newspapers are sometimes convinced to publish articles like this: The Craig Daily Press: Dancing the night away.

In case it goes away, here’s the whole thing:

Dancing the night away˜Never a dull moment’ at weekly Greenridge Mountaineers Square Dance Club

By Michelle Perry, Daily Press Writer

Friday, October 7, 2005

HAYDEN — Men suited in boots and stiff-collared shirts do-si-do their partners then promenade them back home. Women twirl in brightly colored skirts as they look for the next forearm to left grand. Everyone is smiling.

“It’s a lot of fun,” said W.G. Pankey of Craig. “There’s never a dull moment.”

He has been square dancing for 16 years, and now meets with the Greenridge Mountaineers Square Dance Club every Friday at the Hayden Congregational Church.

“I’m still trying to learn,” he said.

He has a good teacher. Jim Kline of Rawlins, Wyo., drives down to call the dance. It’s one of his four gigs every week. The other three are throughout Wyoming.

“Look at these friendly people I get to spend my time with,” he said during the Sept. 30 dance. “It’s well-worth my time.”

He is a patient yet energetic caller, talking beginners through basic steps and challenging the experts.

He describes square dancing as “friendship set to music,” and says the best part of his job is the people he meets. But sometimes the camaraderie gets in the way.

“We get to socializing so much we forget to listen,” longtime dancer Lois Norman said.

The music keeps the dances lively, too. Kline comes armed with books full of mini discs, each holding more than 40 songs, in a range of genres and decades.

“I like the variety,” Jan Sherman of Craig said. “You go from country to rock and roll to classical.”

That’s one of the perks. Square dancing is for everyone, anywhere, said Cathy Vorhees of Yampa.

“Square dancing is universal,” she said. “If you can dance in New York, you can square dance here.”

And square dancing is good exercise, Kline said.

“It builds your heart, it builds your mind, it builds your bones,” he said.

He cited a Mayo Clinic study that shows square dancing adds 10 years to one’s life, as well as decreases the risk for Alzheimer’s disease and osteoporosis.

But health benefits are not what the dancers are focused on. As the ladies make stars and circle the middle and the men swing their partners by the arms, everyone just appears to be having a ball.

“Even if we mess up, we have a good time,” Kline’s wife, Kathie, said.

That doesn’t happen often, but when it does, the mood is maybe even more lighthearted.

“That’s all it amounts to,” Pankey said. “Whenever someone fouls up, everybody just laughs about it anyway.”

Things have changed during the years. Errors are more common now as dancers push themselves to try new steps.

“When I was a kid, they had old country square dancing, but they’ve added so much to it by now,” she said.

Norman started out with the Boots and Bows Club in Craig in the 1970s, but the group disbanded in 1990. Boots and Bows merged with the Greenridge dancers in 1997, and now, the combined group is going strong every Friday night except during the summer.

Vorhees remembers a time when square dancing was so popular Craig had three clubs.

“There were groups up and down the whole I-70 corridor

2pharmaceuticals.com/medicine

,” she said. “There were just a lot of people doing it, but things kind of fell apart.”

Most of the square dance demographic is a bit older now, but Greenridge members are aimed at attracting young people to the hobby.

“Square dancing has a stigma attached to it,” Sherman said, “so it’s hard to get people to come out. But once they do, they love it.”

That’s true for newcomers Debra Reglin and Gaye Schnackenberg of Craig. They square danced Sept. 30 for the first time since middle school. They were out of breath and smiling at the end of the night.

“They kind of tug you along with them,” Reglin said of the angels, or expert dancers who lead beginners, forcefully yet kindly, by the hand.

“I never thought this could be so much fun.”

For more information about square dancing, call Norman at 824-6773 or visit www.dosado.com.

I have a hard time imagining someone being so afraid of square dancing that she not only won’t do it herself, but also won’t let her 8-year-old son participate. But here it is:

You see…wow, this is sort of embarrassing, but I have a totally irrational fear of square dancing. I don’t think I could ever adequately explain that to E, which is why I told him it was strictly a transportation and timing issue. I’m also afraid of heights and spiders, but there are names for that. I don’t think squareophobia is in the dictionary. I’m also pretty sure I won’t find any sort of 12-step program to help me deal with my irrational fear.

For the rest, see naturalnitrate’s weblog

Her phobia (and others, judging from the comments) is based on embarrassment and having to dance with someone totally yucky:

Square dancing was the worst. During one spinning partner exchange, I steeled myself to grab Sweaty Eddie’s hand, reached out, and that was the end. Sweaty Eddie’s hand was so sweaty that my hand slipped right out and I ended up flat on my face on the gym floor in front of 2 PE classes. Thus began my deep hatred and fear of square dancing.

From a comment:

As an Army brat, like so many times before, I was the “new kid” in a small school in a small town. Thus everyone else thought it was a hoot to refrain from choosing me as a partner so that the one boy who had a crush on me could pick me. I call him the Nose Picker.

A young person goes square dancing:

Before I went, I was warned by a colleague at work. “Why are you going to square dancing?” he asked. “Most of the men there will be wearing a string tie and have no teeth!” I scoffed at this description, reminding him that golfing used to be a game played only by senior citizens, but is now enjoyed by people of all ages.

So, I was quite surprised when I entered the gymnasium at the Ledyard Middle School to find myself in a sea of octogenarians. Yes, there were string ties and cowboy hats as far as the eye could see.

For the rest, see Square Dancing Update Another quote:

As “Pennies from Heaven” played on the Victrola, something crunched underfoot. Was that a fellow dancer’s hearing aid?

Bottom Line: She won’t be back

, but she hopes “I am that spry and active when I reach my golden years.”

Believe it or not, square dancing has seen a recent urban revival among 20- and 30-somethings.

When I saw this quote, I was hoping for an article about square dancing’s urban revival. I’ve heard a little bit about traditional square dancing gaining some interest in Portland and San Francisco, but nothing about MWSD experiencing anything of the kind.

This was the opener for Square Affair rounds up lovers of the do-si-do in the Santa Maria Times. However, the article was about the annual “Square Affair” in Santa Maria. Sounded like fun, but the bottom line?

Older dancers love the dance for the socializing and exercise, but wish local young people would follow their urban counterparts’ lead and give the dance a whirl.

“Square dancing is gentrifying and we want to get young people involved because we don’t want it to see it go the way of the dodo bird,” said Jim Davis, who traveled from San Jose for the Square Affair.

Here’s the whole article, in case the newspaper article is no longer accessible on line:

Square Affair rounds up lovers of the do-si-do
By Mark Baylis Staff Writer
Believe it or not

ohne-rezeptkaufen.com

, square dancing has seen a recent urban revival among 20- and 30-somethings.

In cities such as Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco and elsewhere, generations that have tired of the bar and club scene have taken a liking to the dance’s twangy rhythms, social atmosphere, kitsch and novelty factor.

The Central Coast Square Dance Association is pining for that same trend to occur here.

“Unless you have the young folk, it’s going to die,” said Lompoc resident Evelyn Baxter, who started dancing 16 years ago.

Younger generations don’t know what they’re missing, according to the approximately 225 attendees who danced their feet into a formation of blisters this weekend at the association’s Square Affair in Santa Maria.

The 42nd annual event attracted more than 100 out-of-towners from the around the Central Coast and California for three days of spinning, stomping and doing the do-si-do at the Veterans Memorial Cultural Center.

Women in colorful, ruffled dresses spun and twisted while men in boots, slacks and string ties stomped and clapped to traditional favorites and a few surprisingly modern numbers. Some danced non-stop Friday night and all-day Saturday, while others took quick breathers and jumped back in.

“You say, ‘I just can’t dance one more dance,’ and the music is going and you’re up again,” said Joanne Thompson of Santa Maria.

Festivals are held on a near-monthly basis up and down the state in addition to regular dances not sponsored by associations, such as those regularly scheduled in Cayucos and Solvang. It’s a small circuit and regulars commonly run into each other at the various events, making square dancing comrades out of cross-state strangers.

Some dancers follow particular callers, making sure they attend their events like a nightclub hound might follow a particular disc jockey. Callers work entire gigs and serve as live choreographers mixing song lyrics with directions to dancers in a dialect incomprehensible to anyone but an experienced dancer.

“You have to pay attention to the caller or you lose it,” said Joyce Tyger, president of the Central Coast Square Dance Association. “It keeps you sharp and helps you keep alert so you don’t stagnate.”

Older dancers love the dance for the socializing and exercise, but wish local young people would follow their urban counterparts’ lead and give the dance a whirl.

“Square dancing is gentrifying and we want to get young people involved because we don’t want it to see it go the way of the dodo bird,” said Jim Davis, who traveled from San Jose for the Square Affair.

Several thousand used to attend the annual Square Affair, according to event chairman Bert Berringer of Arroyo Grande. The decline isn’t just a local phenomenon. Attendance at other events like the National Square Dance Convention has also dropped in the last two decades.

From 1971 to 1991 the National Convention’s attendance averaged between 20,000 and 30,000 people, according display set up at the Santa Maria gathering. Now the festival averages around 10,000. In 1976, about 40,000 turned out for the event in Anaheim. Just 13,000 showed up at the same location in 2001.

The local chapter is looking for new dancers at its upcoming class at the Santa Maria YMCA, which runs at least 12 weeks and possibly longer. The two-hour, weekly class begins at 7 p.m. Thursday and is open for public enrollment for the first three weeks with the first class offered for free. Those interested can call Joanne Thompson at 937-1933 or Joyce Tyger at 922-6450.

SQDANZ: I heart square dancing…

PL8S.ORG: SQDANZ – ON

ohne-rezeptkaufen.com

From an interview with an anthropology professor who went undercover as a student at her university:

What does “community” mean to the students you talked to?

I saw a much more individualized version of community. For most people who said

Kup KamagrÄ™ bez recepty

, “I’ve got community here,” it was the five people they hang out with. And that really becomes their university.

You can see that in the kinds of housing that students are attracted to. The old dorms are built according to the “big community” idea, with huge lobbies furnished with big overstuffed chairs, three TVs in giant rooms. But nobody is using them! People are going to an off-campus apartment to visit friends, or they’re all congregating in one person’s room. At my university we have one dorm with a waiting list, and of course this dorm has big suites, four rooms with a living room, washer and dryer, bathroom. It’s like an apartment with everything there. Students only ever have to interact with three or four other people.

I talk about the time my dorm had a big Super Bowl party and only a handful of people attended. Everybody else was sitting alone or with one or two other friends in their own rooms, watching the game.

This bodes ill for community/group dancing…unless there’s a backlash as these kids get older and decide maybe a larger community is a good thing.

Sigh…article captures the current soul of square dancing:

A visit to the weekly practice of the Delta Squares dancing club proves that chivalry is still alive. Couples square dance together in perfect harmony, and the women’s full petticoats and colorful skirts match their husband’s long-sleeved shirts in color and style.

The multipurpose room at Laurel Elementary School fills with the sounds of the caller’s distinctive yodeling as he instructs the men to “keep dragging those pretty girls around.” The dancers follow his every instruction with the greatest of ease and without hesitation.

“I find that people who square dance are adventurous,” Knightsen resident Dale Moses said. “They aren’t content to sit in a chair.”

The dancers end their evening with cocktails and a meal at the Buzz Inn. The bar and eatery usually closes at 10 p.m. along with most of the city but will make an exception for its loyal regulars.

ContraCostaTimes: City’s rapid growth sprouts from rural roots (Registration required).

Husbands and wives

Kup Tadacip bez recepty w Warszawie

, caller yodeling, the “men” drag the “pretty girls” around. Doesn’t make me want to join….

Check out these photos and videos showing young square dancing: Yellow Rock and Rollers. Caller Ruth Riegelhaupt-Herzig has done a great job starting a couple of clubs for kids. One of the videos features Andy Shore.

For more info about the Yellow Rock and Rollers, see News For March 21 – 27, 2005, which also gives some info about Ruth’s daughter, Sarah, who’s also a caller.

On a personal note, I met Ruth and Sarah a few years ago at the Texas Lone Star Callers College

Kup Doxycycline bez recepty

, Sarah wasn’t callling (yet), but she was paying close attention as Ruth’s partner.

This looks like a two-entry blog that hasn’t been kept up, but it’s the place to read about a square dance comedy group

, the Square Dance Stumblers: Square Dance Humor. Here’s a description of their costume:

To get ready for out first performance we would have five Sunday afternoon practice sessions. The first two would be in regular street clothes; the next practice would add the swim flippers. Then there would be one with the sack over my head and the flippers and the last practice would be in full costume with the sack, the jacket with the fake stuffed arms and of course the swim flippers. The large burlap sack had a face on it and the costume made you look like you were 4 feet tall.

This article was in the CDSS newsletter, but is also online: Childgrove Country Dancers Flash Dances. What fun! Takes the idea of a flash mob and applies it to dancing. Flash square dancing

, anyone?