The latest (October 2002) issue of the Nutrition Action Healthletter, published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest has an article by David Schardt, “Brain Boosters and Busters”. This issue isn’t on line yet, so I can’t link to it.

There are a couple of relevant (to square dancing) quotes in the article:

• “Keeping aerobically fit can have a significant effect on our cognitive function as we age, and it’s pretty easy to do.”

• “To maintain cognitive function at a high level, you need continuing mental stimulation,” says K. Warner Schaie of the Seattle Longitudinal Study.

  “We find that people who do jigsaw puzzles are better at spatial orientation than people who don’t do them,” he adds. Ditto for square-dancers, probably because they have to orient themselves in space and follow a sequence of steps.

Here’s another article on square dancing’s health benefits: WebMD – Don’t Be a Square — Dance!.

Sample quote:

With all its moving, twisting, and turning, square dancing provides more than the daily dose of heart- and bone-healthy physical activity. Remembering all the calls — from “do-si-do” to ‘alemand’ — keeps the mind sharp, potentially staving off age-related memory loss, experts say. And the companionship that regular square dancing offers is an antidote to depression and loneliness, a statement confirmed by square-dancing advocates everywhere.

Too bad it also mentions the average age of square dancers…75 years in one club. Of course, it’s a good testimony about square dancing’s health benefits…but it also makes it unappealing to younger dancers (and even aging boomers who are trying to maintain a youthful image).

Looks like the archive of the sd-callers mailing list has run out of room; messages stopped being archived in November 2001. Ever so appropriately, the final message involves that venerable and still-controversial question of who’s your partner in a wave.

Speaking of venerable and controversial questions, Dan Nordbye, at a dance at Duke City Singles, called a crossfire from an unusual formation…something like this:

He wanted the center six (the column) to trade while those two dancers stuck out on the ends crossfold and then everybody step ahead to a column. If he hadn’t told us who the centers were, I don’t think I would have solved the puzzle in dance-time.

Crossfire is one of those calls that seems to ignite (so to speak) controversy. In particular, the question of crossfire from outfacing lines, which brings up the question of whether crossfire is a four- or eight- person call often leads to vehement discussion. For some background, see Vic Ceder’s definition and his supporting essay. Also see the Square Dance Guru’s take on crossfire. CALLERLAB’s Plus definitions define crossfire as:

As the centers begin to Trade, the ends Cross Fold. Upon completing their Trade, the centers release hands and step straight forward forming an ocean wave or mini-wave with the dancers they are facing. If the Trade leaves the original centers facing no one, they step forward and remain facing out.

This begs the question because if crossfire is a four-person call, the centers who did the trade from outfacing lines aren’t really “facing” anyone, since there’s the dividing wall between the two groups of four dancers.

However, leaving aside the crossfire controversy, Dan called a really fun dance. He’s a true professional, mixing some interesting choreography with smooth dancing, while keeping the dancers laughing. Each tip was different; each tip had a purpose. He workshopped circulates and split circulates from infacing and outfacing lines (although he never did the dread “split circulate 1-1/2, twice” thing). I heard a little grumbling (“why couldn’t he just call pass thru and partner trade..”), but most of the dancers had fun.

I googled “square dance college” to see if there were many colleges that provided some kind of square dance activity. (I remembered my first exposure to square dancing was during orientation week at my college (Pomona College).) In the first 40 results, I found these:

• At Swarthmore, there was a history of square dances during orientation (sounds familiar, eh?)
• At Hiram College, they had a square dance out on a field during their Institute Week. Here are some pictures of casually-dressed college kids having fun.
• At UC San Diego’s Warren College, a square dance reunion was scheduled for September 21, 2002, but I couldn’t find any other details.
• Wheaton College had a square dance scheduled for August 31, 2002.
• The University of Guelph in Canada has College Royal open house days, with square dancing competition (teams of 8 ) and a square dance director and assistant director.
• St. Louis University offers a square dance during its Welcome Week.

So I guess some colleges still do some square dancing as part of their orientations.

I’m intrigued by the square dance competition at Guelph, so I googled it and found:

• Grab Your Partner and Head for College Royal.
• Additional Information About Events/Competitions
  

  More than 100 University of Guelph students and alumni partake in this annual event. The student competition on Saturday showcases students in fierce, but fun competition and the alumni competition on Sunday allows them to carry on the feud. Square dancing is a College Royal tradition, so be sure to check it out!

Thursday was an exciting day for AWK: we danced seven squares during the class part of the evening. That sets a record for this group.

I tried googling “seven squares” just to see what would come up. Mostly quilting and math things. On the third page, I found this reference to a “chain reaction” quilt.

Then I found a page of icebreakers for family reunions. This remnded me of an activity in the women’s room at Cloverleafs & Maple Leafs. The organizers passed out papers with squares. Each square had a characteristic (mostly related to square dancing) in it: things like: “Is a caller”, “has been president of a square dance club”, “has been dancing more than 10 years”, etc. People had to find others that matched the characteristics and get them to initial the matching square. You couldn’t use one person for more than one square.

I was too busy dancing to take part, but those who did, including my girlfriend, had a great time. It worked well at getting a bunch of strangers to learn something about each other.

Here’s an article (The Seattle Press – Dancing Your Passion: On Love and Obsession) on zydeco dancing in particular, but on dance obsession in general. Here are some quotes:

• …ask enough dancers about why they dance and a common theme emerges, that of an experience of transcendent joy.
• We enthusiasts will go to great lengths, often incomprehensible to outsiders, to immerse ourselves in the dance.
• “I’m ashamed to say this,” says [name your favorite dance addict], an avid dancer, “but I schedule visits with my own parents around [favorite dance form] dances.”
• Yet as time goes on, nearly every dancer will relate tales of injuries arising from the repetitive stress of set patterns of movement, and hobbling around on one’s sore knees after a night of hard dancing becomes habitual and accepted.
• Desires to linger at dinner parties, or to spend quiet evenings at home, go unrequited. Friends drift away, and activities in which one used to delight get shelved in favor of dance.
• Put simply, our passion is in pursuit of “perfect dances” where one attains euphoria–a feeling of being in love.

As I mentioned, I’m in Oregon, where I called a women’s square dance weekend. A dancer requested that I teach the Venus and Mars figure, so I did, and they loved it. I used The Galaxy Song (A 1021), just because it seemed appropriate (Monty Python: The Galaxy Song).

I did a Google-search for Venus and Mars and square dancing and didn’t come up with much. Here’s a page that describes the Venus and Mars figure. And here’s a page of old calls, including Venus and Mars.

Dancers seem to like long, memorized figures–witness the popularity of things like relay the deucey and spin chain and exchange the gears. I’ve mentioned this before: Squarez: Comments: Miscellany, and it continues to hold true for all kinds of groups of dancers. Maybe square dancers would really rather be contra dancers…

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My mom has just started taking square dance lessons here in Southern Oregon with Lantz’s Dantzers. She’s having a great time. While searching for a Lantz’s Dantzers site (haven’t found one), I found this article: Dancing in Southern Oregon from last year, which (a) mistakenly identifies square dancing as the national dance (don’t get me started…) and (b) talks about the decline of square dancing.

Seems to me that if we’re trying to get people interested in square dancing, the last thing we want to emphasize is square dancing’s declining numbers. No one wants to join an activity that’s on a downhill slide; most people want to feel like they’re joining something that’s popular. It’s a dilemma, fer sure.

I’ve started putting pdf versions of my class handouts on line.

• Plus
• A1 (more or less)
• A2

I’ll put up the C1 and C2 notes after I get back from calling a women’s weekend in Oregon. The notes use a square dance font that I put together a few years ago using Fontographer. I don’t know how portable it is (works on a Mac) but if there’s interest, I can put that up also. It’s a PS Type 1 font.

I just added an HTML version of the handout I passed out at the CALLERLAB session on digital music at the 2002 convention. If you prefer, you can download the PDF version here.

I’ve been adding things to this site on my home server (gotta love Mac OS X, with its built-in Apache web server and PHP, and easy-to-add mysql). I’ve got a search feature working, and I’ve added some personal info. I’ll transfer it up to my webhost (Hosting Matters, if that interests you) pretty soon.

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There seem to be hardly any Mac users among square dancers. If there were, it would be way cool to put square dance calendars up as subscribable iCal calendars.

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I need to go back and edit the links to various rec.folk-dancing threads. In the two years that have passed since I wrote regularly, all of the usenet newsgroups archives have transferred from deja to Google Groups. There have been some interesting threads in the past few months, including this one, “What Is MWSD?”, which developed when someone couldn’t find any descriptions of MWSD for people who weren’t already in it. I particularly liked Bill Martin’s description:

MWSD stands for Men and Women who Serve the Devil. Picture standing up
orgies, revellers clad in slinky checkered gingham, string ties sinister in
their simplicity, scratchy old 45rpm records playing music that possesses
the cultists and induces them to writhe disgustingly in little groups of
eight sinners until exhaustion sends them to the lemonade cooler. This
scourge must be stopped! Are you with me?!!

Maybe this is how we should approach marketing square dancing. How about a bumper sticker: “Square Dancing: The Most Fun You Can Have in Groups of Eight!”.