`Bow to your partner, now to the corners, circle left, do-si-do’
Triangle Square dancers hold a Wednesday hoedown
`Community building, gay men and lesbians working together’
BILL TAYLOR
FEATURE WRITER
Gender discrimination? Not in the Jesse Ketchum Public School gym. Not on Wednesday night.
No one turns a hair when a man turns to the woman next to him and says, “Are you a woman? I’m a woman.”
Context is everything. And in gay square dancing, being able to dance, as required, both the male and female parts is a considerable asset.
“Y’all come,” sings caller Don St. Jean.
No one cares if you’re a man or woman or, for that matter, if you’re straight. There are several straight couples in the Triangle Squares club.
“Y’all come and see us when you can.”
Between September and May, Wednesday is square-dance lesson night at Jesse Ketchum. St. Jean, 51 and a math professor at George Brown College, grew up in rural Quebec, where square dancing was a big part of the social scene. A founder of the Gay Callers Association, he’s running the beginners’ class tonight with enough Triangle Square members to form two eight-person squares.
The callers association, he says, is “kind of a union, very democratic but quite bureaucratic … beginners should know this, intermediates should know this … and then by the time you get to advanced, it’s very challenging. In fact, it’s often called challenge dancing.
“The beginners learn one or two new moves each week. I sing a song, work the moves into the song. This fits right in with what I do at George Brown. It’s teaching and it’s very geometric. These guys know a couple of dozen moves now. They’re getting better.”
Most of the dancers are in jeans, though one wears a sweatshirt, shorts and a bolo tie. St. Jean is more formal, in black pants, a white western shirt embroidered with roses and a bolo. He works with what looks like an old record player (remember those?) spinning 45s, but is actually a type of karaoke machine. You get the recorded music and his voice.
“Some callers just download MP3s and bring their laptops,” he says. “To be a caller, you have to have a voice that will project, a bit of musicality, a sense of pattern and choreography. Modern square dancing is different, it’s not a set of pre-ordained moves. They never know what I’ll come out with next. They have to be able to think fast. There’s always the potential for disaster, a collision. Everyone thinks that’s hysterical.
“With traditional square dancing, it’s usually husband partnered with wife and there’s a dress code. The woman has to wear a crinoline and generally their costumes match. We’ll have a straight caller sometimes and the first couple of times … well, suddenly they have eight men in blue jeans and they can find it quite confusing.”
`Some callers just download MP3s and bring their laptops’
Nor is the music entirely traditional. Yes, you can so square dance to “YMCA.” St. Jean plays the ’60s instrumental hit “Sukiyaki.” His voice takes on the cadence of an auctioneer.
“Grab a partner, grab a date. Bow to your partner, now to the corners … circle left, do-si-do. Hand-over-hand, promenade. Join hands and circle to the left. Ferris wheel …” Everyone yells, “Wheeee!”
It’s intricate, fast-moving. A bit confusing. Two guys keep throwing in a little bump.
“Sashay,” St. Jean chants. “Boys run around the nearest girl. Girls trade once more. Promenade her back home now. C’mon, think about this. I don’t think this is right. Go, girls… that would be now! You’ll figure it out. Centres trade …”
A voice from one of the squares, “You’re not a centre. You should be over here!”
Most big cities have a gay square dancing club, says St. Jean, and there are regular conventions. Triangle Squares hosted the big annual event in 2002 at the Royal York Hotel with 1,000 people from as far away as Tokyo and Copenhagen.
“Square dancing cuts across barriers,” he says. “You’re talking to people and it’s inter-generational. It’s different from the bar scene, which is predominantly young. But it breaks down a lot of barriers, not just age. It’s community building… gay men and lesbians working together. And there’s a cross-over to the straight community. We got to their conventions, they come to ours. And it’s growing. I do a lot of one-night stands — parties, weddings, straight and gay, anniversaries.”
Two more squares are forming. A voice: “We need a man. Is there a man in the house?”
“Turkey In The Straw?” Nah. ABBA. “Super Trouper.” St. Jean is in great voice.
“… lights are gonna find me. But I won’t feel blue … circle left … ’cause somewhere in the crowd there’s you … circle more, come back and promenade … beams are gonna blind me. .. do-si-do … feeling like a number one … Ferris wheel …”
“Wheeee!”