I blogged the Visual Thesaurus over three years ago; it’s interesting to see it appear again (updated version) with a square dance metaphor: Swing Your Partner: A Square Dance of Synonyms and Antonyms. This is from the New York Times, so it probably requires a free registration, and the article may disappear into the no-longer-freely-accessible archives in the future.

I wonder who put these together: Educational Frontiers for Teaching Music Square Dance Compact Discs:

Popular how-to-do-it square dances with clear and lively calls, played by a spirited orchestra. Each succeeding volume presents steps of increasing difficulty. Illustrated guide explains square dance terms, describes basic steps, and walks the group through each dance. Can be used successfully for beginning square dancers, ages 6 through adult.

They offer 5 CDs, ranging from Basic through Intermediate, and they offer a Real Audio sample of “Red River Valley”. It didn’t sound too bad…better than the scratchy 78’s that seem to appear in some school programs.

Square Roots: This is a great name for a square dance teaching club, plus they have a cute logo (at least for us nerdy types). But the site hasn’t been updated since 1999, so I guess the club doesn’t exist anymore. Oh well…

A Cleveland cross-dressing group is invited to a contra dance; here’s what they have to say. The dance was July 11, so the link will probably evolve to list new events. Here’s the original text:

What’s a contra dance You ask? Contra dancing is similar to square dancing except:

1) No petticoats
2) Done in longways sets, circles, and squares
3) Live Music
4) Dances are taught, not called during enter [sic, I think they mean entire] dance
5) Contra Dancers are generally liberals, square dancers conservative. Go Figure

What to wear: Full skirts (with a slip, please), and blouses are the order of the day. Alternatively shorts or jeans. Dresses are not advised. Please, wear flats- heels are an absolute no-no for a dance like this. Leather soled shoes are best as well, as they let your feet pivot more easily.

I particularly noted the first and last ponts. I wonder if there’s a correlation…

Bacchus Productions in Atlanta is having a Square Dancing Party No. IV. I couldn’t find a date, but here’s the plan:

We are back and plan to teach some more basic and intermediate
square dances from a do-it-yourself course we found in the attic.
The experiment is to see whether or not the printed course book and
accompanying 45 rpm records (Okay it’s old) are effective.
The course was designed for grades 7-12

They also say:

which I totally agree with.

So I posted about a square dancing friend’s blog. And he added a comment pointing to another blog with an article about gay square dancing on the West Coast. And this article pointed to an article in the Mercury Post on gay square dancing with the El Camino Reelers.

It’s a good article; the dance featured Andy Shore calling, and the reporter talked to Rich Reel, Patricia Sawin (was she there dancing, or did the journalist call her up in North Carolina for some quotes?), Judy Young of the National Association for Sport & Physical Education (another phone call?), and Denis Gomez. I especially liked what Sawin said about clothes:

Sawin said the dress code speaks to the “hyper-heterosexual” culture of traditional square dancing.

“The clothing was really about emphasizing standard heterosexual gender differences,” she said. “American square dancing was sort of a conservative distortion or appropriation of the English and French country dances it came from.”

Meanwhile, the Let Me Get This Straight blogger says, “We don’t think hoedown dancing will fly here on the east coast, unless participants look like Matt Cavanaugh of Broadway’s Urban Cowboy.” Fortunately, Thom added a comment, listing some of the East Coast IAGSDC clubs.

I’ve found a totally schizoid club in San Francisco. The San Francisco Caper Cutters have two domain names (http://www.sfcapercutters.org/, http://www.sfsquaredancing.org/) and two completely different “looks”: one is a sophisticated, stylish design, with some very nice photos:

while the other is a fairly typical “personal” design, with (shudder) animated gifs and an attempt at music (although it doesn’t play in my browser):

I wonder if they refer people to different sites based on age and type…or if there’s some kind of schism in the club: urban sophisticates vs. old-timers.

This is a lovely site: The San Francisco Free Folk Festival. Of course, the folk festival features all kinds of dancing, including square dancing–traditional of course.

Bill Boyd, Editor of American Square Dance Magazine, says:

I am a singer, dance choreographer, entertainer and a spokesperson for my profession.

I’ve missed him, and now I’ve found him online. In one of my periodic googles on “square dance blog”, I found Thom’s mega-MoveableType blog, reflection. Thom hasn’t been dancing much lately (which is why I haven’t seen him in a while), but he describes his involvement with glbt square dancing here, and he still mentions dancing in his blog: (DC Lambda Lessons, a Washington Post article on glbt square dancing, contra dancing at Glen Echo, an audio entry describing how he started square dancing, with added comments on the differences between gay and straight square dancing. I think I’ll grab his RSS feed and keep up with his doings for a while.