Having trouble finding a square dance partner? This site, DancePartner.com, might actually be useful…if square dancers use it. I didn’t sign up, although it’s free, but I did do a search as a woman looking for women in the US…and there were 22 listings, one of which even listed square dancing as one of her dance interests (along with about 20 other dance forms, and square dancing was nearly last). The listings are (so far) free, but there is a paid option.
The two contras I called Friday night went well; people liked the 24th of October better than Katie’s Trip to Starbase Twelve. Saturday, I went to the Duke City Singles Fling for 1 1/2 hours of A2. It felt like there was too little square dancing at the Fling on Saturday during the day. I chose contras over squares for Saturday night, although I heard the square dancing went well.
At some point during the weekend, I decided to reorganize my closet (summer clothes out, winter clothes away). As I was going through my piles of T-shirts, it occurred to me that the reason I have so many is because they bring back memories, not because I want to wear them all. Indeed, some of them are too small and some of them are wearing out, so I can’t wear them. So I decided to take pictures of some of the more significant ones (all square dance related). If you’re interested, they’re here.
Oh, yes, the food. It’s Turtle-Bear’s birthday on Tuesday, but we both have meetings, so I made one of her favorites, Chicken Marbella, from the Silver Palate cookbook.
Tonight’s the night I call my first contra dance (dance meaning one dance in an evening of contra dancing as opposed to dance meaning the whole evening of contra dancing…in square dancing, we have tips, which avoids the terminology confusion). Actually, I’m calling two dances; the first is Katie’s Trip to Starbase Twelve and the second is 24th of October, which I wrote about here. Both are a little quirky; as I was running errands today, I was thinking about how I was going to do the walkthrus. It’s important to (a) be clear, and (b) not talk too much. My guess is I’ll have a tendency to overteach; I’m used to teaching calls to square dancers so that they can do the call from whatever formation/arrangement any (sadistic?) caller puts them in, as opposed to explaining a dance to contra dancers who only have to keep it in their heads for the next 10 or so minutes.
On the sd-callers email list, someone asked where to find a list and illustrations of the various square dance formations (lines, waves, quarter tags, etc) on line. I replied (tersely, as is my wont every place but here) with a couple of URLs:
It was then suggested that the original questioner work on filling out call analysis sheets for each call. These sheets help a caller analyze a call by listing the definition, starting and ending formations, and other info. Every callers school that I’ve ever been to passes out the CALLERLAB call analysis sheet, but I was never happy with its layout. My biggest issue is that the call start and call end formations/arrangements aren’t related in any way on the sheet, whereas in real life, the ending formation/arrangement often is totally dependent on where the call started.
So, when our local callers association did a callers school, I redesigned the sheet so that it lines up the starting/ending formations. It looks like this (and if you click on it, you’ll get a PDF version of the document):
The Mac world is buzzing with Apple’s new music store, which allows Mac OS X users in the United States to legally download and use individual songs (for $0.99). Of course, there are Digital Rights Management (DRM) strings attached, and the music is compressed using AAC (which Apple claims is better than MP3, but which some people who have done listening tests claim is worse). But one can burn a CD and then reencode back to MP3 (with obvious loss of quality, but at least one can be legal without buying a whole CD).
So, of course, the first thing I did was search on square dance. Here’s a screen shot of the results (click on the image for a full size version):
The songs are:
And here are the lyrics for the Washington Square Dance (from Call Me Madam, with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin):
Square dance
The Washington Square dance
Republicans make up with the Democrats
Show those foreign diplomats
That you dare dance
The Washington Square danceNo matter which side you’re on or where you stand
Take your partner by the hand
And each pair dance
The Washington Square danceThe theme is a get-together policy
Show your friends across the sea
It’s a fair dance
The Washington Square danceThe rules are the same as cricket, golf or squash
No fair cheatin’ ’cause the Wash-
-ington Square dance is square-Bow to your partners, bow to your corners
Dance till your cheeks are red as a rose
But try not to step on your partner’s toes
-Now, duck for the oyster, dig for the clam
Duck for the oyster, dig for the clam
But do your diggin’ for Uncle Sam
-One for the money, two for the show
One for the money, two for the show
Three to make ready for Uncle Joe
-Republicans over to the right
-Democrats over to the left
The left meet the right and don’t explode
Try to find the middle of the roadAnd square dance, the Washington Square dance
Be careful, you’ll have to watch your step, by gosh!
No round heels because the Wash-
-ington Square dance is square
Casey Kasem is a DJ known for providing lots of information about the artists and songs he plays. I originally wrote about him here: Casey Kasem’s Birthday.
In honor of Casey, you could pick songs that you can introduce in that Casey-esque style. “Here’s a song that reached the top ten with versions by both Pat Boone and Fats Domino. Guess which version reached Number 1.” (The song is “Ain’t That a Shame”, Pat Boone’s version reached number 1, Fats’ only reached number 10.)
I found an old-time square dance competition here: The Vankleek Hill Fiddling Step Dancing and Square Dancing Competition. Here are the rules (PDF document). It’s kind of interesting; the squares dance to the house caller, and need to be able to do one of several traditional squares as well as respond to several different break calls. They also dance to their own caller.
Canada seems big on square dance competitions; I previously wrote about a competition at the University of Guelph. And many of the Northwest Teen Competitions take place in the Vancouver area; according to this page, the competition started in Vancouver.
If you thought the print beer ad that featured square dancing was weird, check out this 1948 Lucky Strike television commerical, featuring square dancing cigarettes. It’s pretty chilling…and at the time, square dancers probably thought it was good publicity.
In an entry back in February, I talked about a square dance marketing meeting in Southern California. It was held on March 2, 2003, and I finally found some details here. The presenters were:
They videotaped the meeting, and that tape may be available in the future. You can check out the preliminary outline that the site’s author prepared here; it’s not fleshed out, but it looks like there might be some good thought triggers if you’re thinking about how to market square dancing.
In 1626, the island of Manhattan was purchased for $24 worth of cloth and brass buttons.
Sounds like a good time to break out all those New York songs. I have:
Relevant Records