Normally, I like to link to articles that are published on the web; it avoids various issues. On the sd-callers email list, a Kansas City caller posted a really great article about square dancing, written by a black woman (also an editor for The Kansas City Star) who is involved in square dancing. So I tried to find the article on line. I got to the Kansas City Star site, searched their archives, and found the link. But it was a Javascript link, and when I clicked on it, a window popped up, said it was loading, and then nothing… This was in Safari, Apple’s really nice browser. Since Safari is still in beta and is known to have some issues with Javascript, I tried Camino (formerly known as Chimera), my other browser of choice. Same result. Clearly not Mac friendly.
But this is a great article. So here it is:
headline: Hip or not, black or white, young or old, everyone’s welcome at the square dance
By YVETTE WALKER
First, let me be clear…I am not a square.
You know: that unhippest of creatures. Four corners, daddio? Nope. That’s not me.
But I AM a square dancer.
And I’m a Yankee. Born and bred in Chicago.
And I’m black.
Have I caught your attention yet?
OK, I know you’re wondering: What is a black girl from Chi-town doing square dancing in Kansas City?
The face of today’s square dancing is not as homogenous as you might think. Yes, many of the dancers are white and over 65. However, Kansas City dancers are young and old, straight and gay, rural, urban and suburban. While we all come to square dancing from diverse paths, we stay for the fun and fellowship.
Square dancing is popular in Kansas City, with more than 50 groups and hundreds of people dancing every week.
I entered the world of square dancing through lessons, but quickly found it is a much larger circle: a circle of tolerance and a passion to have fun.
Friendship set to music
I first learned to dance in the mid-1980s when my church group in Dallas decided it might be fun to take lessons. It was. But when I left for Detroit a few years later, I went for more than a decade without a single do-si-do. When I heard about lessons here in Kansas City, I decided it was time to see how much I remembered. And besides, it’s great aerobic exercise.
Last October I stepped through the doors of the main hall at Northcross Methodist Church in Kansas City, north of the river. There were dozens of people there, and, I noticed, some much younger than I expected. However, no one looked like me. Plus, I didn’t have a partner, so I would have to ask someone to dance.
Trying to quash memories of seventh-grade dances where girls sat across the gym from the boys, I bravely asked one of the organizers what to do. “You can have my husband,” said one woman, adding that I’d have to give him back.
Jokes like that are pretty common in square dancing, an art form that used to provide one of the few opportunities for men and women to cozy up — in public, no less. And even now, it’s more physical contact with strangers than you’ll usually have in one evening.
We hold hands, we promenade, we swing with arms around shoulders and waists.
I paid attention: Would anyone shy away from contact this close with me, a stranger? A black stranger?
Could it be that square dancers can look beyond the traditional barriers of race, color and class, as long as you can “right and left grand”? Hmmm, this was going to be interesting.
After I “borrowed” a husband for one dance, I decided I had better find some available partners. I walked up to one young man with smiling eyes and an open face.
“Are you dancing with anyone?”
“Not right now,” he replied.
Owen Gilchrist and friend Jerry Daughtrey (who already had a partner that evening) are my new best dance buddies. Between Jerry and Owen, I know I can count on a good swing around the square.
Gilchrist, 33, an electronics technician from Grandview, and Daughtrey, 37, a programmer analyst from north Florida, are examples of young professional adults infatuated with the dance. They both learned an older form in elementary and high school but developed a passion for modern square dancing later.
They love square dancing for lots of reasons, low price included.
“Where else can you go, get fed and have a couple hours of social activity for just a few bucks?” Daughtrey said. Most dances cost $4 a person and include refreshments.
Another reason? It’s a mental vacation. Daughtrey explains: “While you’re actually square dancing, listening to the calls, trying to execute them, you have to forget about your problems of the day. You have to. You can’t be thinking about work, bills, relationship problems or any of that and square dancing.
“After the dance is over you realize, even with your problems, you can still have fun.”
Square dancing has come a long way from its origins of the English country dance, French ballroom dance and Henry Ford.
Henry Ford? Yes, motor maven Ford is credited with bringing square dancing to the Midwest, says Bob Tock, president of Heart of America Square Dance Clubs.
And like Ford, who promoted square dancing for adults and as a sport for schoolchildren (that’s why many of you had to learn the Virginia reel in grade school), aficionados continue to try to attract more people into the ranks.
Like mixing Cher and Aretha in with the likes of Tim McGraw. Yes, you can square dance to rock, says caller Kevin Oneslager. All you need is a beat.
Oneslager admits that sometimes he gets funny looks from some of the older, country music-minded dancers.
But, he says, “people are looking for change. It’s our job as callers to liven up our dance floor and make it more exciting.”
Oneslager, 32, is reportedly the youngest official caller (the person who tells the dancers how to move) in the state of Kansas. He started dancing and calling while in high school. That was the mid-1980s, the era of new wave, “The Brat Pack” and New Kids on the Block. An ’80s teen into square dancing?
“My folks thought I needed a social activity that would get me from out in front of the computer,” said Oneslager, who formed the square dance group Tons of Fun, based in Lawrence.
“It’s been a huge part of my life. It’s a great environment, to have fun with other people, without any social pressures. And being a child of the ’80s, we all know the social pressures that we went through: drugs, alcohol….This was just a nice atmosphere to kick up your heels.”
Bill Reynolds, 62, is another well-known staple in Kansas City callerdom. His style might be called traditional; how he got into square dancing is anything but.
“It’s kind of weird how I got in. I was a police officer in Independence for 16 years. In that business you are either a cop or a bad guy.”
So, he says, he and his wife, Liz, “needed to get a recreation that was outside the police circles and the people we usually dealt with.”
Reynolds teaches dance lessons and was my instructor.
“You have to bring new blood into square dancing every year if you want to keep the activity alive,” he said.
Reynolds calls for three clubs in Independence, North Kansas City and Holden, Mo. The draw? The people.
“It’s the only recreation that I know of where it doesn’t matter if you are a mechanic or a doctor or the president of a company. When you square up, nobody cares. There’s no social barriers.”
Crossing barriers
As I began to visit more clubs around the Kansas City area, I realized that despite the warm welcome, I still was the only brown-skinned person in the room. I wondered whether my experience was unique and whether there were other minorities in square dancing.
Daughtrey said he was happy but admittedly surprised to see me.
“I thought to myself, `A black woman square dancing? Cool!’ And secondly, I hoped you wouldn’t catch flak from anybody else,” he told me later.
Gilchrist said he thought it took character to integrate the square. But once I became a regular student, like the 20 or so others there to learn mainstream dance calls, I was just Yvette. Different, sure, but stumbling along like everybody else.
I know of one minority square dance group in Kansas City: the Turnerites, formed about 20 years ago mostly to put on charitable performances.
But I have crossed paths with only one other African-American woman in mainstream square dancing: Ella Thompson, who has danced with the Do-Si-Doers in Liberty for three years.
She echoes my sentiments. “Everybody’s been really nice. I don’t feel out of place or awkward. I feel welcome. Plus, it’s so much fun!” she said.
You might assume that Thompson, 49, and I seek each other out. But we have danced only one time together in a square.
Thompson dances “plus” (a more advanced form) with her husband, Ronnie. They found out about square dancing when Ronnie’s job at the time sponsored a Christmas square dance.
Born in East Orange, N.J., Thompson didn’t grow up square dancing. She came here in 1993 after a long-distance romance with Ronnie. Both are members of the Multicultural Family Alliance and are trying to spread the word in mixed circles that square dancing is fun.
But she agrees that many people today don’t think it’s cool.
“Younger people think it’s corny. The older people say they want to do it, but they don’t pursue it. You have to pursue it if you want to do it.”
Thompson has been pursuing it since 1999, but she’s had to slow down a bit lately, recovering from foot surgery. She’s looking forward to when she can get back on the floor.
She is also looking forward to the day that floor is covered with a multicultural crowd of dancers.
“It should never be all white or all black….We should be more mixed and blended as a people.”
The Sho-Me state
“5, 6, 7, 8…”
The Sho-Me Squares are weaving the ring — a common dance call — but with a difference. In other groups, dancers simply promenade, passing by each other, shoulder-to-shoulder.
But not the Sho-Me Squares. Weaving here means an extra hop, a kick and a twirl — adding a little extra oomph is typical of this group. The Sho-Me Squares, formed in 1994, is the only gay, all-position dance club in Kansas City (all-position means men and women can dance either the “lead” or the “follow”).
It’s common to see a square full of men. Or two men, two women and a couple of men and women together. It can be a challenge for a new dancer, who is accustomed to being paired with the opposite sex, but not both. It can be an even greater challenge for a caller, who must sort everyone out and keep an eye on the pairings.
Why gay square dancing?
“I have fun,” said Gilchrist, my partner. “These are really nice people. I’m having a blast.” Others say it’s an alternative to bar-hopping. And it’s one of the few activities in the gay community that pulls together both men and women.
But friendship remains the strongest draw.
“You can’t help but get acquainted with people in square dancing because you are dancing together as a team. That’s when friendships start,” said Daughtrey, my other partner.
The Sho-Me Squares are affiliated with the International Association of Gay Square Dance Clubs, which includes clubs in the United States, Canada, Europe, and other countries. Membership is open to all square dancers. I am not gay, but I dance with the Sho-Mes and feel very welcome.
Because I wondered about whites dancing with blacks, I also wondered if gays found that straights didn’t want to interact.
“We have come a long way in gaining acceptance,” said Karl Jaeckel, executive administrator of the international gay square dance group, based in Denver.
“In the early days, callers wouldn’t dare call for us because they would be afraid of losing their straight clubs. We have made inroads into acceptance. There are very few callers that won’t call for us now.”
Now gay square dance clubs are trying to promote understanding, dancing at retirement homes and churches, for example.
“We want a better friendship between our world and the straight world, for a better understanding of us,” said Bruce Hayes, a Sho-Me Square member and a delegate to the international association.
Hayes, 47, prefers to call the Sho-Me Squares an all-position-dance group over the term “gay and lesbian group.”
“Anybody hears `gay and lesbian’ and they tune everything else out. We want to show we can have as much fun as any group can.”
Women and the dance
More than 50 callers are listed in Fed Facts, a monthly booklet published by the Heart of America Federation of Square Dance Clubs. Eleven are women.
For years, men dominated the position of caller. And today, the majority of callers still are men. However, more women are beginning to learn this creative and complicated craft. Last year the square dance community feted caller Roberta Renicker at a dance in Odessa, Mo., to celebrate her 25th year calling. Many dancers gave testimonials, remembering when Renicker wasn’t welcomed at some dances.
Traditionally, square dancers saw women as the “caller’s wife.” A column with this same name appears in the new quarterly magazine Square Dancing Today.
But ask women in square dancing about it, and you’ll find the roles are not so clear-cut. Roberta McArthur is an apprentice caller, with a husband who also is an apprentice caller. So, technically, she is a caller’s wife and a caller. The situation can get confusing.
“Everybody assumes I am a caller’s wife, until Jimmy tells them otherwise,” she said. “I am frustrated by it, but it is one of those deals that you have to work through.”
Lisa Hackman, 34, said being a caller’s wife is in some aspects more important than being the caller. Hackman has to make sure her children are well-behaved, contribute to the potlucks at every dance of her group, the Shadow Hoppers in Independence, and make sure her husband, Steve Hackman, looks good.
“There is so much more pressure on the wife than the caller. He just gets up there and makes sure everyone has fun. I have to make sure the atmosphere is fun.”
Another gender issue in square dancing comes with women in gay and lesbian groups. Square dancing is one of the few social activities for both gay men and women, according to the international gay square dance association. Jude La Claire, who has been dancing five years with Sho-Me Squares in Kansas City, has a theory.
“I came out in 1971, and at that time a lot of gay women were involved in the feminists movement. We had our own issues, and the gay men had different issues. We were more separate.”
La Claire, 61 and a Kansas City native, thinks the sexes first had to get a sense of their own identity, “and then you can get together.”
McArthur and her caller husband, Jim, think the tide is turning for women leaders in square dancing. “There are a lot of women callers out there that I feel are just as good as men callers. Some are better,” he said.
McArthur beams when pondering the future. “Nationally, this is the height of women callers. We now have female representation in Caller’s Lab, the national callers organization, and the International Gay Caller’s Association. This is the best women have had it since we started.”
Does she, or doesn’t she?
After two months of lessons, I was ready to graduate. I knew my promenade from my allemande left. I even got to wear a mortar board with tassel for the occasion.
You might have lots of other questions for this writer: Does she wear the poufy skirts? Does she find herself humming George Strait alongside Nelly? Does she find it embarrassing to admit this craving for homespun fun?
The answers: well, yes…not really…and at first yes, but not anymore.
I guess I’m just a square dancer, and I don’t care who knows it.
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— —- Yvette Walker is an assistant managing editor at The Kansas City Star. This article was originally published in The Star.
