I’m interested in cultural changes and how those changes might affect how square dancing and other participatory recreational activities might be marketed. I recently read this review of Smart Mobs, by Howard Rheingold (summary). This almost seems like the opposite of the kind of community that develops through dance groups and other participatory recreations. The converging groups of people have no long-term connections; they gather in response to a particular event/issue, and then disperse, still with no connections. Square dancing in particular requires a long-term commitment; these gatherings seem like the antithesis of that.

On the other hand, virtual communities can lead to “meatspace” communities. In an interview, Rheingold says:

So we’re now seeing people in virtual communities getting together face to face and coordinating while they’re moving between places.

I don’t know what all of this means in terms of square dancing, but I think Rheingold always has interesting ideas. I think the internet can have an impact on how we market square dancing. We had one person at the latest “new dancer dances” (read lessons) who came because of the ASDC’s website. Unfortunately, she didn’t stick…maybe the reality of the physical community (mostly older folks) didn’t match her expectations.

Maybe we need to think about tapping into already existing communities. Probably one of the most successful classes the Wilde Bunch ever had was when a group of people from another organization all decided to try square dancing. The class was large and the camaraderie existed from the first lesson. The already-existing group dynamics kept everybody coming. But that organization wasn’t in virtual space; it was another face-to-face organization.

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Here’s an ambiguous reference to square dancing in an interview with Nicholas Negropointe (founder of MIT’s Media Lab):

Q: How do you think the digital revolution will affect us culturally? Will it usher out America’s TV culture? A quarter century ago, Marshall McLuhan and others wrote about how media and television have altered our way of thinking to such a degree that the visual image, rather than the written word, is now the predominant force of our culture. (And if there’s any doubt of that, ask a teenager if she’d rather read Twain or watch MTV.)

A:Did kids prefer: reading Twain or square dancing?