What's Square Dance?

Most of you have already seen a kind of formation dance in American movies where four couples (the ladies in wide petty coats and the gentlemen in colorful shirts and bolo ties) dance (or try to dance) to the commands of a person onstage to either live or recorded music that sound a little strange ("Right and Left Grand", "Do sa Do", and many more).

What looks like chaos at first is called Modern American Square Dancing, and - like so many other things - was brought to Europe (and many other parts of the world) by the US Armed Forces after the second World War.

Square Dancing is the American answer to the Euopean folk dances with the slight - but important - difference of having a person up front (called Caller) telling the dancers what to do.Why is that so?

As early as the late 18'th century people from all over Europe tried to escape from economic and religious constraints and came to the New World - what was to become the United States Of America. Once settled these immigrants faced the difficult problem (among many others) of forging a new, common tradition from their many different native customs and traditions - among these their native folk dances.

In order to be able to dance together - and not just side by side - these people looked for knowledgeable persons (later to be called Caller) who picked from the wealth of different dances certain moves and taught them to the others. From the many dancing formations, they picked the 4 - Couple Dance , where each couple was standing on the side of a square (hence the name Square Dance...).

Today Modern American Square Dance is danced in clubs the world over that have organized themselves in national or international bodies (in Europe that's the European Association of American Square Dancing Clubs). Some of these clubs put up public dances (called Special Dances), where dancers from the clubs of the region and interested visitors are always welcome. In addition to these Special Dances there are annual events twice or four times a year in Europe (called Jamborees and/or Roundups), where callers and dancers from all over the world meet, dance together and have a weekend of fun. To see up to a thousand dancers in colorful squance dance attire dancing to good music (originally Country and Western Music, but now to every kind of music including rap!) is quite an impressive sight!

Today there are so many different moves that they were divided into several categories (called levels by the dancers), namely Mainstream, Plus, Advanced and Challenge 1-3. Each program (meaning the figures a dancer has to know to dance each level) is taught by Callers in classes. At the end of each class the dancer is given a certificate at a ceremony called graduation where club members and visitors are welcome.

In order to keep the repertoire of each level well defined the callers have formed an organization called European Callers and Teachers Association in Europe, whose job it is to train new callers and give each move (whether new or old) an exact definition.

My clubs are:

• Stoke-Boat-Promenaders in Tübingen (dance level MS and Plus)
• Sparkling Diamonds in Leonberg (dance level Plus)
• Shadow Eagles in Merklingen (dance level Advanced)

You can find a list of the clubs in the Stuttgart region here!