Subject: Re: Square dancing, first observations Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 10:28:49 -0500 From: "Jacqueline Laufman" Newsgroups: rec.folk-dancing In the '40's and '50's we would go to the "dance'. Not the "contra" dance, not the "square" dance, just the dance. Down in the Monadnock Region of southwestern NH, home of Ralph Page, Mary Desrosiers, Steve Zakon, Bob McQuillen, you went to the square dance. Even though some contras were done (Boston Fancy, Morning Star, Money Musk), more than half the program was squares, and the event was called a square dance. Never a contra dance. Not until the hippies and back-to-the-landers took over, did they start calling it a contra dance, even though we still did squares. This was to differentiate it from the Western Square Dancing that was popular all over. The hippies wanted nothing to do with that, so they started calling what we did, "contra" dancing. Prior to the long hair onslaught, the square dances were traditional NE dances, singing calls and prompted quadrilles. Those sort of dances can still be found hidden away in the hills of rural New England. There is the 2nd and 4th Saturday dance in West Hopkinton, NH. George Hodgdon is the caller. No contras here, just singing squares, mixed in with lights down waltzes, foxtrots and the like. Piano, drums, fiddle, sax, banjo make up the old time band. Mostly a middle to beyond middle aged crowd. In Wentworth, NH once a month is a square dance we inherited from Glenn Pease. When Lester Bradley calls this dance it is only squares and couple dances. When it is our turn, we try to stick to the Glenn Pease repertoire: Honolulu Baby, Wearing Of The Green, Just Because, My Little Girl, Hinky Dinky, and others. There is a great piano player there, Pat McIsaac. He bangs out the chords for the square dances and pounds out the whole thing for waltzes and two steps. The crowd here is mostly middle age, including two of Glenn's sons. We occasionally will do a contra or two there, depending on the crowd. The Virginia Reel anyway. The Tempest. One night there were only seven couples. We did the prescribed squares either as almost double quadrilles, or one set of four, and one fractured set of three, who had to pretend they had the other couple. But we ended up having to do Lady of the Lake, Pop Goes the Weasel and Swing Your Jenny to round out the evening. They are not fond of contras at Wentworth, but they had to admit after that night that contras saved the dance. Then there is Tamworth. This used to be a real northern style barn/square dance. It went through a contra dance revival, but now most of the callers there do squares, some more than others. It is multi-age. Vermont used to be a hotbed for this kind of dance, but I do not know of any now. Perhaps Ted Glabach still calls in the Brattleboro area, and there is another barn dance near Wilmington. In the Berkshires of western MA there is a great little dance in Bernardston, and another in Heath. The hills of Connecticut used to boast lots of these dances. What about now? And of course upstate NY is alive and well and healthy with the old time square dance. Did I miss anyone? I am sure I did. The formula here seems to be, with the exception of Tamworth, an older crowd, funky live music, informal clothing (with sweaty arms), a two steppy kind of shuffle, singing along with the caller, and little or no teaching. Occasional walk-through, but, get this, no teachy teaching. Good fun.