The square dance and its caller

What it is

There are two main kinds. Traditional square dancing is regional, uses live music and a small set of figures, and is taught on the night. Modern Western square dancing is a standardised club activity. Its calls are grouped into fixed lists that dancers learn in lessons over months, and the same call means the same thing in Texas, Germany or Japan. Familiar calls include allemande left, do-si-do, in which two dancers pass back to back, and promenade, a walk around the square with your partner.

Where it comes from

The square formation comes from European dances such as the French quadrille and the cotillion, mixed in North America with country dances from the British Isles. Calling the figures aloud appears to be an American development. Historians give much of the credit to Black musicians, many of them enslaved, who played for dances in the nineteenth century and called the figures as they fiddled. In the 1920s the car maker Henry Ford promoted square dancing, and after the Second World War the club form spread widely.

How it works

The caller may use patter, a rhythmic chant over a fiddle tune, or a singing call, where the instructions replace some of the words of a popular song. In modern Western dancing the caller improvises the sequence, moving the eight dancers through tangled formations and then resolving the square so each person is back home with their partner. A tip is a pair of dances, one patter and one singing, after which the squares break up and re-form.

If you go

1. For a first try, look for a traditional or old-time square dance, where everything is taught that evening.
2. Find a partner and join three other couples to make a square.
3. Listen to the caller, not to your own guess about what comes next.
4. If your square breaks down, return to your home position and wait for the next call.

Good manners

• Do not leave a square once it has formed. It needs all eight people.
• Handle other dancers gently. A light hand is enough for every move.
• Thank everyone in your square after the tip.

What is danced

Square danceA group dance for four couples in a square, led by a caller or set routineTraditional square danceA group dance in fours, led by a caller to live fiddle tunes across North America.QuadrilleA social dance for four couples in a square, with set figures and changing music

Also part of it, and being written: Modern Western square dance.

Sources and further reading

• Square dance on Wikipedia
• Britannica: Square dance