Talk:Square dance

Comparison wanted

15. august 2002
Dan Simon

I removed the following text from the article.

For example, the "Allemande Right" is traditionally performed by grasping right hands with the other dancer, leaning backwards slightly, and walking around a central axis. In Western dance the grip is modified so that each dancer grips the arm of the other, and there is less leaning. These modifications makes it easier to enter and exit the step, and thus easier to incorporate into a long sequence of calls.

The "Allemande Right" is not generally danced in modern western sqaure dance any more. It was removed from Callerlab's program list in 1989. See ""History of Basic/Mainstream Changes"" (http://www.penrod-sq-dancing.com/ms-hist.html). Callerlab is the primary manager of MWSD dance programs today. You can check their current dance programs at the following website: http://www.callerlab.org/programs.htm

"Allemande Right" is included in the American Callers Associations' "1" floor dance program, but this is not the commonly used MWSD dance program.

I think that the remaining paragraph stands well enough without the detailed comparison. If however you feel that a comparison is necessary I would encourage the comparison to be made to a currently used, widespread call (i.e. that appears on today's Callerlab list). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sfdan (talk • contribs) 21:30, 15 August 2002 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction. I am amazed that such a basic step was removed, but I don't pretend to understand the Western program.

I think a comparison of steps that are performed differently in the two types of square dancing would be useful. Allemande was the only one I could recall clearly from both that differed for a sensible reason. Perhaps you are more knowledgable than me and can suggest another step. I can think of "star right", which is performed in Western sd like the English step "hands four", but English dance is not really square dancing. David 11:37 Aug 16, 2002 (PDT)

Hi David,

Well, I am afraid that I would be pretty useless to point out a step that is performed differently in the two programs, as I am not familiar with how the steps are executed in "traditional". If you wish to, at some point, run your description of a "traditional" maneuver by me so that I can verify that it is indeed different than the "modern" maneuver-- that would be fine with me.

Otherwise, my best suggestion would be to find someone who dances both programs. Dan 11:34 Aug 30, 2002

I have danced 'real' contras and squares most of my life, but I took a 6-12 month course (can't remember which) in Mainstream Plus Western square dance many years ago. I agree with your suggestion and we will see if someone adds to this discussion in the future. David 09:07 Aug 30, 2002 (PDT)

Hello all,

I suggest changing all of the "rights" to "lefts" in the comparison. Allemande Left is done in both types of square dancing, and the differences are as described. Another interesting difference is Dosado. Both are taught as a back to back move, but MWSDers do it with right arms around each others' waists, which contra/trad square dancers do individual full turns as they go around each other. (While I mostly dance western squares, I also do some contras and traditionals.) KrisJensen 21:33 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC)

Comment to KrisJensen:

I want to point out that not all MWSDers do Dosado with the "Highland Fling" styling. Many do it according to the "rule book". Many frown upon its widespread use. And of course there are also many who use the styling, especially within certain "communities", geographical and otherwise. Here in Denmark it is a rare thing to see people use it. Dan 13:34, 9. januar 2003

Good ideas. Go for it. Feel free to edit articles. David 23:06 Nov 16, 2002 (UTC)

I just made the proposed "rights" to "lefts" change (among others). --- Jeff 20:09 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)

Square dance attire

Shouldn't there be a little more treatment of square dance attire? In particular petticoats? Also, some comment about it being more that what you may have done in high school. ;-> — Preceding unsigned comment added by JakeVortex (talk • contribs) 20:09, 2 January 2003 (UTC)

Feel free to edit pages to improve them. You don't have to ask permission in the Talk pages first. David 23:02 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)

True enough -- it was more of a prompt thant a request for permission. I was running out of gas, and wanted to prompt someone, or myself, on a next step for the article. If someone knew the history off the top of their head it would be easier for them than for me to dig around and put something together. -- Jeff — Preceding undated comment added 13:45, 3 January 2003 (UTC)

Comment about petticoats and square dance attire:

I had at one point moved the text dealing with square dance clothing from this article over to the Western square dance article. The reason for this was that the discussion of clothing did not focus on a comparison between that used in Western square dance and that used in traditional square dance. I have added a link to a "future" petticoat article in the Western square dance article.Dan 13:34, 9. januar 2003

That does seem like a better place to address attire. -- Jeff — Preceding undated comment added 15:49, 9 January 2003 (UTC)

Local events

I removed external link to western square dance events in the Pacific Northwest (primarily Washington, as best I can see). This is a general article on square dance (both western and traditional), and the links should mirror the scope of the article. If you want to promote your guide to dances in this area, the Dosado.com website is probably a good place to list your site. Sfdan 08:49, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

New category

I have set up a new category called Category:Wikipedian square dancers for those who wish to identify themselves on their user pages as square dancers. I think this would be a nice way to form a little subcommunity for ourselves in Wikipedialand. Hope to see others of you "square up" in this virtual set. Sfdan 08:05, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Article streamlining

I've tried to streamline the article so that it focuses solely on the comparison of the two types of square dancing, and added a note at the top of the article to clarify this. Otherwise, newcomers to the article (such as myself, originally) will be tempted to add lots of particular information about one or the other form of square dancing, instead of looking for that information in the appropriate specific article. Also, readers should be directed to the specific article, if detailed information is what they are looking for. C. Scott Ananian 21:53, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your efforts to streamline the article. The header is very helpful, among all the other changes. It has been a struggle to find the right balance in this article between too much information, and not enough, and to keep it from getting too traditional or too modern Western. Thanks for moving the article in the right direction. As for Lloyd Shaw, I have amended the statement about him again. According to all I've read he did not research and document square dance directions "in order to create a uniform, standardized type of dance", but rather "to preserve traditional American folk dance". His efforts— publishing, teaching, showcasing with his youth group— brought square dancing to the attention of a lot of people. Standardisation came with Callerlab. --SFDan 05:58, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Looks good to me. According to the Wikipedia article on Lloyd Shaw, he did "create a universal list" and "the lists were later adopted by callers all across the country", but I'm perfectly happy with the current wording you've come up with. I can't say I'm an expert on Lloyd Shaw. =) Thanks for all your work on these square dance articles! C. Scott Ananian 12:38, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Then the problem lay in the Lloyd Shaw article. I have now fixed the text there, and clarified his role with dance documentation and the creation of a universal list. I hope it is clearer than previously. --SFDan 14:36, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Promenade Act information

I'm very happy with the page currently, however I feel that the section on the 'Promenade Act' doesn't quite fit with the rest of the content (which is now comparisons of square dances). I don't have any good ideas for how to fix this, though. C. Scott Ananian 15:10, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Promenade Act removed

I removed this text from the article:

The Promenade Act (H. R. 645) is a bill before the United States Congress that proposes that Square Dance be designated as the national folk dance, and that defines certain other dances (i.e. round dance, the contra dance, the line dance, the heritage dance, and clogging) as square dance.

I removed it because the bill did not pass, and didn't even make it to the debate stage, let alone a vote, so I don't think it's notable. - furrykef (Talk at me) 07:34, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Comparing square dance calls

In the "Comparing square dance calls" section, this article refers the reader to contra dancing's description of "some traditional square dance steps". Since the contra dancing article doesn't refer to any of them as square dance steps, the reader can only infer that all of them are common to both contra and square dancing. I don't know whether or not that inference is true, or if any discrepancy therein is significant, so I mention this for the consideration of others who do know and can decide if it's worth a revision of this section. --rich<Rich Janis 20:29, 4 August 2007 (UTC)>

The inference is not true; not all of them are common to squares and contras. "Cloverleaf" as defined in the "Contra dance choreography" article is completely different from "Cloverleaf" in squares. "Turn contra corners" is never done in squares, and I don't think "Mad Robin" (which was borrowed by urban contra callers from English country dancing) has made it into squares -- yet. On the other hand, "California twirl," "Star through," and "Swat the flea" (all subentries under "Twirl to swap") were borrowed into contras from modern Western squares, as was "Dixie twirl." None of those four can be called a traditional square dance step, at least not by its present name. Eventually the articles on contra dance, square dance, traditional square dance, and modern Western square dance should probably be revised to reflect an accurate picture of those dance forms' similarities and differences. Tparkes 18:29, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I've made a stopgap revision to the paragraph in question, so readers won't think all square and contra calls are identical. While I was at it, I cut the average number of calls used at a trad dance from 40-50 to 10-30, which is more in line with my experience. Although I dance mainly in the modern urban contra (MUC) environment, and MUC callers do draw from a wide vocabulary of calls, MUC can't be taken as representative of trad *square* dancing, particularly as very few squares are currently done at MUC events. Tparkes (talk) 19:44, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

French origins

I'm surprised to see no mention of the overwhelming French influence on square dancing. Take a second look at some of the main calls: dosado comes from the French "dos-a-dos" (back-to-back), allemande comes from the French "á la main" (to the hand), promenade comes from the French "promenade" (walk - noun form). Can anyone provide more insight into this? Steve (talk) 16:35, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

There was a lot of exchange of ideas between France and the British Isles during the 1700s and 1800s, when the cotillion and the quadrille (the immediate predecessors of the square dance) were popular. English dancing masters used a lot of French terms; French was (and is) the language of dance (entrechat, jeté) the way Italian is the language of music (andante, allegro). But determination of the amount of French influence on square dancing will have to wait until someone writes the History section of this page.

Incidentally, allemande doesn't come from "à la main"; it comes from "allemande", the French word for "German." Tparkes (talk) 15:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Saw this and wondering about Ford's connection in spreading this dance as a counter to Jazz? https://www.facebook.com/MicMedia/videos/169816140351337/?hc_ref=ARRzcKCdkMUYaRkJOqcerEM5IdBiMI7YWi-puJpfi-h0oAFJPLLl5nyi_5A-Sae-0K8 2601:645:8300:81:E004:F32D:A69:5FBE (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:35, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Where should "History" go?

I just added a section to the Talk page of the "Modern western square dance" article. The gist of it is that I think all of SD history belongs together, to avoid conflicting viewpoints in different articles. But should it be under "Square dance", which until now has been limited to pointing out the differences between traditional and MWSD? Or should we create a new "History of square dance" or "Square dance history" article? Thoughts? Tparkes (talk) 15:01, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

@Tparkes: I know this is a really delayed answer, but I think there should be a history section in the "Square dance" article. Because the article discusses so many different types, and because the main types section provides a little history information already, I think a history section is appropriate and useful for this article. I agree that it's good to have the square dance history together as much as possible, but I think it would work to have an overview of the history of square dance in general in this article, and then the MWSD and traditional square dance articles could go into more detail about the history of those specific types. The Hip-hop dance article does something similar in that it provides a few paragraphs on the history of hip-hop, and then some of the articles about the main types of hip-hop discuss the history of that type. I plan on working to add a history section to this article in the next couple of weeks as part of some larger editing I'll be doing to the article (see my entry below), but I'm not sure how much research I'll be able to do, so any help is appreciated! --Lhill21 (talk) 00:22, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Work on article

Hello, fellow Wikipedians! I will be working on this article for the next couple of weeks as part of an undergraduate technical and professional editing class. I will be focusing on the following areas:

• Organization: The main types section feels a little disorganized to me. I think this is partly because some of the descriptions focus mainly on history, and also because some descriptions, like the one for modern Western square dance, discuss the dance itself while others, like Folk Dance/Barn Dance, discuss a dance event. I think it might make more sense to divide the types by “Dance” and “Dance event.” In addition, it seems that the square dancing described in the “Square dance” paragraph under the “England” heading is MWSD. Could someone confirm this? I think all the information about MWSD in the main types section should be consolidated in the paragraph describing MWSD, but I don’t want to move the England square dance description if it is actually a different type of square dance. I’ll also be looking at re-ordering the information in the body sections so that each square dance type is discussed in the same order in all sections.
• Content: Since this article discusses numerous types of square dancing, I think a history section is appropriate for the article and would be useful in helping readers see how the dance evolved into different types. Some of the paragraphs in the “Main types” section already give a little history, but without a larger overview of the dance’s history in general, that information feels out of place.
• Lead: Per WP:MOSLEAD, the lead should overview the main points of the article and not discuss significant information that is not covered elsewhere in the article. Thus, I will be working on the lead to move some of the information to the body of the article and add some summaries of the different sections to provide a better overview of the article.
• Citations: Most of the facts are lacking citations. I will be looking through the external links and other places for sources to support these facts and any information I add, but I do not anticipate having much time to spend on research. If anyone wants to help out, feel free!
• Encyclopedic Tone: I will be editing the language throughout to comply with WP:NPOV, paying special attention for weasel words since the article has been tagged with this problem. I’m also thinking of eliminating the word “comparing” in the section headings (for instance, “Comparing square dance music” would become “Music”). The way the headings are currently listed, it feels a little like it should be a comparison/contrast essay.
• Copyediting: I will copyedit the article for grammar and punctuation. I will also be reducing the number of wikilinks because many terms are linked throughout the article instead of only once.

I will be making edits as I go, but I’ll be working out larger edits in a sandbox before I implement them. I will add the link to the sandbox once I get going with that. If you have any advice or insight, I’d love to hear it since I’m new to Wikipedia. I’m looking forward to participating in this community! --Lhill21 (talk) 00:03, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

I finished drafting a history section and working out the major organizational edits to the main types section in this sandbox, if anyone wants to look them over: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lhill21/SD_sandbox. I will start moving the edits into the main article (one section at a time) sometime tomorrow or the day after. Once I'm done with that, I'll reorganize the information in the remaining sections so that the dances are discussed in a consistent order, although these changes will involve less rewording than the edits to the main types section, so I'll make them directly in the article instead of putting them in the sandbox first. Also, I had originally planned on moving the paragraph about MWSD in Britain to the MWSD paragraph, but I think it actually might fit better in the "Other comparisons" section because it discusses clubs. After I finish the reorganizing, I'll work on the lead, add a couple citations I found, edit the article for an encyclopedic tone throughout, and copyedit. --Lhill21 (talk) 02:21, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Update on edits and thoughts for future editors

Hi Wikipedians,

I’ve finished working on the article and implementing all my proposed edits/copyedits. Moving forward, I think the article will benefit a lot from additional information about some of the other types of square dancing besides the North American forms, both in the main types section and the other sections about calls, music, and clubs and attire. Adding information about other types will help to broaden the article’s scope to all forms of square dancing rather than primarily focusing on the American types (although modern western square dancing seems to be the most popular type worldwide, so it makes sense that this one is given some emphasis). I also think the history section could be further expanded.

I removed the template message about weasel words because I think I corrected that problem, but I left up the ones about additional citations and original research, because the article still needs a lot more references, particularly in all the sections after “Main types”. I’m looking forward to seeing the improvements Wikipedians make to the article in the future! --Lhill21 (talk) 21:10, 17 October 2020 (UTC)