This is the best kind of dancimg there is. Completely unlike other stupid kinds of square dancing.
Oh

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, Glencoe! West Mabou!

I do like the way it’s completely impossible to know what’s going on from those instructions unless you already know what’s going on.

From Caile’s LiveJournal.

She’s right; here’s the first part of the square dance:

First Figure (Jig)
1. All join hands forward and back or do the Mabou Shuffle.
2. Dance with your corner partner.
You´ve just finished the first quarter of the figure.
3. All join hands forward and back or do the Mabou Shuffle.
4. Dance with your corner partner.
You´ve just finished the second quarter of the figure.
5. All join hands forward and back or do the Mabou Shuffle.
6. Dance with your corner partner.
You´ve just finished the third quarter of the figure.
7. All join hands forward and back or do the Mabou Shuffle.
8. Dance with your corner partner.
You´ve just finished the fourth quarter of the figure.
9. All join hands forward and back or do the Mabou Shuffle
– that´ll be it – that´ll be all!

Here’s a Christian Science Monitor article that’s the start of a series on the red/blue division: Inside red-and-blue America

The 1990s also seemed to take the cultural divide beyond policy into the broader realm of lifestyle and taste. Today

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, pundits routinely boil down red vs. blue to things like: barbecue vs. sushi; pickups vs. hybrids; country vs. hip-hop; church vs. spirituality. As John White, a political scientist at Catholic University, puts it: “We live in two parallel universes.”

Meandering train of thought…

When I was at the Nationals in Denver, I did a little shopping (it was hard to avoid the vendors; one had to walk through them to get to various places…each time, I seemed to past this one sequined vest that sort of called out to me, so I bought it on the last day). As part of my shopping transaction, I received a catalog from Petticoat Junction. Today, I found the catalog as I was going through “stuff” and glanced through it. Among all the petticoats and pettipants and peasant blouses, there was a picture of a shirt with a red, white, and blue (I assume, since the catalog is black and white) stars and stripes logo and the phrase “United We Dance”.

This brought up my continuing musings, as we head into the election season, on the polarization of the country between “red” and “blue” cultures (see this Washington Post series on the two cultures; you might need to register). Seems to me that square dancing (except for gay/lesbian square dancing) is red, and contra/traditional dancing (at least the Modern Urban style that I’m most familiar with) is blue. When I go to a square dance, I’m very careful to avoid political conversation; I can almost guarantee I don’t agree with most of the people there (the most shocking moment was when I was in a square, the Abu Ghraib atrocities came up and a woman I know argued that they were justified!!). On the other hand, at a contra dance, I feel like I’m in a group where most of the people share my values and political beliefs.

This may be why there are the so-called “Contralab” contra dances (with recorded music and dress codes)…this provides the “reds” with contra dancing opportunities. And why there’s a growing group of straight couples who attend the IAGSDC conventions and dance at local gay clubs; as “blues”, they can square dance with more culturally similar people. It may also be why the ARTS organization, an umbrella organization of “the diverse groups making up the ‘greater’ American Folk Dance community” including the American Callers Association, CALLERLAB, CONTRALAB, International Association of Gay Square Dance Clubs, National Square Dance Campers Association, National Executive Committee, ROUNDALAB, Singles Square Dancers USA, Universal Round Dance Council, United Square Dancers of America and, USA West Policy Board, has no connection (as far as I can tell) with contra/traditional folk dance organizations, like, for example, the Country Dance and Song Society.

At any rate, I can’t imagine going to a contra dance and seeing a “United We Dance” red, white, and blue logo.

I googled “United We Dance” and found a few interesting things. The vast majority of the hits are links to this flash animation of Britney Spears and George W. Bush dancing in front of a flag: United We Dance – Miniclip.com However, I also found a page about the Australian GLBTIQ Multicultural Conference event featuring dancing from many different ethnic cultures represented in the GLBTIQ community: United We Dance. And there was also a reference to an Atlanta dance event to raise money for the disaster relief efforsts of the Red Cross: United We Dance.

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The square dancing tractors resurfaced in American Profile magazine (you know, one of those free supplement magazines that show up with the daily paper): American Profile: 6/27/2004 – 7/3/2004: Dancing In The Streets.

The Farmall Promenade home page is here: FARMALL PROMENADE – SQUARE DANCING TRACTORS. Be sure to check it out; there’s a snippet of the video (not good sound syncing

, however; what they’re doing doesn’t look anything like what the caller’s calling).

Now that I think about it, choreography for tractors might be useful as choreography for dancers in wheelchairs…

I’m still collecting blog snippets that mention square dancing (and contra dancing, but square dancing is much more of a cultural icon, so it gets used in contexts outside of “I went to the contra dance last night…”). This leads me to some pretty weird stuff, like this porn story featuring square dancing: Hoedown

Warning: this link really does contain lesbian porn. It’s fairly light-hearted, but it is explicit. It also features the caller in a dominant role, with the dancers as submissives.

It’s the whole context that I found interesting. Here’s the inro (no porn here):

I’ve never been much on modern square dancing. It’s all slick and commercial

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, the caller ends up sounding like some silly kid who writes bad lyrics. In fact, other than a few basic instructions, it’s choreographed, and everyone just learns the steps. Once you learn it, it’s just the same thing over and over.

That’s why our club decided to go traditional. In a traditional square dance, the caller is the final authority. You have to learn the way the caller thinks, learn to communicate… because the caller can tell you to do anything, and it’s what you have to do. That’s where a square dancing club really takes on a challenge. And since we wanted to compete at a national level, we decided we should really go for it. Our only change from the old days is that we allowed women to call dances, too.

Modern is repetitive and traditional is made up? Competition on a national level? Like I said, weird! (BTW, so you don’t have to follow the link to see what happens, Mistress Rochelle comes to call a dance, gets all the men to go away, and calls the women into an orgy. There’s no clever use of real square dance calls…just a peripheral dosado and promenade.)

It’s been a long weekend, extending into a long week and another long weekend. I went to the Rocky Mountain Roundup (53rd National Square Dance Convention) in Denver this past weekend. I’ll write more about my experiences there later; suffice to say I got too little sleep, and too much foot fatigue from standing around in boots on cement floors.

I drove down from Denver today, unpacked, and repacked for the gay international square dance convention, Remake the Heatwave in Phoenix. We were supposed to fly out at 9:55, but here it is, an hour later, with no plane in sight. We’re supposed to be out of here by 11:30, but I’m not counting on it.

At least the Albuquerque airport has free wireless internet access, so I’ve been catching up reading online stuff that I missed while at the Nationals (to give the Radisson Stapleton its due, it also had free wireless, but I barely had time to check email and send an occasional note to T-B).

So check out this story on the Hotlanta Squares from Public Broadcasting in Atlanta: Public Broadcasting Atlanta. Here’s a quote:

“It’s something a couple can do forever. By dancing with strangers, you learn how to shake hands, become more social, and more confident. It’s the best exercise for the brain and the body. You get a sense of accomplishment by learning and remembering all of the calls and implementing them quickly. You get to meet new friends and have lots of fun.”

There’s also a video

, but I couldn’t access it; I don’t know whether it’s some kind of Windows-specific media or some Windows-IE-only link or something.

This seems like a good idea…and maybe something that the ARTS should have an interest in: J. Appleseed Society

To encourage the creation and growth of organizations that sponsor and promote participatory arts and leisure activities. We are especially focused on “lifetime” activities

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, pursuits that have low entry barriers, and endeavors that bring people from diverse backgrounds together with the opportunity for informal socialization.

This group’s ideas are based on Robert D. Putman’s book, Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community (see the Bowling Alone website.

Did you know that

Joining one group cuts in half your odds of dying next year.

This is kind of cool: Dance Weblog. It’s a weblog created by people using camera phones and sending pictures to the weblog. It’s all automated (and free!) by textamerica.com.

Now

, our demographics (at least in the U.S.) are such that we probably don’t have tons of dancers using camera phones (and even if we did, they would probably balk at the cost of sending the photo using their cell phone minutes). But it seems like a way to build a sense of community among dancers all over the world.

Back when I first started SquareZ, I tallked about domain names quite a lot. I thought having a good domain name was important, and I was disappointed when good domain names were grabbed up by speculators.

Now I’m disappointed that gaysquaredancing.org is being used to promote naked men square dancing. Yes

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, the gay square dancing community does have some clothing-optional events that are limited to men. And I wouldn’t care if the domain name was nudegaysquaredancing.org, or nakedmensquaredancing.org. But I guess I don’t like a nice generic URL leading to such a limited segment of the gay square dancing community.

Guess I’m just being a little curmudgeonly tonight.