There are some nice squares in Ted Sannella's books. Also, many of the
square dance books and magazines published in the 1950's are good resources.
Check out used book stores.
Here is my experience in getting started with calling squares. I decided to call the
dance "Texas Star". I had danced it many times when it was called by other
callers at our contra dance. So I figured many of the dancers would be familiar with it,
and they probably were. However, things didn't go as well as I hoped. There were
several things that I didn't realize in advance that make calling squares different from
calling contras. One is that if there are multiple squares they may not be in synch all
of the time. For example promenading around is a figure that can take different groups a
varying amount of time to accomplish. So some squares will be home while others will
still be promenading. So you may need to do something to keep those who are home busy
while the other catch up.
Another stumbling block for me was the fact that you pretty much need to
keep calling all the time. Squares aren't like contras where there is a
pattern that gets repeated throughout the dance, so that after a few times you
can stop calling and let the dancers dance and enjoy the music. There are
different parts in squares, the intro, the main figure, the breaks and the
finale which are different and you need to pretty much call all the way through
the dance. This takes more effort and thought than calling a contra dance.
The third difficulty I encountered was the fact that the dancers tend to
get off the music. Even if you have a 32 bar figure and use a 32 bar intro and
break, the way that squares tend to go it is very likely that some of the
squares will take a bit longer to do some of the moves and before you know it
you are off the from the music. So I have taken to using a non-square intro
(not 32 bars). This gets me off the music right away and I then don't have to
worry about it through the rest of the dance. That is until the end of the
dance. It is nice if you can have the dancers promenade, or whatever, for a
last time and have them get back home just as the music comes to an end. To do
that you have to get yourself back in synch with the music and know where the B
part is so you can signal the band one more time and then have a finale figure
that is 32 bars so it will end with the music. I haven't gotten to where I can
always do this. Sometimes it works great, sometimes not so much. Many bands
are willing to just end when you give them the cut-throat sign, but you need to
check with them in advance.
When I called "Texas Star" that first time I ran into all of these problems. While it wasn't a
disaster, it didn't go as well as I would have liked. So I thought about it and figured out some of the
problems. I decided to try again with a more straight forward dance. I used "Sheehan's Reel" by
Roger Whynot which I found in Ted Sannella's book "Balance and Swing". This is a nice 32 bar
figure and I used a 32 bar intro (with a few more figures added to get off the music) and a 32 bar break
(which I used as the finale as well). This time things went much better. Not having to think about the
music I was able to concentrate on calling and watching the different sets. With more practice I'm now able
to call more complicated dances, but starting out with a simple one is my advice.
Sheehan's Reel
Roger Whynot
Square dance figure; Beginner; All Active Mixer
1 - all 4 ladies to the center and back
2 - all 4 gents to the center and back
3 - all 4 ladies right hand star
4 - left hand star the other way back
5 - pass your own and do-si-do the next
6 - swing that gent
7-8 promenade around to the gent's home place
Notes
With each repeat the ladies move one place to the right.
I like to do the whole dance twice through. The first time
I have the ladies go in first and move around the set. The
second time I have the gents go in first and they move around
the set going to new partners each time and the promenade goes
to the lady's home place.
This dance will work OK with more (or less) than 4 couples.
I've done it with 5 or 6. Just more times through the music
to get everyone back home.
Good luck.
Jonathan
On 3/18/2023 11:21 AM, Maia McCormick via Contra Callers wrote:
After dancing to some of Lisa's Greenleaf's š„ squares at Beantown Stomp last
weekend, I'm feeling inspired to add some to my repertoire. (To be clear, I'm
looking for squares-for-contra-dancers, not MWSD squares.)
1. Any resources to recommend for someone learning to call squares?
2. Any advice to share, techniques to look into, things you wish you'd known
when starting out / wish contra callers knew about squares?
3. Suggestions for callers to look up on YouTube (besides Lisa ofc) / fave
videos?
4. Favorite dances that I should add to my box?
Thanks inĀ advance,
Maia
--
Maia McCormick (she/her)
917.279.8194
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