Coming in late but with some regional information re GA, NC, SC dances.
There are three dances in our area that are very popular with younger dancers.
Sautee Nacoochee, SNCA Riverfalls Lodge, RFL Old Farmers Ball, OFB Of those three, SNCA has a full complement of ages with a possible dip in the 30s and 40s. Ages range from 4 or 5 years old up into the 80s. They have 100 to 220 dancers once a month with the beginner's lesson often filling a ring around the large gym dance hall. RFL has a strong younger demographic, with teens to mid 20s dominating and then our usual older dancers mid 50s and up. OFB is on a college campus near Asheville with college age students dominating, then, again, our usual older dancers. This is my caricature sense of these dances. If someone else has more precise numbers I'd appreciate knowing them. (Thanks.) I'm a proponent of gender free calling, but that's not common or dominant in the SE. My sense is it's not the make or break that it might be elsewhere. My understanding is gendered calling is the norm at the above 3 dances. All of the 3 dances have unique environments and history that have positioned them to be where they are now with demographics. With SNCA it's out in the middle of nowhere and provides a family safe social environment that's not easily found elsewhere. There are also a few Christian colleges nearby and contra dancing is a safe drug and alcohol free social space. But, and I can't stress this enough, they built that family environment up over a couple of decades with, for most of that time, a pot luck before every dance (till they got exhausted from most of the work being done by just a few folks). My point is it's not a one-fix-and-all-is-well. It took a LONG TIME to build up that dance. OFB is on a college campus. I believe the students get in free or very cheap. (correct me please ...) 180 to 220 dancers every week? Thursday. RFL is a quirky outlier. Out in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Loads of character. Somehow discovered by teens and college students awhile back. Usually packed. (150+ dancers every week?) I've seen high school girls tumble out after a dance and fall to the ground giggling they'd had so much fun. __________ On another note, and in support of another comment, Marie Graham's been promoting contra dances at UNG where she's a professor. They had dances on campus that were open to the community. One feedback she got was the women students were not comfortable dancing with men their grandfather's age. ____ A study was done by a square dance organization. If I remember correctly that study said you're not going to pull in dancers younger than 15 years less than your median age. The Atlanta dance, I'm guessing, has a median age of 65. That means it's not going toeasily pull in (*retain?*) dancers younger than 50 years old. .... My takeaway
is that once you lose the younger dancers (or demographic diversity) it's hard to get it back. -Heitzso
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