Square Dancing is Unlike Any Other Form of Dance

Many people assume that square dancing is similar to other forms of dance like line dancing and round dancing in that dancers memorize patterns to a particular song. This is not the case with modern square dancing.

What is square dancing like?

In contrast to other forms of dance, square dancing is extemporaneous.

The dance sequences are choreographed by a caller, but while they’re dancing, square dancers have no idea what call is coming next. Much of the excitement of modern square dancing is the challenge of figuring out what the caller meant, turning that solution into physical movement, doing all this on the fly, and to the beat of lively, contemporary music. This is the essence of modern square dancing.

A new language.

In some respects, square dancing is a foreign language. For example, the following three phrases contain normal everyday words in English. The meaning, while not quite clear in each case, at least has the semblance of something you might reasonably expect to hear in a normal conversation.

Load the Boat
 
Follow Your Neighbor
 
Wheel and Deal 

However, in the square dancing language, each phrase denotes a particular action. While square dancers know the meaning of each phrase separately, it’s likely that they haven’t heard them in this particular order before, and they may not have been asked by the caller to dance them from the particular position they currently occupy.

Square dancers derive satisfaction in being able to figure out how to execute the command in this unusual context, to do it on the fly, and to do all that to the beat of the music.

It’s puzzle solving in motion.

There are some other differences between traditional square dancing (or barn dance) and modern square dancing.

1. The music has been modernized, and many other styles of music other than country are included.

2. Traditional square dancing involved a certain style of dress often stereotyped as western shirts, cowboy boots, and hoop skirts. This all has been liberalized so that now most any form of socially-acceptable clothing can be seen at a dance.