Browse Items (920 total)
Square Dancing Atop Lookout Mountain
Article by Karen terHorst describes dancing in New Salem, Georgia, an historically-isolated community above Chattanooga, TN. The article is based on her visit to the dance in the 1970s. The dance stopped taking place sometime around 1990.
"New…
"New…
Traditional Folkdance in Kentucky
Article by LeeEllen Friedland describing the social setting for community dances as well as the dance figures themselves. She differentiates among three types of dance: single dancing, couple dancing and group dancing. Folklorist Burt Feintuch…
Set Runnin' in Eastern Kentucky
Description from 1949 by Patrick Napier of traditional square dances in eastern Kentucky.
Old Side Door: A Kentucky Mountain Dance
Article by Patrick E. Napier, originally published in 1949, describing a Kentucky dance figure and its setting.
Dance magazine publishers - photos
This photograph appeared in the October, 1950, issue of Sets in Order. It shows a gathering of prominent dance leaders at the folk dance camp at the University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA; each man was the publisher of a magazine that looked at…
Glencoe Promenade
Description of a square dance figure from south-central New Mexico; the figure probably goes back to the late 1800s.
Old Time Square Dancing on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina
Author Bob Dalsemer discovers a long tradition of the "big circle" square dance on this island off the North Carolina coast, far from the Appalachian Mountains where it is usually encountered.
The Independence (PA) Lancers
For moving images of the dance, click here.This is Bob Dalsemer's account of discovering an old dance form maintained in a rural Pennsylvania community:"On two occasions in 1979, I had the good fortune to visit the bi-weekly Saturday night square…
The Buzzards' Glory Barn Dance 1928–1966
In the early 1970s, Bob Dalsemer heard about a dance series in Albanstown, northern Baltimore County, Maryland; the dances were no longer being held so he interviewed two sources to create this portrait of the local square dance.
Uncle Steve's Quadrille (recording)
The first audo file contains instructions for the dance; it is followed by two files with the music and calls.Detailed information about this dance, as published in Elizabeth Burchenal'sFolk-Dances from Old Homelands (1922) can be found here;…
Uncle Steve's Quadrille (description)
This dance was published in Elizabeth Burchenal's Folk-Dances from Old Homelands (1922). This is the first dance iin the book, one of two American dances, along with Old Dan Tucker. (See the moving images of Burchenal leading Old Dan Tucker…
