Square Dance History Project
The rich story of North American square dance finally has a home in the digital age.

Browse Items (32 total)

  • Contributor is exactly "Bob Dalsemer"
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West Virginia Square Dances by Robert G. Dalsemer

Dalsemer describes dance figures as done in five rural West Virginia communities in the mid- to late 1970s and reports on their regular dance events, including programming, type of audience, price and… View item
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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… View item
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The Independence (PA) Lancers

For moving images of the dance, click here and hereThis 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… View item
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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… View item
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Douglas Kennedy on American dances, 1939

Douglas Kennedy succeeded Cecil Sharp as director of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. He visited the United States in 1939 to teach dancing and to observe what he could while in this country.… View item
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Bob Sumrall - Olcutt Sanders correspondence, 1939

These letters between Bob Sumrall and J. Olcutt Sanders provide a glimpse into Texas square dances in the late 1930s. Sanders was a serious student of square dance history, part of a group of… View item
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Texas Square Dance Contests

These are a series of newspaper clippings made by J. Olcutt Sanders, documenting Texas square dance competitions. (Unfortunately, most of them are undated.) We assume that these are from Fort Worth;… View item
Still Image

Blue Bonnet Set - 1939

This 1939 newspaper pictoral spread looks at Herb Greggerson's Blue Bonnet Set, the team that won the Texas square dancing championship in March that year. Before that, the prize was often taken… View item
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Tennessee Star - David Hendrix, 1951

East Tennessee caller D. B., Hendrix provides directions for this big set variation of the Texas Star. A biography of the author can be found at the related item, "Smoky Mountain Square… View item
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"The Square Dance" - David Hendrix, 1951

East Tennessee caller D. B., Hendrix provides a general introduction to square dancing. He writes, "Square dancing is easy to learn. Anyone who can march or keep time to music can learn it. in… View item
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Bird in the Cage - D. B. Hendrix, 1952

This is third of three articles from Progressive Farmer featuring East Tennessee caller D. B., Hendrix. Here he provides directions forhis version of a classic square dance figure. A biography of the… View item
Moving Image

Danseurs de l’Ile Jésus - dip and dive

Performance by a group of dancers at an outdoor event organized by Phillippe Bruneau at the Musée canadien des civilisations (Gatineau) in 1989. The first half of the dance is built around a series… View item