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

Browse Items (180 total)

  • Subject is exactly "General - Dance and Culture"
Still Image

Swing Your Partner - Margot Mayo diagrams

This series of cartoons and graphics appeared in back pages of 1950 booklet, Places All, published by the Canadian Square Dance Association. If viewers know where we can locate the remaining pieces… View item
Document

Circle Up Zine (Volume 1) - A collection of square dances and thoughts towards promoting inclusivity

This is a square dance calling resource that features inclusive square dance adaptations, in the form of a printed zine. When caller/dancer/organizer Becky Hill envisioned the project, she enlisted 17… View item
Website

Square dance tunes and calls

Audio recording of interview by Alan Lomax with Alan Robertson in the Mississippi Delta View item
Moving Image

Too Hot Mamas - Chapel of Love Singing Square

This video is an excerpt of the Singing Square dance Chapel of Love. Singing squares use altered lyrics of popular songs to insert dance choreography instruction into the song. Based on the song,… View item
Moving Image

Squares at a Contra Dance

Beth Molaro, Asheville, NC, discusses calling squares in the context of a contra dance. In the early 2000s, many contra dancers were not fans of squares, so she offers advice about what kinds of… View item
Document

Ralph Page – Swing Your Partners

This short essay by Ralph Page (1939) is interesting for several reasons. First, he's writing for a publication of the New Hampshire Planning and Development Commission, and Page cites the economic… View item
Document

How Do They Swing?

A brief look at styles of swinging, c. 1954 View item
Document

The Dos-a-Dos

The author looks starts by examining the pronunciation and different spellings of this figure. He then explores variations, all of which involve a handhold: Southern Highland or Mountaineer… View item
Still Image

Huntington's Pavilion, E. Thetford, VT

We often think of the boom years of square dancing taking place starting in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but there is a long history of halls for square dancing before then. This is a series of… View item
Document

Princess Elizabeth square dancing - details

When Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip squared danced during a visit to Ottawa in 1951, photographs from the event created a sensation and led to a rapid upsurge of interest in square dancing in… View item
Still Image

Square Dancing at Mohonk Mountain House

Nell Boucher is the archivist at the Mohonk Mountain House, a classic resort near the Catskills, about 90 miles north of New York City. She responded to a request for more information about these… View item
Document

The Old Square Dance Is Back Again

This is the sheet music for the song recorded by Carolina Cotton and Fenton "Jonesy" Jones. The dance begins with a "Rebel Yell" and is supposed to be played "Brightly, with Hill Billy swing." The… View item