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

Browse Items (77 total)

  • Subject is exactly "Southern / Appalachian / Big sets"
Moving Image

Elizabeth Burchenal 3 - big set demo

This appears to be a demonstration of various southern Appalachian big set figures. There are several shots of musicians scattered throughout.The film starts with the Georgia Rang Tang figure, also… View item
Sound

Big circle dance - Manny Wiener & American Square Dance Group

Caller Manny Wiener leads a big circle dance—here introduced as a Kentucky running set—with members of Margot Mayo's American Square Dance Group. This is a portion of a half hour radio… View item
Document

It's Fun To Square Dance

This booklet is profusely illustrated with photographs and diagrams, making the dance figures easy to understand. Lunsford was the founder in 1928 of the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville,… View item
Website

Alabama Square Dance, 1937

This is a collection of 45 black and white photographs taken at a square dance in Alabama. Photos show dancers, musicians, spectators. View item
Moving Image

Set Running - Berea Country Dancers

In a voiceover at the start of the clip, the group's director, John Ramsay, speaks about the history of the dance and share some of his philosophy about dance bringing people together.Other "set… View item
Moving Image

Berea Country Dancers - Set Running (1917)

In this re-creation of dances from 1917, the Berea College Country Dancers, under the direction of Ethel Capps, show several figures described by Cecil Sharp in his Country Dance Book V. Sharp first… View item
Moving Image

Big Set - Berea Country Dancers, 2011

The Berea Country Dancers perform a version of the southern mountain Big Set. (Searching for that term will bring up several dozen additional Related Items.) Paul Adkins called the dance from the… View item
Website

A Look at Southern Squares

Bill Martin writes: "These many pages represent all the information I could find about Southern mountain square dancing. Over the years I continue to find errors and clueless guesswork here and there.… View item
Website

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
Sound

Bob Dean - dances from Pocahontas County, WV

Bob Dean was invited to be on staff for the 1980 program at American Dance & Music Week at Pinewoods Camp, a week sponsored by Country Dance and Song Society. This half hour recording by Ed Durham… View item
Document

Let's Square Dance – Claude Chadwick

This 24 page booklet was produced by Claude S. Chadwick, a Texas native and a professor of biology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. He begins with an overview of the activity: "All we need for… View item
Document

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