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

Browse Items (349 total)

  • Collection: Northern squares
Website

Grand Chain - Grande Chaîne

Note: The link will take you to the home page featuring a documentary by Guy Bouchard about "Traditional music and dances from the tip of the Gaspé peninsula." Interested viewers can stream the… View item
Moving Image

Grandfather's Clock / Chains Across - Dudley Laufman

Dudley Laufman calls as part of the "Square Dance" Retrospective session at the annual Ralph Page Dance Legacy Weekend in Durham, NH. The basic figure is shown below, but you'll see the dancers… View item
Moving Image

Grandma Slid Down the Mountain - Tod Whittemore

Caller Tod Whittemore with his yodeling square dance, "Grandma Slid Down the Mountain." As Tod says in his introduction, "This is a dance by Ted Sannella... but he never called it exactly like this."… View item
Moving Image

Green Mountain Land - Vermont square, 1950

This square dance sequence is part of a 1950 film, "Green Mountain Land," produced by Robert Flaherty and directed by David Flaherty. The narrator is caller Ted Glabach, from Dummerston,… View item
Moving Image

Half Way Round - Tony Parkes

Tony Parkes, caller, recorded at the Ralph Page Dance Legacy Weekend, January 12, 2007. The dance was called frequently by Ralph Page, and it's possible that Page got the figures from Connecticut… View item
Sound

Half Way Round (clip) - Rod Linnell

Maine caller with his composition, a singing call set to the RCA VIctor recording of "Back Up and Push." Linnell's version is published in View item
Document

Harold Luce biography

This short biography profiles Harold Luce (1918-2014), a well-known Yankee fiddler and dance caller closely associated with the Ed Larkin Dancers of north central Vermont. Luce started playing with… View item
Moving Image

Head Two Ladies Cross Over - Bob Livingston

Bob Livingston calls at the Killingly, CT, dance, a regular series he has been doing since 1988, although he reports that there have been dances there "forever." (At 1:45, you'll see a man wearing… View item
Moving Image

Hello, Mary Lou - Ralph Sweet

Recorded at the February 2, 2004, at the Guiding Star Grange, Greenfield, MA, on the occasion of recording "Shindig in the Barn," an album of singing squares. Musicians are the Ralph Sweet All-Stars:… View item
Document

Henry Ford Old Time Dances in Vermont

When thinking about Henry Ford's project to revive old-time dancing, it's easy to focus on his influence in the Midwest, reaching out from Benjamin Lovett's presence in Dearborn. These five newspaper… View item