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

Browse Items (502 total)

  • Collection: MWSD
Still Image

St. Louis square dancers, early 1950s

These photos are from the early St. Louis square dance scene, organized in part by George Greene and his wife, Betty. George Greene played an active role bringing to the St. Louis area some of the… View item
Website

St. Patrick’s Day Square Dance - 1956

This home movie (silent) captures scenes of a St. Patrick’s Day square dance in Clarendon, Texas. in 1956. Numerous dances and couples are captured, as well as children taking the floor when the… View item
Website

Stan Winchester - C4 Singing Squares

Stan Winchester was a MWSD dancer who created a large body of singing squares for the C4 community. These dancers sometimes share a series of recorded audiotapes with prerecorded calls, and Winchester… View item
Moving Image

Star Thru & Square Thru - Jim Mayo - MWSD 2a

After an introductory dance using figures that dancers already knew, in this sequence of three clips (2a-2c) Jim Mayo introduces Star Thru and Square Thru. In this clip he teaches the basic figures;… View item
Moving Image

Starline

This dance, an Ed Gilmore composition published in Sets in Order Year Book No. 3, was part of a workshop of "Jigsaw & Origami Squares" led by Tony Parkes at the annual Star Hampshire Weekend of… View item
Still Image

Stepney Barn

The Stepney Barn was constructed by Al Brundage. (Stepney is a district in the town of Monroe, CT.) You can read more about Brundage and the barn on this site. In Brundage's comments below, note that… View item
Still Image

Summer Institute, Asilomar, 1957

InAs I See It, Bob Osgood devotes an entire chapter to Asilomar, a series of summer square dance institutes sponsored bySets in Order magazine. Asilomar was a conference facility that Osgood had… View item
Sound

Sunny - John Hendron

This is a short clip from a singing call by John Hendron at a dance in New England in 1984 View item
Moving Image

Sweet Home Alabama - Ted Lizotte - Tech Squares

Caller, Ted Lizotte. Recorded March 5, 2011, at a Tech Squares weekend, East Hill Farm, Troy, NH. Ted Lizotte is the club caller for Tech Squares, the MWSD club on the campus of Massachusetts… View item
Sound

Swing All Eight (clip) - Pancho Baird

This link will provide a list of other Pancho Baird recordings on this website. SWING ALL EIGHT Originated and Presented by "Pancho" Baird Santa Fe, New Mexico Recorded on Western Jubilee (calls… View item
Website

TAMinations - animated MWSD diagrams

This website offers animated diagrams illustrating all the calls in the various CALLERLAB programs from Mainstream through C-3A. If you're a traditional or MWSD dancer encountering an unfamiliar term,… View item
Moving Image

Tech Squares

This half-hour video looks closely at the Tech Squares modern square club at MIT. Under the leadershp of caller Ted Lizotte and with the assistance of a large group of dedicated assistants and dance… View item