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

Browse Items (1926 total)

Moving Image

First Two Gents Cross Over - Adam Boyce

Traditional singing square dance, recorded in West Newbury, VT, on July 24, 2010. The caller and fiddler is Adam Boyce, accompanied by piano player Donna Weston. Adam has the women crossing over after… View item
Document

Cowboy Dances - records and movies

Provides information about the Lloyd Shaw recordings on Decca, the movies that were made to accompany them, and the relevant dance figures and their location in the Co View item
Moving Image

Cheyenne Mountain Dancers - Docey-Doe Hoedown

Third in a series of three silent films made to accompany Shaw's 1947 recordings with the "Duel in the Sun" Orchestra. Working from an incomplete copy of the footage, we have attempted to create an… View item
Moving Image

Cheyenne Mountain Dancers - Split Ring Hash

Second in a series of three silent films made to accompany Shaw's 1947 recordings with the "Duel in the Sun" Orchestra. Working from an incomplete copy of the footage, we have attempted to create an… View item
Moving Image

Cheyenne Mountain Dancers - Star by the Right

First in a series of three silent films made to accompany Shaw's 1947 recordings with the "Duel in the Sun" Orchestra. Working from an incomplete copy of the footage, we have attempted to create an… View item
Moving Image

Traditional Western Square Dances 3b - Heads to the Center, Sides Divide

Bill Litchman taught this dance as part of his session (November 19, 2011) on Traditional Western Squares at the Dare To Be Square Weekend, John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, NC. Co-sponsored by… View item
Moving Image

Maryland Line Square Dance Sampler - Bob Dalsemer

Bob Dalsemer leads a workshop on "Dances of Maryland Line," a small town in northern Maryland that he visited often in the 1970s. Attentive viewers will note the distinctive style of… View item
Document

Swing that Pretty Gal! - 1941 article

In the wake of the first trips by the Cheyenne Mountain Dancers, this 1941 article inThe Saturday Evening Post describesthe widespread passion for squares that is growing, and gives Lloyd Shaw credit… View item
Still Image

Doonesbury - square dance

...in which Zonker, a character in Garry Trudeau's comic strip Doonesbury, presents a common view of one social activity... This "Doonesbury Flashback" appeared March 20, 2012, a… View item
Still Image

Schlitz beer ad, 1950

Full page ad for Schlitz beer that appeared in Newsweek magazine, August 21, 1950, attesting to the popularity of square dance in popular culture. Modern Western square dancers were not pleased to… View item
Moving Image

Roscommon Lancers - Irish set

Chris J. Brady writes: How about the Roscommon Lancers - with an embellished 'rant' step termed 'battering' in Ireland. Wonderful stuff.There are nine figures (aka square dances) in the Roscommon… View item
Moving Image

Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane - George Hodgson

The song was written by William Shakespeare Hays in 1875, and George Hodgson is the caller for the singing square, recorded January 16, 2004, at the Ralph Page Dance Legacy Weekend, Durham, NH. The… View item