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

Browse Items (1938 total)

Document

Dare To Be Square - Seattle, 2009

Dare To Be Square – Seattle, Washington, 2009Dare To Be Square is a weekend event celebrating square dancing in its many forms. North Carolina callers Nancy Mamlin and Phil Jamison created the… View item
Sound

Bruce Johnson - Hash - Rubber Dolly (clip)

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Sound

Earl Johnston - Skillet Lickin' (clip)

Categorized here as Mainstream, at the time this recording was released the calls were considered part of CALLERLAB's Basic program. This excerpt, for educational purposes, comes from a compilation… View item
Sound

Bob Page - 1950s (clip)

According to Bob Osgood's spoken introduction, this recording is a "re-creation" of patter calling from the early 1950s. It is unclear whether this means an actual 1950s called… View item
Sound

Dusty Roads (clip) - Jerry Helt

Categorized here as Mainstream, at the time this recording was released the calls were considered part of CALLERLAB's Basic program.This excerpt, included here for educational purposes, comes from a… View item
Moving Image

Late Nineteenth Century Quadrille

Virtually every dance manual published during the nineteeth century contains information on the performance of the quadrille. The Library of Congress site where this video (and others in the same… View item
Moving Image

Fledermaus Quadrille

Michael Bergman: Sadly, they've substituted walking steps for the more difficult Regency-era style steps that were still in fashion when the music was written. They are correctly using the older… View item
Sound

Arnie Kronenberger - hash, live recording, 1953

Jerry Reed - I believe this recording is an example of what traveling callers were calling in 1953. This choreography is a single patter tip from a dance called by Arnie Kronenberger, from California.… View item
Sound

Johnny Barbour - Hash, live recording, 1958

Johnny Barbour 1958 – Track 1 Comment by Jim Mayo This tip is, I believe, from a group of files shared with the Square Dance Foundation of New England by Stig Malmo from Denmark. Stig has been… View item
Sound

Jim York - Hash, live recording, 1955

Jim Mayo: Jim York was a very prolific writer of choreography. The Sets In Order magazine began publishing dances regularly in 1953 and Jim York's dances appeared regularly from then on. I… View item
Sound

Hurry Hurry Hurry - Marvin Shilling, live, 1953

Jim Mayo: I believe this is the figure used by Doc Alumbaugh in the original Windsor Records recording. The method of setting up lines of four is unusual today. At the time this recording was made in… View item
Sound

Marvin Shilling - live recording, hash, 1953

Early MWSD choreographyIn his introduction (not heard here) to this tip, Marvin Shilling comments: "I don't suppose anybody'll get lost at all, but if you do, just keep on dancing, even if you've got… View item