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

Browse Items (9 total)

  • Tags: hash
Document

Les Gotcher choreography, 1958

The transcription is shown here; you can hear audio clip under Additional Files. If you open that audio in a separate tab, you can listen while you follow along the text.Jim Mayo: "Les Gotcher was… View item
Document

A Brief History of "Hash"

This is a chapter from Instant Hash that appeared in American Squares magazine. Litman and Holden define hash as "a mixture of figures which come one after another so quickly that often there is no… View item
Document

Shredded Hash - Lloyd and Myrtis Litman

Several years after the 1962 publication of Instant Hash by Lloyd Litman and Rickey Holden, Shredded Hash was created by Litman and his wife, Myrtis. An unusual aid for callers seeking choreographic… View item
Document

Let's Stop Hashing Our Squares

This essay, written more than 60 years ago, speaks to the longstanding tension between those who like predictable dance figures and those who seek continual variety. The author admits "that I am just… View item
Sound

Hashing the Breaks (clip) - Les Gotche

Les Gotcher was the self-proclaimed king of hash. Here's an example of his calling. Square dance enthusiasts who followed him from dance to dance in New England in the 1950s noticed, though, that… View item
Sound

Wheel and Deal (clip) - Les Gotcher

excerpt from a live recording in the early 1960s View item
Document

Bill Litchman - Rocky Mountain Square Dancing

This overview of square dance history focuses on two major groups of square dance. One group (northern, Eastern, Maritime, etc.) relies on quadrille-style figures, with couples interacting across the… View item
Moving Image

Hash with Daisy Chain - Jim Mayo

Jim Mayo calls a simple set of hash calls at the Dare To Be Square weekend held November 18-20, 2011, at the John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, NC. Many of the dancers on the floor had never… View item
Website

SDFNE 1960's Era Recordings

Jim Mayo undertook a project to use the Square Dance Foundation of New England's audio archives and locate representative samples of square dance calling from the time period when Modern Western… View item