The Barn Dance Returns! (1937 article)
Article in Recreation magazine giving detailed directions for holding a barn dance:
"There is joy and laughter, rollicking rhythm, sociability and informality in barn and country dancing which is largely lacking in the more sophisticated social dances of today. Perhaps that is why the barn dance is returning. Once young people-and the not-so-young-have been to a real old-time barn dance, they see that their easy contempt of "country dances" is ill-founded and come to demand this type of entertainment, as the growing number of such groups in both rural and urban communities bears witness.
The barn dance is presented as an evening entertainment, with detailed suggestions for decorations. Guests are encouraged to come in costume, and the event has a hillbilly tone: "For men, straw hats, overalls, jeans, blue denim shirts, blue or red bandanas and corn cob pipes are appropriate. Patches are to be encouraged. ... The girls wear gingham dresses, sunbonnets and aprons, and are farmerettes or dairy maids. Grandma Jenkins and the village spinsters may be there, too."
Activities include stunts, contests and games, music, singing, and (finally!) dances, both play-party games and squares.
Tags: animals, article, barn dance, hillbilly, Recreation
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"There is joy and laughter, rollicking rhythm, sociability and informality in barn and country dancing which is largely lacking in the more sophisticated social dances of today. Perhaps that is why the barn dance is returning. Once young people-and the not-so-young-have been to a real old-time barn dance, they see that their easy contempt of "country dances" is ill-founded and come to demand this type of entertainment, as the growing number of such groups in both rural and urban communities bears witness.
The barn dance is presented as an evening entertainment, with detailed suggestions for decorations. Guests are encouraged to come in costume, and the event has a hillbilly tone: "For men, straw hats, overalls, jeans, blue denim shirts, blue or red bandanas and corn cob pipes are appropriate. Patches are to be encouraged. ... The girls wear gingham dresses, sunbonnets and aprons, and are farmerettes or dairy maids. Grandma Jenkins and the village spinsters may be there, too."
Activities include stunts, contests and games, music, singing, and (finally!) dances, both play-party games and squares.