Square Dance Timing for Callers: Philosophy

New England caller Dick Leger, "the man with the guitar," believed strongly in fitting calls to the musical phrase. In this, he was sometimes an outlier in the modern square dance community as the emphasis moved more toward dancing on the beat, with less attention paid to the phrase. (So rooted was he in this regard that Tony Parkes once described Leger as a traditional square dance caller disguised as a modern square dance caller.)

Leger is represented elsewhere in our collection-- see Related Items-- but here he speaks more generally about the way callers are trained and the problems that ensue as a result.