Round Dancing

Y’all know that I go square dancing, but this week I also went round dancing.

No really!

There is such a thing as round dance. The defining difference (though not the only difference) being that the couple aren’t arranged in a square but a ring (hence: "round").

I also went contra dancing, which despite its name is not a form of protest against the concept of dance but is itself a type of dance.

Lemme ‘splain:

In order for people to do square dancing, you (normally) need groups of eight people, consisting of four men and four women. These four couples form a square.

If you have eight people of the right genders, you can form one square. If you have sixteen people of the right genders you can do two squares. Twenty-four people of the right genders and you can do three squares, and so on.

But what if you don’t have the right number and mix of people?

If you’ve got less than you need for a single square then nobody gets to square dance.

If you’ve got between the number you need for a square and an additional square then some people will have to sit out and not dance.

Or you can get creative.

I’ve been in a situation where we had six couples, which was not the eight couples needed for two squares, and so the caller put us in a rectangle and we did a kind of "rectangle dance" using a subset of the square dance calls (since not all calls designed for a square will work with a rectangle).

There are other ways of getting creative, too. F’rinstance: Doing different forms of dance that are related to square dance. That’s where contra and round dancing come in.

Square dance evolved out of the same mix of dance types as English country dance, Morris dancing, quadrilles, and contra dance, so it uses many of the same moves.

This week when I showed up for square dancing, we didn’t have enough people for a whole square. We only had three couples–not the four you need for a full square–so instead the caller taught us a contra dance.

Contra dancing consists of couples in lines (meaning that, yes, it is a form of line dance), and since we had three couples we could do a dance with two lines of three persons each.

If you’ve seen Gone with the Wind, you’ve seen contra dancing. In one scene, Scarlett and Rhett participate in the Virginia Reel–a famous contra dance (also classified as an English country dance).

This week the caller didn’t teach us the Virginia Reel (though that would have been fun), but he walked us through the steps for a contra dance a couple of times using square dance terminology for the different moves, and then we were ready to do it on our own.

It was fun! (Simpler than square dancing, but fun.)

Then enough folks arrived for us to have a full square and we switched to square dancing.

And then more folks arrived.

Soon we had seven couples–one couple shy of the number we’d need for two squares.

Rather than have three couples sit out, the caller switched us to round dancing and taught us a round dance called the "pattycake polka."

It too was fun!

Buzz afterward among the dancers suggested the conclusion that it was energetic and fun, but simple.

Why’s that?

Well, you’ll notice that I said that the caller taught us a dance–not a move. After he walked us through the moves of the pattycake polka two or three times, we were ready to do the dance–the whole dance–without him calling it. At that point, we knew the dance. We might need to practice it a few times to do it good, but we knew it.

That’s not the way it works with square dancing. With square dancing you learn moves, not dances.

Square dancing is the most challenging form of folk dance on the planet since (after you’re past the beginner level) you have to be ready to perform any of a hundred-plus moves at a moment’s notice (don’t worry; they work you up to that level slowly, so you don’t even realize how many moves you’ve learned).

Square dance is improvisational. Not even the caller knows in advance what moves he’s going to call. He makes it up as he goes along.

So for an experienced group of square dancers, any normal set-form dance is going to be simple by comparison.

It took us two minutes to learn all there is to know about the pattycake polka.* After five minutes we were performing it fluidly as a group. That’s all there is to it!

It was energetic and fun–but simple.

So this week I not only went square dancing but also round dancing and contra dancing.

Incidentally, I found a video clip of some grade school students in Japan doing the pattycake polka (badly–but, hey, they’re grade students).

WATCH THE CLIP.

*: For the record, all there is to know about the pattycake polka is that it involves you and your partner doing these moves:

(Man’s left) HEEL–TOE–HEEL–TOE–slide LEFT–slide LEFT
(Man’s right) HEEL–TOE–HEEL–TOE–slide RIGHT–slide RIGHT
CLAP RIGHT HANDS (3x quickly)
CLAP LEFT HANDS (3x quickly)
CLAP BOTH HANDS (3x quickly)
CLAP YOUR KNEES (3x quickly)
RIGHT ARM TURN to a new partner
REPEAT (over and over again)!

See! Hours later and I still remember everything there is to know about the dance. Simple by comparison!