Down yonder a reader (Emily S of O Beauty Unattempted) writes:
Thanks so much for the link! When first you mentioned it, being of a dancerly nature myself, I thought "Oh, how hard can it really be?" Phew! But now I can hardly wait to have an opportunity to try out those moves (Oklahoma choreography, here I come!). Just one question – do they generally require any sort of hand/arm hold or no? (The ones you mentioned. Esp. when circling a partner.)
Glad to hear you’re interested! Yes, there are specific hand and arm holds that are required in these moves. Sometimes more than one hold is used in each move.
In Spin Chain And Exchange The Gears, for example, the dancers who are about to trade places put their hands palm-forward (NOT grabbing) at approximately shoulder height and then use this as the pivot point around which they trade. At a certain point in the move, though, you have groups of four dancers putting their hands together (again at approximately shoulder height, NOT grabbing) to create what is known as a star formation, which then rotates around the four hands as a pivot point.
There are other hand holds in these moves, too, so it gets rather complicated.
If you’re wanting to use square dancing as part of a production of Oklahoma! (if I understood your meaning correctly) then the simplest thing to do is bring in an actual square dance group (including the caller) as a bunch of extras.
If that isn’t feasible (e.g., because you’re wanting to do a high school production of the musical with only students as actors) then the thing to do would be to bring in a caller to teach the students just enough square dance moves to do the choreography you want. (You won’t have time to train them in all square dance moves.)
I’d probably recommend having most of it be simple, ordinary stuff that won’t be hard for the students, with maybe one or two really complex moves as a show-stopper for the audience.
I’d also recommend checking out some actual square dance groups in your area first to get a sense of what is possible and how it looks from a horizontal (audience) perspective.
Incidentally, there’s one nice advantage to square dancing compared to almost other forms of dance: It really doesn’t matter that much what you’re doing with your feet. Square dancing is about your position on the floor and what you’re doing with your arms, not specifically what you’re doing with your feet as you navigate the floor. (It helps to step to the beat, but this is not required. As long as you get where you’re supposed to be, that’s enough.)
With square dancing there’s no careful, elegant stepping of the kind that ballroom or round
dancing (or tap, for that matter) requires, so this is one thing that students or actors won’t have to worry about.
Square dancing, especially when done fast, is about having fun rather than being elegant–a fact that has become obvious to me now that I’m also taking round dancing classes. As I’m in the round dance class trying to do all kind of elegantly timed steps, I can hear the square dance class in the next room tearing up the floor and having fun without worrying about being graceful and elegant.
A billion years ago, I was a member of a teen square dance club. Perhaps one exists in Emily’s neck of the woods.
Danke very much! 🙂