America’s Secret Crypto-Dance Culture Exposed!

A reader writes:

Hi, Jimmy,

You square dance. What is an old brass wagon and why would it circle to the right and left so much?

Let me take a guess at the context in which the reader encountered the old brass wagon . . . it was at a grade school or grade-school aged function.

Taking the first part of the question literally, an old brass wagon would be a wagon that is made out of a copper-zinc alloy and that is endowed with the property of not having been made recently.

It's also an American play party game.

Play parties are something that most people today don't have any knowledge of, but they used to be quite common.

As you may know, some Fundamentalist Christians disapprove of dancing and even the playing of musical instruments–or certain musical instruments, at least in certain contexts.

Well, 200 years ago those kind of views were mainstream in a lot of American Protestantism, and in many communities it was socially taboo to dance. You couldn't find dances to go to anywhere.

Which was a problem because the Internet hadn't yet been invented, and people needed something to do in their free time other than read the Bible (not that they shouldn't have read the Bible, just that they needed to do something in addition to that).

Another problem is that God wired into human nature the desire both to make music and to move to music (i.e., dance). So human nature was compelling people toward doing something that was socially taboo.

Fortunately, human creativity was equal to the occasion, and a solution was found: the play party.

Play parties were, as you'd guess, parties that were held at people's homes (often with the curtains drawn to keep pesky, holier-than-thou neighbors from watching) in which the participants would sing and clap (providing music and a dance beat) and "play" children's "games" (i.e., dances–without the name).

"We can't dance, a'course. Tha'd be wrong. But we have all'a our friends over for a play party and 'play' a bunch a' 'games.'"

Naturally, the dances used at play parties could be very simple (being forced to practice any art form in secrecy is going to have a hindering effect on the development of the art form).

And that's why the Old Brass Wagon that the reader encountered involved so much circling to the left and right. It's a rudimentary dance that is designed for people who don't have extensive dancing experience.

Circle Left and Circle Right are no-teach dance moves. You don't have to engage in lengthy explanations of them. With adults, you just have to say the move and people do it. The most you ever have to say is, "Join hands; Circle to the Left; just walk to the beat of the music"–which is why Circle Left and Circle Right are the first two moves I use when I'm calling for a beginner party. Then I quickly add other moves that I can teach without stopping the music, so people get the most dancing out of the least instruction. (People came to dance, not to hear a lecture.)

Old Brass Wagon is a particular dance set to a particular tune (.pdf) (whose lyrics include the phrase "old brass wagon") that begins with a Circle Left and a Circle Right and then goes into whatever other simple dance moves the leader wants that are within the capability of small children.

It is very simple and very repetitive, and the only context in which you are likely to encounter it today–now that play parties are gone with the wind–is when adults are trying to get children to dance. Hence: grade school or a grade-school aged function. (Or possibly something like a father/daughter or mother/son or all-family dance, where you have a mix of adults and grade-school aged children.)

Old Brass Wagon is thus not something you'd encounter at a typical Modern Western Square Dance. Not only would a western square dancer not have any idea what you were talking about, if you tried to get them to do it they would hate it and would be bored silly in the first 90 seconds. (Modern Western Square Dance is based on rapidly changing, substantially unpredictable choreography and attracts the kind of dancers who crave complexity, whether they realize it or not.)

Also, Old Brass Wagon isn't a square dance. It's a no-partner circle dance . . . as illustrated by the facts that you don't need a partner for it and it's performed in a circle. (You can also do it as a partner circle dance; in the video below, you'll see the kids doing elbow swings with their partners, though partners aren't required for the basic dance.)

It's also cornpone as heck.

Still, it's a survival of America's secret, crypto-dance culture, even if today you won't see it in the movies or on Dancing with the Stars but only in proud-parent YouTube videos.

BTW, another–probably more familiar–play party "game" is Skip to My Lou.