Jeff's Square Dance Related Articles
These are articles related to Square Dancing that I have written. I recently re-found the original WORD files documents for the olders ones. Most of the newer ones have been copied from my archive of "Australian Callers Federation" newsletter "Callerlink", (which I was editor of for several years). The "date" information is based upon the "last save date" of the original documents. Some of the dates might not be correct, but should be close.
Be involved with change (Callerlink CL213 - September 2013)
Robert Zimmerman (Bob Dylan) said in the words of a song “The times they are a changing”. And for us, the times have indeed been slowly changing, simply because that is the nature of square dancing. Square dancing is a live and growing entity that must be allowed to evolve. In fact it has been constantly evolving since the 1950s. Our current program structure (of Basic, Mainstream, Plus, Advanced, Challenge) is just the 1980 to 2020 generation of square dancing. While it may be hard to predict what the next generation of square dancing will be like, there are “sign posts” that are indicating possible future direction. Sign posts such as: The formation of a “Basic Subcommittee” within Callerlab; Popularity of alternate entry programs such as “Square Dance A,B,C”; alternative teach order lists: and the recent Callerlab/ACA collaborated document titled “Experimental Condensed Teaching Order”.
But it is not only the program structures that keep changing. Other established attributes of our square dance environment have been challenged and may need another look at. Attitudes towards competition dancing; commitment of people to weekly activities and use of alcohol at dances have been slowly challenged by society. We may not like the changes, but we sometimes need to expand our thinking and continually ask “why not?” Maybe our attitude should be less of “No, because that is not the square dance way” to more of “In the past we never encouraged it, but maybe we are mature enough now to allow this to happen in such a way that it won’t wreck our activity”. We need to be more flexible now, if we don’t we will lose the entire activity.
The take home message here is that square dancing is evolving. We can take part in helping to shape its future evolution, or let it fade away. We may not like some bits of the changes, but we can certainly be part of the changes and ensure that the new square dance is something we can be proud of. So don’t just be reactive and watch the changes that are happening – be proactive and help mould the changes into a good result.
Jeffrey