Browse Items (226 total)

Several years ago the Square Dance Foundation of New England arranged an on-line link to a set of clips from early modern square dances. These clips were from the SDFNE collection of tapes of live dances. The clips were accompanied by comment written…

Article by Bert Spinney that provides brief biographical information about caller Mildred Buhler and her involvement in starting the British Association of American Square Dance Clubs.

This is a thorough look at how to involve younger dancers in square dancing, prepared by Sets in Order and published in the 1960s.

The handbook opens with an essay by Ralph and Zora Piper on "The Child's Nature and Square Dancing." Among other…

The "5 Steps" of the title can be taken literally; this tiny handout, illustrated with stick figures, is all about how to move on the dance floor:

1. Keep both feet on the floor, don't walk. [Instead, use a shuffle step.]
2. Keep weight…

This collection of seven catalogs from the 1950s and early 1960s illustrates the range of materials offered to participants in the early square dance boom years, from recordings to clothing to badges and caller PA equipment.

This is a fragment of a callers' class led by Joe Lewis; unfortunately, we do not know the location or the date. Lewis comments, "When a lot of people suddenly do the same thing wrong, the caller did it." He focuses a lot of this session on problems…

Here are the directions for Red Warrick's dance. See the related item for a video showing Warrick calling for his demo team.

1954 newspaper article and photographs about popularity of modern square dancing in St. Louis

Caller Bob Ruff (Whittier, CA) created this video to accompany his record, "The Fundamentals of Square Dancing, Level 1" that in turn accompanies a square dance teaching series he created with Jack Murtha. Ruff teaches 35 basic square dance…

This piece by Masuru Wada, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Japan Square Dancers Association, presents an overview of modern square dance in that country.

Items connected with one mid-1950s square dance club:

• Program for 3rd anniversary dance, 1954, including club roster
• Invitation to 5th anniversary party
• invitation for regular dance
• stationery and envelope

The Barn Owls club…