Around this time of year, down in the basement of the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church at Cook & Lexington, various odd cries can be heard echoing from the walls.
“Wheel and Deal.” “Double Pass Thru.” “California Twirl” and “Allemande Left.”
This is the sound of the Johnny Appleseed Square Dance Club getting down to business again after the summer. I remember it well from my days as a square dancer.
Oh, come on now, Steve, I hear you say. You were never a square dancer! Yes I was, for a short time, with this very club. But we’ll get to that in a moment.
To get some background on the Appleseeders and square dancing in general, I met with some of the current team in the kitchen of club presidents Mark and Nancy Meinzer. I explained that I had a dim memory of doing something called ‘Country Dancing’ as a young lad at school in England.
“Possibly it involved dancing round a maypole,” I said, although I was unsure of the details. “And then there was also something called Morris Dancing.”
I did this at least once. It involves the banging of sticks (don’t ask).
Vice-President Don Karger nodded and produced several reams of paper from his bag, containing various charts, diagrams and timelines.
“Take a look at this,” he said, pointing to an intricate flow-chart showing the evolution of both ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ square dancing.
“What we do is ‘Western’ square dancing,’ Don explained. “If you look here at the beginning, you’ll see it can be traced back to ‘the Greens and Fields of England.’”
Sure enough, the chart plotted a path through The Morris Dance, May Pole Dances and The English Country Dance, moving on to incorporate Scotch Reels and Irish Jigs.
Somewhere along the way when these folks made it to the U.S., these old styles led to something called the Appalachian Mountain Dance, as well as Circle Mixers and a host of other local variations, eventually taking us to the Western Square Dance of today.
“I know it’s not what you do, but what about the ‘Eastern’ Square Dance?” I asked.
“Different path altogether,” said Don, indicating that this line could be traced back to the ‘Royal Ballrooms of France.’
The Royal Ballrooms of France, indeed. No need to bother ourselves further with that.
So, back to modern Western Square Dancing. How does it work? Four couples form a ‘square,’ with the dance floor containing any number of these squares. The dancers are led in time to music by a ‘caller,’ who expertly strings together a series of square dance calls that make up each dance.
This was what I experienced, for the first time, when I signed up with the club last year for square dance lessons.
I need to make it very clear that my personal dancing history was not impressive. I did something that could loosely be called dancing in my 20s, in nightclubs – those demented moves where you look as if you’re trying to stomp out a small fire.
And there once existed some video footage of me attempting to dance with some showgirls in Las Vegas. So shameful and embarrassing was this display that the memory of it brings tears to my eyes even now.
So this was my starting point, and as I prepared for my first lesson I found myself thinking, as I so often do, “how did I get into this?” Noting my nervousness, one of the ladies of the club chuckled and said “don’t worry – you know this is almost designed for men with no rhythm!”
Naturally this was a great relief.
Our caller and teacher for these lessons was the wonderful Danny Beck, who next summer will celebrate an incredible fifty years of square dance calling. A model of patience and genial good humor, Danny expertly introduces the calls (of which there are many) at a rate that is easy to keep up with, while maintaining enough variety to keep things interesting.
Danny calls from the stage cuing up tunes for the lessons on vinyl, some of which are not what you might expect for square dancing. I seem to recall Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ often made it into the mix.
There is no dress code for lessons, although personally I usually favored sturdy boots and “country” shirts. At the dances themselves folks typically dress up a bit, although as club member Mona Porter explained to me, it’s not required. “Some dress up, some dress down,” she said, “but it’s fun to wear the skirts and swirl around!”
With a little bit of patience and focus, it’s really not that hard to learn or perform the moves – and it’s very satisfying when you discover after a few weeks that you have a substantial number of routines memorized, allowing you to strut, twirl and swing around based on vocal calls coming mere moments before you carry them out.
It’s good exercise, with a bunch of amazingly nice folks, and it keeps you mentally sharp. You can’t let your mind wander too far when you have the next call to consider.
Once you have all this down you can square dance anywhere. Not just in the United States, but all over the world: there are square dancing clubs in every state in the union, and in over fifty countries worldwide. Western square dancing has a set standard, with the same calls – and the calls are always in English, no matter what the country.
Of course, you don’t need to travel that far afield to dance once you’ve completed your lessons. The Johnny Appleseed club hosts their own dances, and its members visit dances organized by many other clubs around the area. Danny Beck alone teaches square dancing at four different local clubs, not just in Mansfield but also Shelby, Tiffin and Norwalk.
For those that are interested, lessons take place on Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. at the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 525 W. Cook Rd, Mansfield, starting on Thursday, Sept. 22. The first two lessons are free – no obligation. Go along and try it out!
Check out the website at www.appleseedsquares.com
