Mark's Notebook

Square Dancing By The Numbers, Part 2

Trying to find information about local square dancing history on the internet can be frustrating. It's a question of economics. Why would a square dance club waste time and energy on fostering a sense of history, when they could be putting that same energy into promotion of new classes, new methods, and new ideas?

The SCVSDA web site, which covers my local area, has online a copy of their original 1958 bylaws. This document lists the 20-some charter member clubs of the association. Unfortunately, only four of those clubs still exist today. Two of them will merge into one club at the first of May, and one is now a part of the NCSDA organization instead. This leaves, as of May 1, 2005, only two clubs remaining from the orginal 20 charter members.

This is a sad situation, but it really doesn't say a lot about the state of square dancing. Clubs come and go, merge and split, change levels and affilliations, and change their names. It may very well be that some of SCVSDA's "lost" charter member clubs still exist under different names. A chronicle of square dance history would answer those questions. The fact that these clubs have been "lost" does not spell the demise of square dancing but a merely our poverty of good record-keeping.

The NCSDA web site lists dates for many of their member clubs. It is not clear whether these dates represent the founding dates of the clubs or the dates when they joined the association. For the purposes of this article, I assume that it doesn't matter. But NCSDA has done a little of the good record-keeping for us. Hooray!

The table below shows some dates when square dancing clubs or organizations were formed in California. The first California association appears to be the Western Square Dance Association, which is one of several associations that now cover the Los Angeles area. Perhaps not coincidentally, this happened at about the time that some historians say square dancing was considered a nationwide "fad" about to disappear. Unfortunately for the prognosicators, square dancing was still yet to enter its heyday. In 1948, Ed Gilmore was just getting started with his "new style" of square dancing that replaced the traditional "visiting" style of pre-choreographed routines with "hash" that was choreographed and called on the fly. Many of these clubs that formed in the late 1940s and early 1950s presumably used the old "visiting" style of dancing, where couple #1 interacts first with couple #2, then with couple #3, and on around the square. Ed Gilmore was based in southern California, and it's not likely that the new "hash" style of dancing spread into northern Califonia that quickly.

Gilroy Gliders celebrated their 50th anniversary hoedown in 1999, which places their inception around 1949. This makes them the oldest California square dance club still existing today. At least according to the meager information available to me. Goldancers in Nevada City followed the next year. Why would the earliest clubs be in rural places like Gilroy and Nevada City? Again, there were many other clubs forming around this time, but for most of them either records were not kept, or the clubs do not survive to today.

The California Square Dance Council was formed in 1950 as an association of southern California square dance clubs, but as more associations were formed in other areas, by 1958 they had taken on the role of an umbrella organization to facilitate communication among the other associations.

The Northern California Square Dance Association (NCSDA) was the first square dance association in this general area, formed in 1951. Associated Square Dancers of Superior California (ASDSC), which covers the Sacramento area, came a couple of years later. The Santa Clara Valley Square Dancers Association (SCVSDA) came relatively late, in 1958. I tentatively date the Valley Associated Square Dancers (VASD) at around the same time, because the first Squar-Rama was held in 1958.

Meanwhile, the first National Square Dance Convention was held in Riverside in 1951. This indicates the extreme popularity of square dancing at this early date. It also shows that 1951 was probably close to the pivotal time when square dancing tilted definitively towards the new "hash" style of calling. And finally, it shows the importance of southern California in the growth of the new square dance movement. Most of the new "hash" callers and "sight" callers came out of southern California.

It should be obvious from the table that the 1950s and 1960s were the heyday of square dancing. To my mind, this explains more than anything the emphasis on 1950s-type attire even today. To try to explain this emphasis on 1950s US pop culture in terms of the French affection for flowing skirts when doing Quadrilles is evasive at best. That might explain petticoats, but what about snap buttons? The western style was popular during the 1930s and 1940s, in music, clothing, children's toys, and other facets of pop culture. Call it a romanticization of the dust bowl and Route 66. Call it a reaction against the flappers of the 1920s and the ostentaciousness of the Gatsbys. Petticoats came along later, in the 1950s.

There's no question that the formation of new square dance clubs fell off dramatically in the 1970s and has not regained its momentum since. But the record has an interesting pattern. Since 1969, starting with Silver Buckles, almost all of the new clubs were specialty clubs of one kind or another: youth, singles, family, gay, and handicapable.

The first gay square dance clubs were started in the late 1970s, and in the early 1980s they came to California (and everywhere else). Western Star was the first club in the state, in 1982, followed only two years later by the formation of the national association (later international).

The formation of clubs for these specialty groups may show that the 1950s pop culture is losing its grip on the future of square dancing. There is no question that the future of square dancing lies with these kinds of groups. This is evident in the very nature of these groups. The couples clubs of the 1950s by definition exclude singles, gay people, and children. But most singles clubs allow couples to dance, most gay clubs allow straight people to dance, and most youth clubs positively encourage parents and families to attend.

The most promising new type of club is the club for "families." These generally encourage anyone to attend - singles, couples, youth, and entire families. Some even accommodate small children.

In general, the future of square dancing lies with the younger people. Any club where a youngster can learn to dance is a club that has a future and contributes to the future of square dancing. Whether these be family or youth clubs is not important.

Also, the gay clubs tend to have a younger membership than the straight clubs, so their influence on the square dancing of the future may be larger than we might otherwise expect.

What is interesting is that square dancing, an icon and purveyor of 1950s pop culture, is evolving into something more inclusive and is adapting to changing societal conditions. An activity that was designed for young petticoated-and-snap-buttoned couples has evolved to meet the needs of singles, then youth, then families, then gay people, and most recently the handicapable.

Who knows which group will rise up next to carry the torch of square dancing? Maybe square dancing is even ready for the public schools again.

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Last updated Tuesday 13 May 2008