(don't they look like they're having fun???)
"Square dance is a folk dance with four couples (eight dancers) arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, beginning with Couple 1 facing away from the music and going counter-clockwise until getting to Couple 4. Couples 1 and 3 are known as the head couples, while Couples 2 and 4 are the side couples. Each dance begins and ends each sequence with "sets-in-order" in the square formation. The dance was first described in 17th century England but was also quite common in France and throughout Europe and bears a marked similarity to Scottish Country Dancing. It has become associated with the United States of America due to its historic development in that country. Nineteen U.S. states have designated it as their official state dance." (Wikipedia.com)One of the guys from my church concocted a plan to take all the adult volunteers on a "fellowship night" to Raytown, MO to learn square dancing. I have to admit that although I love dancing, I was a little apprehensive about this. Mostly because,
a) I hate country music. I don't just mean, oh I don't like it very much; I mean I physically leave the room if a truly country song comes on. Yes I am prejudiced and I apologize and I give you permission to make fun of my favorite musical styles. I can handle a lil Hank Williams or Johnny Cash, mostly for its folk-music quality. But strains of Tim McGraw makes me want to vomit a lil in my mouth.
b) We were "requested" by Justin to wear plaid, cowboy boots and hats, or some other countrified apparatus to show our true affinity with - heck, I don't know, I guess the square dancers. I don't own plaid. Correction - I own one shirt with a very faint plaid-resembling pattern. No boots, no hat. I wore a black shirt and trouser jeans with ballet slippers and my amazing red-patterned scarf/shawl from Kassala, Sudan. I know, I'm such a bad sport.
c) Square dancing is a calling dance - meaning, they have a guy up front who calls out different moves and you're expected to immediately start moving in a specific pattern. I have serious problems with verbal directions - a big reason why I no longer do casino rueda salsa. Because when you mess up, you mess up the entire group of people dancing, and they start getting peeved looks on their faces, your partner furrows his brow and says, Ok, let's get it right now, and the whole situation is just awkward...
We finally arrived at the church after a false start at a different one (did we really think a church with a building and people that young would have square dancing???), and were immediately plunged into huge hoola-hoop-sized "fruffly" skirts, golden bloomers, panty-hose-enclosed legs ending in sturdy black orthopedic shoes, old men with hair slicked back with Aussie gel, scattered styrofoam cups stained with coffee and old pink lipstick, Wrangler pearl-snap mens' shirts stretched taut over potbellies, tappin' your toe, do-si-do, plain ol' good clean country fun.
I honestly don't know who had more fun - the eleven "teenagers" staring at the caller, trying to listen intently to the dance moves called out, clenching tightly the hand of whatever poor senior citizen was recruited to yank them through each dance move; or the gray-haired woman or man saying, Now go, that way, hold your hand out, stop, pass through, bow to your corner, no this way, no stay! Through half the dance, all of us collapsed in laughter, we at the fact we were so incompetent in our dancing skills and unable to keep a square "square", the older folks at the antics of those youngsters who would periodically break out a hip hop move or a disco hand when the beat suddenly struck us and we simply did whatever felt natural to us - which is certainly not to promenade or make a half-turn star.
All of us "teenagers" - that's what they kept calling us, teenagers, although none of us are under 21, but I suppose that when you're 75, anything under 30 looks like a high schooler to you! - all of us teenagers expressed amazement that by 10 pm, we were ready to keel over from exhaustion, while the older folks kept on dancing, dancing, dancing. Of course when you drink coffee constantly for the first 2 hours, you can handle pretty much anything that comes your way!
Over and over before we left, I heard from the older folks, You bring so much life to our dancing! And I would stop, and look over the room - on average, 50 years' difference between the people now holding each others' hands, laughing as they share a hilarious blunder on the younger's part. Really, we come from different worlds - the America they experienced and grew up in has now transformed into a totally different country. Some of those people may not even live to see the next President inaugerated. Yet what a beautiful thing when those differences are blurred and you discover that you share something with the grey-haired, wrinkly, smiling, bobbing lady next to you; a love of life.
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