Wendys Classic Corner Wendys Classic Corner Hi, this is Wendy from Wendy's Classic Corner.

And today we're in the beautiful Mount Lebanon, PA to find out about a historic American dance that is making a comeback.

You want to know what it is?

Stick with me and let's go find out I first called when I was 13, I started square dancing at 12.

So I've been in caller and 48 years.

The role of the caller is to lead the dancers into fun or have fun with the dancers.

So our job is to call the calls that the dancers know.

And, every caller kind of does their own thing.

They have their own style of choreography, because the calls can be mixed up in all kinds of orders.

And that's the excitement about dancing is there's it's a spontaneity response to the caller.

So we all strive to dance to different callers just for the variety.

There's the big call relay that you see halfway is recorded once you move it out.

Grand swing through after a long finish like that, spin the top.

Very nice.

Good.

Two ways.

Linear cycle, hinge control and follow.

Feel.

Nice line forward hands up to the middle and back.

That's good.

How slow to the wheel and needles.

Yeah, yeah.

Hold and sprint clap two Well I belong to many of the local clubs in the local square dance community.

Some of the clubs, like Peanut's.

Where we're at tonight is a Federation club.

There's, I think about half a dozen active federation clubs in our local Western Pennsylvania federation.

But there's also some local clubs that are run independently.

We, sometimes refer to them as crawler run clubs.

Square dance is such a fun activity.

Like like I said to me, it's close to my heart because of of what it means to us as as people, as a nation.

But but on top of that, it's just such a fun activity, where people can get together, where people get good exercise.

I, we have friends through all age groups.

I was at a sport dance recently where there was a six year old and eight year old, a 16 year old, an 18 year old, two 26 year olds, a 35 year old, some in their 40s, some in their 50s and some up into their 80s.

A typical night is square dancing is where we open the doors and we come in and we set up the hall, we set up tables, we set up the chairs, and we set out light refreshments and beverages.

Then the caller brings his equipment in and gets it set up.

As people filter in, we collect the nightly fee and we sell raffle tickets.

Then the night begins.

We start dancing.

We do alternating tips.

The beginner tip or teach tip is for the new people as they come in.

And then we have the more advanced tip for the experienced dancers.

And then at the end of the night, we close shop.

I'm here with one of our new square dancers.

What is your name?

Ben and Ben.

Can you tell me, have you done a lot of square dancing or are you kind of a beginner?

I would definitely say I'm kind of a beginner.

I've done it a couple times in my life.

So enough where a beginner dance, I'm mostly comfortable.

But beyond that, I'm really stressed.

Okay.

And what do you think about square dancing for beginners?

How easy is it for people to pick this up?

Oh, it's surprisingly easy from from my experience.

When I was, recently, doing it again and, like, learning it, I was, appreciating one cool aspect about learning square dancing is that all of the moves are pretty straightforward, and unless you just entirely forget the move, you'll end up where you need to be.

So even if you're struggling with it a bit, you can still go through and do the dance with everyone until you actually start feeling comfortable with it.

And it's I think it's very common for the other couples in your square if they see that you're doing something wrong, to kind of point you in the right direction, like really friendly that way, don't you think?

Oh yeah.

Totally.

There's lots of like, oh head couples, that's you and are like, oh, we're doing this right now.

So it's really helpful.

And, when I, when I was learning recently, even like my partners especially like between, like, little gaps in the music and when we're doing things, they would give me tips and pointers and I'm like, oh, this is so helpful.

And you came here tonight by yourself so people can come and do it.

Well, you don't have to have a partner to do the square dance.

Oh, yeah.

Exactly.

It it might be a little more daunting if you're coming by yourself.

But everyone is super welcoming.

There always plenty of people around.

When when I've come, it's always been like, oh, hey, you come up here and then someone will join you.

And I'm like, all right.

And then someone joins me and it's a great time.

And what would you say to people who have never square dance to encourage them to come out and give it a try?

It's not as scary as it seems in basically every way.

You might think it's scary, and it's actually a lot of fun.

It's kind of relaxing to just learn to go through the motions.

And so it's not just that it's like exciting.

You can be certainly you can make it exciting and fun, but it can also be calming.

So it kind of depends on what you're going for.

You can find both, with square dancing and it's it's really easy to get into.

Very welcoming.

Highly recommend.

So should I give it a try?

Do you think.

Yes.

Yes, I definitely recommend that.

All right.

Let's go try it.

Great.

Sounds fun.

We belong to the Western Pennsylvania Square and rap round dance Federation.

WPSRDF.

That is part of the state federation.

The state federation is part of the national federation, which is the USDA United Square Dancers of America.

And important things about it are.

But, well, the USDA is who we pay insurance to.

If somebody gets hurt and they don't have personal insurance to cover it, that insurance will cover their injuries and helps to protect the venue.

And, you know, various things like that.

The, the Federation clubs mostly follow the old, way that has been followed for decades, which is they have a lesson plan which starts in September and goes into the new year, starting at the very beginning of, of the sport and, all the calls clubs that are doing the SSD, which is social square dancing, a lot of the independent clubs are using the SSD program, which was made by Caller Lab, which is, like I said, social square dancing and, you can come any week, any week you show up and the caller will start teaching at your level, Go!

Ill by the.

circle back, sing with me So many callers belong to an international organization.

There's two that are common ones called Caller Lab, and one's called American Callers Association.

And it's a group that callers belong to that they can pull resources from both of them have websites.

Both of them have lots of content that they could use online to get information.

It's also a good group to, like, share ideas and so forth.

Another thing we get from Caller Lab is our licensing to play music in public.

Both organizations part of their fees pay ASCAP and BMI fees so we can play music in public.

Square dance originated in America.

However, it's, it's roots are in Europe.

Basically.

England.

Ireland.

Scotland.

They had, they had the, country dances and set dances.

But anyway, they came to America with the settlers and, it, it sort of evolved, where as, as they would get dances together, it was basically in the southeast United States, you know, you saw southern states like Virginia down through Georgia, and it went from there to, they wanted to organize it a little bit better.

So that's one that's one they invented calling, where the caller would announce various steps that the dancers would dance to.

All right.

So we got some kids here that are doing the square dance today.

What are your name?

Kenneth CiCi Patrick okay.

Excellent.

And what makes you want to come?

How long have you been square dancing?

First of all, three years.

Five, two.

What made you want to learn to square dance?

Probably suggestions from other people.

It just worked fun.

And they can help me all the time.

I was encouraged by other people.

Okay.

And what would you tell other kids?

Should they join the square dance?

Of course.

Yes.

Of course.

Why should the kids do the square dance?

What would they like about square dance?

Well, probably meeting all the people and having a nice way to exercise.

Maybe they could, like, meet new people and new friends.

Well, it is a way of hot having a hobby and making new friends and exercising.

Yeah.

Excellent.

So we should all get all the kids to come in square dance.

When would that be super fun if we had a whole bunch of kids square dancing?

Yes yes yes, especially since I think that they probably think that only adults can square dance.

That's true.

They probably do think that.

And that's wrong, right?

Anybody can square dance.

That's correct.

Square dancing is actually worldwide.

It's very popular in US, Canada, Japan, Europe.

And the cool part about square dancing is, all the calls are in English when you're in one of the other countries, if you're learning to dance, you might have instruction in their native language, but the calls themselves are actually in English.

Dancing to callers in other parts of the world can be challenging because of their accent.

But it is a universal activity.

You can dance anywhere you want.

Now, at whatever particular level you're dancing out.

There are different levels.

Not only that, you can you can go worldwide.

There are like eight pages of clubs in Germany, Japan.

And we see them, we see people from all over the world come to like national conventions.

And the like.

If you don't know how to square dance, we have lessons.

All the clubs, all the clubs have lessons.

Accessibility.

All the states have square dance clubs, but it's also anywhere around the world you can go square dance.

And most of all, all the calls are done in English.

So why not make it part of your travel plans?

Anyone can learn square dance.

Actually, there are there are, groups that have, they call them handy capables for mentally challenged people.

There are groups in wheelchairs.

There are even equestrian groups.

And I've heard of tractor groups that they would they would call square dances and people would drive tractors around in a square dance formations.

There's a lot of benefits to square dancing.

First of all, it's fun.

Anybody young and old can do it.

There's health benefits of movement, balance and concentration to complete the calls.

Like they say, a body in motion stays in motion.

There's the social aspect.

Instead of sitting home alone and isolated by yourself, come out and join the people.

We have a saying.

Dance in the square.

Make a circle of friends.

I think one of the best things in my mind about square dancing is that people, people are really friendly.

They they really welcome you into the group.

Another very great thing I think about square dancing is we, our dancers don't learn the routine.

They learn the course.

So again, like I said before, the color, you know, makes it interesting by giving them different calls, you get the instruction from the caller and then you apply the instruction.

And while you're doing that, hopefully you're having fun and keeping it a little exercise.

There's so many activities in our world that you just sit and do nothing but like watch TV, for example.

That's why I think square dancing is such a great all around experience, because you get that brainpower, that brain exercise.

It's a activity that people get exercise out, but it doesn't have to be so extreme.

You can even dance to your level of, of what you can handle.

So we can all have fun no matter what our ability is.

And like I said, it's just a good social community, and it's something that we want to have to last in the future and show our, our grandchildren and great grandchildren, great great great grandchildren.