Traditional Square Dance - Regional Styles

Regional Styles

Traditional square dances have been classified into three major types: Northeastern, Southeastern, and Western. The first two have distinctive and unique characteristics; the Western type is thought to be a blend of the two. There are many regional and local styles of square dancing; each has been adapted through the years from one or more of the three major types.

The Northeastern tradition, descended from the 18th-century cotillion and the 19th-century quadrille, comprises primarily figures in which the action is initiated by a facing pair of couples, either the heads or sides. Many of the basic movements (such as "ladies chain" and "right and left") that make up the figures are common to the entire Northeastern repertoire. As in its ancestors the cotillion and quadrille, the movements in this style of square dance are synchronized with the phrases of the music. If the dancers know a particular dance by heart, they can execute it without calls, and indeed some communities that dance quadrille-type squares do so without the aid of a caller.

Areas where Northeastern squares have been documented include Cape Breton Island, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ontario, New England, Upstate New York, Michigan, and parts of Pennsylvania.

The Southeastern tradition, whose origin is still uncertain, comprises primarily figures in which a single couple visits each of the other couples in turn. The structure is not dependent on the four-couple square formation, and the dance is often done in a large circle containing any number of couples. (By the 1920s some communities had adopted a system in which every other couple led out at the same time.) Each figure (such as "Bird in the Cage") is unique, being made up of a series of movements that appear in no other dance; typically the whole figure has a name but its constituent movements do not. The dance is generally not synchronized with the musical phrase, although the dancers move in time with the beat. At the direction of the caller, the active couple may execute the same figure with each couple it visits, or a different figure with each couple. In either case the caller chooses the figures from a local repertoire of a dozen or two, each figure being danced the same way whenever it is chosen.

Areas where Southeastern squares have been documented include the southern Appalachian Mountains and adjacent regions (Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia) and the Ozarks (Missouri and Arkansas).

The Western tradition appears to have developed as settlers from the eastern United States took their local dance forms along as they moved west. It combines elements of the quadrille and visiting-couple traditions.

Areas where traditional Western squares have been documented include Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Texas, and Arizona.

As interest in square dancing increased during the 20th century, schoolteachers and recreation leaders began using these dances in their programs. These leaders learned not only from local callers but also from books, recordings, and correspondence with other leaders. The result has been a blurring of the lines between regional styles; since the 1920s, callers have been increasingly likely to incorporate in their programs (knowingly or not) calls and figures from styles outside their own area, and even from modern Western square dancing. Some dances composed by modern Western callers in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but no longer used in the modern Western network, are now thought of as "traditional".