It’s Sunday evening and dozens of people are playing ping-pong in a room at Berkeley’s Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center. It’s the end of a three-day traveling music festival called “Dare to Be Square West,” and people are walking, stomping and balling.
A man standing like a shepherd looking after his flock shouts instructions from the stage. “Take your partner for a walk!” he shouts, as people form lines, dividing and reassembling. “That was backwards – it was good, though,” he said. “Now shut up the buffalo!”
Yes, that innocent activity that your grandparents probably met – square dancing – has a moment here in the Bay Area. This is the first time that “Dare to Be Square West” has been held here in more than ten years, and it was received with great grace. When it takes off, many local groups will keep the dance going – all over the Bay, including clubs with names like Lucky Steppers, South Bay Squares and Oaktown 8s.
The actor on stage right now is called Tony Mates and he’s come all the way from Seattle to throw down – or rather, gee-down.
“When I was a boy, we had all kinds of music and it was always changing. Rock and roll went from Elvis to the Beatles. Classical music went from Bach to Rachmaninoff,” he told the crowd. “When I first heard this old music, I said to myself, ‘It’s good the way it is.’ It will change, but there’s something about it that’s fun and welcoming, and unnecessary trying to do anything but ‘get it.’
A lot of people are getting it, according to Evie Ladin, an Oakland singer and caller — someone who directs square dances with her mouth. Ladin says that these ancient dances are becoming more and more popular. Just a few weeks earlier, the Ashkenaz Center threw its annual “Lord of the Rings Costume Party Square Dance”. Even Google has had its employees perform routine dances, Ladin said.
“We’re seeing a huge influx of new dancers and the next generation, like high school and college students. And it’s really exciting,” he said. “We’ve got a lot going for people who are really looking for something social and that requires little prior experience to jump in.”
Mike Pogue is a member of the Rockin’ Jokers club, which hosts weekly dances at Cambrian Park United Methodist Church in San Jose. Says Pogue, who lives in Sunnyvale: “In the 1970s, that was a really high price, wasn’t it?
“That went down when the internet came out, Netflix came out, and there were more options for square dancing. Then the pandemic hit and we lost a lot of dancers who moved to be closer to their kids or to retire,” he said. “The Rockin’ Jokers were 30 members in 2021. But now we’re down to about 100 dancers, so we’re really coming back.”
It would be hard to kill square dancing, given how ingrained it is in American culture. A style influenced by early English and French settlers, then Native Americans and Black slaves, it was made a national folk dance by an act of Congress in 1982. Today about half of the nation’s states claim it as their official dance — including California, which separates it from Western swing — though there are holdovers like Wisconsin (the polka) and Hawaii (the hula).
Some may say that square dancing has an image problem. They may have painful memories of doing it in elementary school, during the child’s development when they had no desire to interact with the opposite sex. It’s been called hokey, the pastime of Appalachian hillbillies and worse.
“The popular story is that Henry Ford was trying to fight the rise of jazz. He was afraid that African-American culture would take over, so he really encouraged square dancing,” said Ladin.
But the truth is that it is enjoyed by many groups. There is the International Association of Gay Square Dance Clubs and the US Handicapable Square Dance Association. Country music fans do it at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, and intellectuals do it at MIT at a club called Tech Squares (not just a square but a “cubed”).
There is even a movement to make square dancing gender neutral, avoiding traditional terms like “gents” and “ladies” for whichever side your partner is on. Sometimes Ladin uses “larks” and “robins” for the left and right sides, respectively.
“It’s a lot of fun and the people are very friendly,” Pogue said. “As a caller, I can tell hundreds of people at a time what to do. So I’m a motivational person, right? I see it as my goal in life now to create the maximum number of hours of entertainment for people.”
Any doubts people may have before hitting the floor are often dispelled when they enter the main dance floor. That is facilitated by the verbal skills and intelligence of the caller.
“He calls in a way that tells people what they should do before they do it, so it goes well,” said Ladin. “Sometimes I call it ‘white rapping,’ because there’s a lot of patter that goes with it. It’s just things you’re going to say to make it fun and interesting.”
A younger crowd is interested in square dancing because of its entertainment aspect, Ladin said. The staff likes to say it’s “friendship set to music.” Despite the fact that you can’t stare at the screen, random encounters and even weddings have led to strangers engaging in square dancing. That’s why he calls the style “old-time Tinder.”
Besides, it’s a good thing to be part of one’s ball – er, square – of energy.
“I keep coming back to the connection, where people are motivated and moving together,” Ladin said. “It’s just like a rave, when people hear that” – he mimics the electronic beat, intz! intz! intz! – “And it really releases endorphins.”
Want to try it yourself? Regular square dances are held at these times and are open to all dancers:
Third Fridays at Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St., Berkeley; @eastbaysquaredance
Second Fridays at the Polish Club, 3040 22nd St., San Francisco; @feralfridaysquaredance
The Rockin’ Jokers meet Wednesdays at Cambrian Park United Methodist Church, 1919 Gunston Way, San Jose; rockinjokers.com
