https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8iE04ExOUs

https://youtu.be/YRf4L_BRK6w

https://youtu.be/vUTyE_n1D2k

And this is really the case on many Jamborees or specials. People meet who like to travel and have fun dancing. An excellent leisure activity that urges everybody to become part of it … Really?

The level of dancing is high and the pace is fast. The figures are challenging and most dancers manage them with ease. This is also the impression you often read in American forums.  “In Germany the pace ist much higher and they dance at least FULL Mainstream and PLUS”. This impression is confirmed again and again by persons who lived here or still live here (Al Stevens, Kenny Reese, Walt Burr) and those the are coming here for specials like Tony Oxendine of Johnny Preston.

This is the picture we all have about Square Dance in Germany? Only good dancers? All travel many miles and Square Dance is their only leisure activity? All dancers want complex choreography? They want Scoot Back once and a half or half zoom or Dive thru from lines?

Listening to Caller discussions this seems to be true. And yes – there are almost 70 groups in Germany who left MS and Plus behind and dance A1-C3B. For them this picture is real. And those Callers are often the opionion leaders and very active in the activity.

I would like to talk about another face of Square dance. It is the view of small clubs that hardly survive. It is the view of dancers who are poorly trained. Who have problems to find their place in a formation and problems to walk with the music. It is the view of “bad or uncertain dancers”.

There are many people who like dancing (or started to like it after joining us). But they have a job, a family and other interests and leisure activities. They have other priorities besides Square Dance. Do we consider this? Are multi-cycle classes the solution for this?

There are callers who have never called to more than 2 square at a time. Calles that HAVE TO compromise. But they are behind the Mic week after week and have produced 100th of dancers. They almost never considered in the official Square Dance world. I call them “Every-Day-Callers” opposed to special and festival callers.

I will also talk about “The Proposal”. I’m not too much in favour of this move as it will bind ressources that we better could invest into other approaches.

My thoughts are mainly based on MY own experiences and observations. But I’m convinced the same is true for many other callers out there.

The “bad ” Dancers

2-3 months later I was urged to join the SJN. That is a group of young dancers (still existing today) who met 6 times a year for 24 hours on saturday/sunday. They held workshops and classes. When I arrived there I had no clue about Square thru or Ocean Wave. After 1 year (6 meeting) I was graduated and they told me “You’re good”.

Then I thought I could dance everywhere. I visited some specials in Hamburg and soon I knew better. After 1-2 tips I backed away and only watched. At home we were still dancing and even danced in public.

Today I know that I was a “BAD” dancer. I was not properly trained and not ready to join the “wide world of SD”.

1987 I dropped out faking some nonsense reason and did not come back until 1995. I joined a class with a good caller and finally understood what I have missed the first time.

1997 I showed interest in calling and early 1998 I joined my first Callerschool with Chris Kindl and Hans-Gerd Gasser. I owe to these 2 men that I kept going and I’m still doing the job after 25 years.

Recently I was filling in for another caller. A couple came and said “Great that you are here again –  At least you can sing”. I thanked and must have looked puzzled. The next comment was “Well – we have other experiences here”. A recognized that dancers are judging us. The think about “better” and “worse”. The have a ranking.

During Corona – in one of the Zoom meeting – someone talked about ranking. His point was: If there is a ranking we will have the “upper 10%”. In Germany I would say this is about 30-50 persons who are to be seen at many festivals and special dances. But if the is a upper 10% there are 90% mediocre and bad callers. When judging yourself – where are you?

I remember a callerschool where the coach told a caller “The music and you are not yet friends. Maybe you need a vocal coach”. Not long ago I met this caller again between his dancers who admired him.

I have heard callers where you have problems listening and I have seen callers who – after many years – still use a Windows 95 laptop and less that 100 music titles.

This brings me to another aspect: money. Not every caller is capable of investing money in the latest equipment and buy new music each week. For most callers – at least in Germany – earning money with SD is not possible. The starting investment (equipment, music, education) is expensive and later much money is needed for re-investments. But still some callers are in there for making money.

To make it more complicated:  A good callers needs many qualifications: He should be a good singer, a good choreograph, should have social abilities and be a good teacher. I believe it is very difficult to be in the top 10% in each category. This means the “bad singer” may have other excellent abilities that make him the hero with his dancers. So – when are you a real bad caller?

However some caller produce “bad dancers”.

Whether we like the fact or not – I believe there are callers that are not in the upper 10% of the ranking. Are we able to accept that? Would we be ready to let dancers officially judge us? I’m afraid that is not the case.

The time factor

We often forget about what I call the “Time Factor”. Many things are influencing Square Dance. This was different 50 years ago.

SSD is supposed to be taught in 12-14 week. The possibly coming MS50 should also make multy-cycle classes possible. For todays mainstream Callerlab recommends 58 hours. With 2 hours a week this is 29 weeks. I always wondered why the 18 missing calls (between MS and SSD) should take 15 weeks? Or why do we need less hours for SSD? In Germany callers often try to teach from September to early summer (app. 9 months).

But what if you have less than 8 students? Then you need to integrate class into the club night. One hour befor or after the clubnight or alternating tips? Then this reduced dance time to one hour and according to Callerlab you should use 58 weeks? Sometimes only half an hour is left for students. Do the math yourself. How do you solve this dilemma? Do you require your students to learn faster and produce “bad dancers”?

Then consider the individual problems. Dancers get sick; Dancer travel on vacation; the caller may take a leave for vacation; you get family visit; its your birthday on club night … I could continue over and over. The result is alway: the student misses a clubnight. They do not know the calls learned that week. Do you ignore this and continue? I have always tried to step back and help.

I always wonder how others handle this. Doesn’t this happen at your classes?

My extreme situation I had to handle was that I had students on 4 different levels. Due to circumstances one only had a few calls from Basic 1 and there was a student who had only 5 calls to go before she finished class. As a result some of my classes lasted 2 years. And that is not a problem unless some dancers try to convince the students that the fun starts when visiting other clubs. Why don’t we just organize more student dances?

Again: How do you handle this. My assumptions are all not good:

• You are just lucky and all are there every week
• You have sufficient angels that come a second night to separate class
• You are just cheating and you need longer as estimated
• You increase the tempo of learning and produce “bad dancers”

Whatever the reason is. We produce dancers that are not ready for the “wide world of Square Dance”. There nobody takes care of the newbies.

I remember a couple at the “Herbstdance” in Bremen with Kenny Reese. The came into our square and introduced themselves as newbies. The FIRST CALLS of the FIRST TIP were “Heads sqin the top; Recycle; Swing thru; Scoot Back” and it continued like that. Can you understand that this couple was not seen again? Hopefully they had an “Every-day-caller” at home who rebuilt their confidence. Or did they just give up like me many years before?

Small Clubs

1999 I founded my own club. For long years we were only 8-10 people. I had a lady who called each member each week “If YOU don’t come we can’t dance” was here plea. And she almost always managed to produce a full square. We had people coming and going and by and by we grew. Before Corona we often had 3 squares and we were sure that we could dance each week. Meanwhile we are back to Square 1 – only now we use WhatsApp instead of “our Erika”.

I never could separate class and club. Once we had 7 people joining us. 2 left because they thought it was line dance. On couple got sick and the other left during Corona (Maybe they found out the yearly fee was due). One lady was left who now dances successfully everywhere in Germany – but still has had no graduation.

I hear again and again about small groups in Germany. Sometimes you see videos on facebook where ONE square is dancing in a BIG hall. Acustics is bad and hardy manageable. I admire these groups. THEY DANCE! and despite the circumstances they are smiling and have fun.

This is the other face of Square Dance: No big halls with 100th of people in an extraordinary athmosphere … no 8 people with poorly sounding music. They all dance Square Dance. Some of these people also visit specials and jamborees to get another feeling – however they come back to their group.

But also the other who do NOT visit specials, who are NOT able to do all calls from all positions, who a satisfied with one evening per week – they are customers of us callers. Isn’t it clear that without these people – these “bad dancers” and “Left Foot Charlies” many clubs would no longer exist?

But one question remains: How do we manage to make those clubs bigger (lets say 3 squares)? How do we get them through the door. I’m pretty sure we will not do this by changing levels, choreo or a smaller number of calls.

The Every-Day-Caller

I often refer to myself as the Every-day-Caller. I’m running may small group for 25 years now. 2011-2014 I tried to do the same with another group – but it folded as too many dancers had other things to persue in addition to Square Dance. I had to accept that they had other priorities.

In 25 years it was only 3 to 4 times I had the opportunity to call for more than 3 squares. The standard is one Square. Also the clubs that hired me to fill in normally did not have more than 2 squares. I do not call on specials or jamborees – Only AT HOME for MY DANCERS. I’m not complaining. I like it this way and I still love doing it.

A german caller said in a blog “Every callers dream is to call on a jamboree”. I do not agree. No – not every Caller.

But this has consequences for my abilities. Although I know all definitions well and are up to date with Square dance topics I have to focus on other things.

I’m a genius to shorten singing calls and keep the square going with standard and easy choreo. When dancers are only capable of doing 116 beats there is almost no singing call left I can use as produces. I have to shorten it (leave out Scoot back; 8 chain 4 etc). I know about the disabilities of MY dancers can call accordingly. Some do not manage Box the gnat? – Well use pass thru and Uturnback. and so on. My creativity got lost over time as I had to concentrate on other things.

I let them the illusion that the dance full mainstream and that there is no difference to other dancers. Sometimes when we have visitors I try to speed up to give those that can do it a good time.

Am I a “bad Caller”? Well I certainly do not belong to the upper 10%. But also the “bad caller” do good things. Without them or activity would no longer exist:

• I created many many new Square dancers. Whether they dance today or not – they are talking positive about the activity
• The consequences are not yet local. I had a lady from East Germany who came to our area. She look for social contacts and found Square Dance. Later I heard her sister had to leave for south Germany. What did they do? Off course – join Square Dance. There are many stories like this one. By doing whatever form of Square Dance we have a positive effect.
• Each week I help a number of people to leave their “normal” environment and live in a different world for 2 hours. If I manage that they leave the hall smiling – I did my job and I’m happy.

For me Square Dance is more that a number of Calls that need to be handled as complicate as possible. It is not about a number of calls and levels. It is not about calling for as many people as possible. It is not about interpreting programs as intelligent as possible. And it is not about money.

For me the purpose is to use music and make people move to predefined actions. While doing so a feeling evolves that we call FUN. We feel good and want more of this drug. This is Square Dance for me. This is way I still do this job.

And if I’m not wrong there are many many Every-Day-Callers.

Advertizing

But back to the question how to gain new dancers. Remember: they never heard about Square Dance. They are not interested in levels, choreo of outfits.

When it comes to advertizing for our activity we are all amateurs. Each club is trying something. Most clubs in Germany have their own homepage. The content is the same to an large extent. You can often see that lots of efforts has been invested. But the result – with only few exceptions – remain mediocre. Why don’t we have one big professional appearance about the general aspects of Square dance – supported by professinal videos and flyers. Each club could concentrate on the individual aspects (How to get there; when they were founded; maybe their caller).

As far as advertinzing is concerned I have no ideas. We had a full page on a weekly gazette that is send to each household in the area. Done very well with invitations etc. The result was ZERO. Nobody showed up. On the other hand we purchased a 3 line ad in a newspaper and several times 2-3 dancers showed up. Can somebody explain. The only thing that always work is the “word from mouth to mouth”.

In that regard I can understand the multy-cycle approach as more dancers pull more dancers. But still how do you get the first bunch through the door?

In Germany we have app 400 clubs with about 8000 active dancers after Corona. Why don’t we manage be become professional and organize events that will be seen nation-wide and would build a basis for local advertizing. Why not a national Square Dance day where each Club participates accompanied with campaign in social media?

I had to organize everything myself. But I admit to be an amateur and the results are accordingly.

2 times I had calls from the media. The result: We represented Square dance on radio. This was initiated by reporters that look for odd things and report about it – mainly by doing it themselves. One time a local TV station reported about the reporter with us in the background. So we ended up on local television. But you suddenly get a call and then you call some dancers that are available and do your best. Were we prepared – NO.

Question: When was Square dance in television (nationwide – not local news)

Frage: Wann war Square Dance zuletzt BUNDESWEIT im Fernsehen? The best I can remember was 1979 with Lothar Weidich and Ron Everheart at Freddy Quinn (a german showmaster and entertainer of the era who happend to be a country music fan).

Does “The Proposal” help?

First of all: For me “The proposal” is the attempt to complete the developement that Jerry Story and others started with T2000. Then came the ABC program and when SSD came this was accepted by Callerlab. “The Proposal” is the “Trojan horse – according to Ted Lizotte) that will make SSD (now Called MS50) the only start program. The Plus program will no longer be attracting people and most people will remain in mainstream (50).

In America this will have no big effect on most groups. The “brainiacs” at MIT who learn 0 to Plus in 14 weeks – no problems. The many Plus Clubs (although many only dance soft plus- MS + the fun calls) no changes will be made. The mainstream clubs will reduce their program by 18 calls and almost nobody will recognize.

What is missing in these discussions are the long term consequences:

Less people will join Plus clubs and these will possibly die because nothing is coming from Mainstram. This is what hardcore SSD proponents always have said in open : “Let them do their thing and they gradually will die”. A new Square Dance world is created with dancers that have to learn less and callers whose education becomes shorter a easier. Although – I believe you need to be a much better caller to make MS interesting with 20 calls less.

In German there are app 140 clubs dancing MS AND Plus. For some this means that there are dancers who have once learned plus and when appropriate there is a Plus tip. For other clubs this means a separate club night with Plus only. In between there are many mix forms. These clubs have to sort out how to handle the situation if “The Proposal” is approved. Become a full Plus Club? and forget about plus? I see a lot of potential for conflicts. Do we need this?

The other points made in favour of “The Proposal” (workbooks; more callers etc) can not convince me. Look at the workbooks for SSD. This is just a compilation of sequences (25 per evening; 12 evenings). Altough they are well sorted and in teaching order – what good are they? If a caller is not capable of coming up with sequences for calls he is teaching … he is in the bottom 10% of the ranking and will not produce good dancers. 

I’m not member of ECTA nor Callerlab. So I will not be able to vote on “The Proposal”.

However I could get rid of the whole Allemande Thar crap and forget about the Tag family. I could concentrate on standard application. There is enough material to keep dancers happy. Just in my database for my program CallerToolBox there are more than 600 singing calls and 800 sequences SS-SS with SSD calls only.

The shrinking of Plus clubs does not affect me. But even in my small club there will be problems. Some of the remaining dancrs will not recognize that something changes. But there are some that wanted to stay with mainstream but still want “more”. When there were enough people I offerend them extended mainstream on a second evening at we had much fun. Now they tell me that there may be other options (line dance etc) when the number of calls that they had so much trouble to learn will be reduced.

So my position is: “The Proposal” will not really help us and there is a big possibility it will hurt.

Only negative? What would you do?

So far, a lot of this sounds negative. But it’s not meant that way, it describes a different reality of the square dance scene. And think about it: in all discussions, one thing is always implicitly assumed as a fact: Square dancing is declining and we have big problems. Then there are discussions about lists, clothing, choreography, caller training or even how to promote the “dance aspect” of SD. These are all important topics, but they hardly change the feeling of indulging in a hobby that is doomed to extinction. The only question is how long it will last.

So of course I have to put up with the question: Despite all the criticism – what would YOUR solution be? Well, Ted Lizotte keeps repeating in his lectures “There is not THE ONE SOLUTION to solve all problems” He also honestly sees his proposal as just a step in the right direction. And I agree with him on that.

But my analysis goes in a different direction. The core of the problem is not enough dancers. When there were 10,000 or more participants at a jamboree in America, there were no problems. Bad dancers were not a problem – they were simply “gone”. Bad callers were not a problem – there were enough alternatives. Since the people came by themselves, you didn’t need any advertising – and if someone in the class didn’t come along – OK, that wasn’t a big deal.

So the first goal must be to attract new dancers. This requires a joint and coordinated effort to achieve this. We need to define our target group more clearly (really 8-80? My older dancers tell me “Oh, you’re kicking us out? I’m 80 now”). We need to advertise professionally. When 1 club tries to advertise SD there is hardly any reaction.

But what if all 400 clubs in Germany were to advertise simultaneously in all possible media? With uniform catchy slogans? Accompanied by appearances, flash mobs and more? With campaigns on Facebook, Instagram and co? Accompanied by catchy videos and pictures? Where our SD national team presents itself? But this would have to be professionally organized. We won’t get very far with our hobby approach. Our current organizations ECTA and EAASDC are not equipped for this at the moment. There is a lot of potential among both callers and clubs, but unfortunately we are not using it.

The aim should be to get as many people as possible “through the door”. Once they are there, it is up to us – every single caller and club board member – to offer them “fun” from day one and then send them home with a smile. There they will tell everyone how great it is with us and thus generate new dancers. It’s fine to discuss lists etc. alongside this, but the main focus should be on attracting new dancers (and new callers).

Print Page