Square Dancing History

Square dancing is more than just traditional dancing, it is considered to be a true American institution. It started out in New England back in the times when settlers were coming from different parts of the world, bringing their different cultures and folk dances with them. Those dances were quite popular in their countries of origin, so they blended the different styles rather than giving them up. We are talking about the minuet, the quadrille, the schottische and so on and so forth. As the communities developed, so did the dance repertoire. People started adding to them and the dances were developed in a unique original style. Because the dances were a bit complicated it was not easy for dancers to remember all the moves and their sequence. But in each group, there would be a person who would remember the moves better than everyone else: the prompter. They would all look at him when they forgot what was next and often enough, the prompter would teach the dancer new moves, learned from other communities.

As urban civilization developed, square dancing faded out and at one point it seemed long forgotten. What you probably didn't know is that around 1930, Henry Ford himself became very interested in the revival of square dancing as a part of his project aimed at restoring New England culture. Square dancing became more and more popular again especially because it's vibrant, dynamic and innovative. Americans have introduced people from different foreign cultures to square dancing and they received it quite enthusiastically.

While barn dancing is usually associated with smaller events, family events, it can be used in relation to bigger events too and although one cannot reduce barn dancing to square dancing, barn dancing can feature square dancing among other kinds of dances as well.