Museum Corner July 2021
Square dancers Janet and Larry King’s photo can be found among the pictures in the square dance exhibit. Larry is a former museum president and vice president, who along with Janet, helped to create the outstanding museum facility that exists today. In 2018, they were awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for their many decades of immeasurable dedication to the museum.
Allemande, Do Si Do, Promenade and Sashay
By Becky Buher
Dancers found fun, fellowship and recreation in the dance club represented in the current exhibit located in the museum’s gallery front window. It’s fun to see.
When the Stone City Squares club dissolved in 1986, the club was reorganized into the
Stone City Squares and Rounds. Meeting that year in August at Clara Lee Mohr’s home, the square dance graduates decided to create the new club and follow the organization of the old Stone City Squares club.
The club organized in a democratic fashion with a board of directors and officers elected to guide club activities, hire callers and promote square dancing for the fun, fellowship and recreation of all square dancers. The club had beginner lessons each fall and taught recruits the fun of modern western square dancing.
It was a not-for-profit organization with club by-laws filed with the State of Indiana.
The first president of the new club was Dave Williams, and he also became the club caller. The secret of square dancing is being able to follow the instructions of the caller.
In 1990, Williams spoke of square dancing’s popularity. “Western style square dancing is not a hoe down barn dance, not clogging. It is a dance anyone and everyone can do.”
In the words of dancer Clara Lee Mohr that same year, “It is fun and it’s good clean fun. There is no drinking or anything like that… We just have a barrel of fun.” Another dancer that year was Gale Moody who said, “It’s good exercise and you meet so many nice people.
Dunn Memorial Hospital’s Wellness Center sponsored square dance lessons each fall as part of their physical fitness program, but one of the club’s biggest challenges was finding suitable locations for lessons and dances. In 1991, the community came through for the group and the Bedford North Lawrence School system and the First Presbyterian Church let them use their facilities.
The club soon became one of the top clubs in Southern Indiana and received numerous accolades and trophies. Graduation dances included dancers from area clubs. In 1992, dancers came to the celebration at Spring Mill Inn from clubs in Bloomington, Mitchell, Linton, Jasper, Nashville, Martinsville, Grayville and Brownstown with 110 square dancers at that event.
According to the ultimate authority, Wikipedia, “Square dances contain elements from numerous traditional dances and were first documented in 16th-century England, but they were also quite common in France and throughout Europe. Early square dances, particularly English country dances and French quadrilles, traveled to North America with the European settlers.”
A square dance is a dance for four couples (eight dancers in total) arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, facing the middle of the square.
In modern social round dancing, dancers move in a circular counter-clockwise pattern around the dance floor.
The following are a few of the caller’s dance terms:
Circle Left: All eight dancers join hands and walk in a left circle.
Allemande Left: Move in which two facing dancers take left hands or forearms, turn halfway around to the left, let go, and step forward.
Do Si Do: A movement in which two dancers approach each other and circle back to back, then return to their original positions.
Right and Left Grand: All eight dancers in the set, moving in a circular fashion, execute a series of four alternating hand pull-bys. Men go counter-clockwise around the ring, and ladies travel clockwise.
Promenade: Promenade is a basic dance move. The name comes from the French word for "walk", and is a basic description of the dance action.
Sashay: Partners circle each other by taking sideways steps.
Through the years, finding suitable locations for lessons and dances continued to be difficult. And then there was the COVID 19 pandemic. The Stone City Squares and Rounds club disbanded last year.
The current exhibit was made possible by club members, Wanda and Merian Jones. They graciously donated the club’s pictures from events through the years, as well as trophies and colorful fashions and accessories.
Don’t miss the limestone exhibits in the gallery. Styles of Indiana Limestone Columns in Residential Architecture along the Stone Belt is the work of Jeeyea Kim and W. Dorian Bybee of the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design at Indiana University. Nearby is a digital presentation of local limestone architecture as well as limestone carvings and artifacts from the museum’s permanent collection.
Source: The Times-Mail, Jan. 26, 1991,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_dance