Bob Osgood, founder and editor of Sets in Order / Square Dancing magazine, and the associated American Square Dance Society, created a Hall of Fame to recognize significant individuals in the history of square dance. From 1961 to 1983, 34 people were given this recognition, which included a commissioned portrait by artist Gene Anthony. No …
Ted Sannella was an internationally-known caller, choreographer, author, and mentor for many in the traditional square and contra dance community. He published more than 170 dances, including 41 of Ted’s Triplets, a three-couple dance form adapted from English country dance. David Smukler and I have collected stories and photographs from people who knew Ted and plan to …
Contra dancers today see several hundred people at a gathering and think it’s a large crowd; callers of modern western square dancing, on the other hand, can speak from experience of calling for 700 squares at a time. In 1950, the city of Santa Monica, CA, celebrated its Diamond Jubilee. Lloyd Shaw was invited to …
How this collection came to be: My work on the Bob McQuillen documentary, Paid To Eat Ice Cream, helped me realize how many stories of the previous generations of dancers had been lost. The New England Folk Festival one year held a “Remembering Ralph Page” session that attracted fewer than two dozen participants. Some potential participants were committed to other workshops at that same time, to be sure, but many of the people who had danced to Ralph Page simply were no longer alive. As I continued to search for photographs and films and stories from earlier eras of traditional squares and contras, I resolved that no matter what I was able to locate, at least I could ensure that more recent generations left a better record of their involvement.