Square Dancing

American Square dancing is danced in a square formation by four couples, each couple forms one side of the square and face the middle of the square. There are two styles of American square. That danced by dancers who normally dance English Country Dances, known as Traditional Square Dances, and that danced by Modern Western Square dancers.

Square dances are directed by the caller who calls a sequence of figures. The call can either be a patter call, where the caller speaks the call rythmically, or a singing call where the caller calls the figures to a tune or song.

Traditional  Square dances are walked through by the dancers before dancing the dance itself so that the dancers are familair with the figures and patterns. Because of this the dancers do not need to know the figures before the dance. 

In Modern Western Square Dances the figures or calls are not walked through before the dance and therefore the dancers do not know what calls are comming next. It is therefore necessary for the dancers to know the calls, or concepts, which are a compilation of calls, thorougly so that they can be danced as the caller calls them. Modern Western Squares are therefore classified into levels which identifies the number of calls that the dancers need to understand to enable them to finish the dance.