Learning to square dance

Title

Contributors

Abstract

Learning to dance as a youngster; wouldn't get into a set until you learned how; people learned to dance mostly by watching, but neighbors would help you learn; you also learned to dance at recess time in the schools

Language

English

Genre

interview

Resource Type

Audio non-musical

Rights

Courtesy of Canadian Museum of History.

Member of

Bowing Down Home Oral Histories

Transcript

File: hughesemmett06-oh-learningtodance_M.mp3

Speakers:

EH – Emmett Hughes

KP – Curator Ken Perlman

EH: When I was a young lad, you learned how to dance a set before you ever tried it. The people would - If there's four couples, they'd dance a set just to show you how it was done. And you didn't get into a set until you could dance it and knew what to do, they'd tell you you'd have to learn first.

KP: How did you learn to square dance then?

EH: If there's three couples, you'd come in and they told you what to do, until you got that you could do it. You didn't just go to a dance and start dancin' a set. You'd perhaps dance them for a year before B Well you'd do that perhaps when you were 10 year old tryin' to dance a set. Same as learnin' to step-dance, you learned that goin' to school. And the schools during recess time, anybody who was old enough to dance a set they were practicin' there. But everybody in the set that time was doin' the same thing, and it was good to watch, too.

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