File: oconnorattwood06-oh-musichome_breakdowns_M.mp3
Speakers:
AO – Attwood O'Connor
KP – Curator Ken Perlman
AO: They used to come in, all the neighbors would come in there, it was a gathering place for all the young people in the community at that time. We used to play and dance, all square dancing, mostly. We used to dance what they called the old eight hand reels.
KP: You did the eight-hand reels?
AO: Yes, My father used to put us through it, and my mother.
KP: I believe they used to call them breakdowns?
AO: Yeah. I couldn't go through one today, I forget how they were done. But there was very little swinging. Instead of swinging you'd have step dance.
KP: It was something like a square dance but done with stepping?
AO: Yeah. Instead of swinging, they'd step dance. That's where I learned to step dance, well all of us did.
AO confirms: another name for eight-hand reels was Abreakdowns@
AO: Then we used to dance quadrilles too, at the same time [late 20s, early 30s]. It was very shortly after that, that you never saw the eight hand reels... And they used to dance the Queen Lancers.
18:30
KP: you said back in >92 that there were five figures to the lancers. Now, in most other areas I've been told there were only four?
AO: One figure they never bothered dancing. I don't know why
KP: What else happened at your house in old times?
21:00
AO: They'd be all down there the young people, and my father'd [Phillip O'
Connor] be puttin' them through different dances. He was a beautiful step dancer. There'd be maybe 25 or 30 in the house. They'd be there till 11, 12 o'clock at night. They'd be there, dancin', singin, everything else. We used to have a lot of fun with the fiddle, guitar, the organ, that's what we used. In later years we had a banjo mandolin B I played that one. I used to [also] play the autoharp, the piano and the organ, the mouth organ, and the jew's harp.
