What is Square Dance?
A square dance is a dance for four couples (eight dancers) arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, facing the middle of the square. The various square dance movements are based on the steps and figures used in traditional folk dances and social dances from many countries. Some of these traditional dances include Morris dance, English Country Dance, Caledonians and the quadrille. Square dancing is enjoyed by people around the world, and people around the world are involved in the continuing development of this form of dance.
In most American forms of square dance, the dancers are prompted or cued through a sequence of steps (square dance choreography) by a caller to the beat (and, in some traditions, the phrasing) of music. The caller may be one of the dancers or musicians, but nowadays is more likely to be on stage, giving full attention to directing the dancers.
What is Round Dance?
Choreographed Ballroom Dancing is a unique form of social ballroom dancing. Dancers come together at local clubs and organized functions and clinics throughout the United States and abroad to learn a new dance or two and add it to their repertoire. These dances are choreographed, as a ballet is, to a specific piece of music. The dance routines and dance figures conform predominantly to international ballroom standards and consist of all the standard dance rhythms ... Waltz, Rumba, Cha Cha, Foxtrot, Tango, Bolero, Jive, West Coast Swing, etc. Choreographed Ballroom Dancing, sometimes called Round Dancing, has evolved over the past fifty years and has an ever-expanding inventory of over ten thousand choreographed dance routines.
The dancer learns the routines as well as the names of all the dance steps in each rhythm so that when the music is played the couple can follow the cues that are spoken on the microphone by the Cuer, just in time to prompt the next step to be danced. It is this aspect that makes Choreographed Ballroom Dancing especially unique. It is also challenging for the mind as well as the body and a joy to behold as every couple on the floor dances each routine in unison.
A square dance is a dance for four couples (eight dancers) arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, facing the middle of the square. The various square dance movements are based on the steps and figures used in traditional folk dances and social dances from many countries. Some of these traditional dances include Morris dance, English Country Dance, Caledonians and the quadrille. Square dancing is enjoyed by people around the world, and people around the world are involved in the continuing development of this form of dance.
In most American forms of square dance, the dancers are prompted or cued through a sequence of steps (square dance choreography) by a caller to the beat (and, in some traditions, the phrasing) of music. The caller may be one of the dancers or musicians, but nowadays is more likely to be on stage, giving full attention to directing the dancers.
What is Round Dance?
Choreographed Ballroom Dancing is a unique form of social ballroom dancing. Dancers come together at local clubs and organized functions and clinics throughout the United States and abroad to learn a new dance or two and add it to their repertoire. These dances are choreographed, as a ballet is, to a specific piece of music. The dance routines and dance figures conform predominantly to international ballroom standards and consist of all the standard dance rhythms ... Waltz, Rumba, Cha Cha, Foxtrot, Tango, Bolero, Jive, West Coast Swing, etc. Choreographed Ballroom Dancing, sometimes called Round Dancing, has evolved over the past fifty years and has an ever-expanding inventory of over ten thousand choreographed dance routines.
The dancer learns the routines as well as the names of all the dance steps in each rhythm so that when the music is played the couple can follow the cues that are spoken on the microphone by the Cuer, just in time to prompt the next step to be danced. It is this aspect that makes Choreographed Ballroom Dancing especially unique. It is also challenging for the mind as well as the body and a joy to behold as every couple on the floor dances each routine in unison.