Here’s the story the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog/section:
Where did square dancing come from? Square dance caller and historian Phil Jamison may have found out. It’s taken the teacher of math and Appalachian studies at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, N.C., over 10 years to unearth pieces of the puzzle that have been missing for centuries.
He and other square dance historians say the story starts in France.
There, dances like quadrilles were all the rage in the late 18th century and like today’s square dances, featured four couples in a square. After the American Revolution, former colonials rejected all things British, including the country’s dances. More en vogue French instructors crossed the pond to teach their trendy moves. French terms like “do-si-do,” “allemande” and “promenade” still remain part of the modern square dancing lexicon.
The dances done in early America then didn’t have a “caller,” or someone who yells out the moves to dancers, like square dancing today. Rather, the expectation, Jamison says, was that dancers went to school, memorized the moves, then went to the ball.
The Wall Street Journal’s big companion piece is on the efforts to save the last square dance. Cool.