Voice of the Mid-Columbia | Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, Wash. |
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closeSunday, Oct. 04, 2009
Get moving to the music: Tri-City square dancers hooked
By Paula Horton, Herald staff writer
KENNEWICK -- Learning how to allemande, do-si-do and promenade may sound like a challenge -- especially after realizing those are just three of the 68 moves in a style of square dancing called mainstream.
But, while getting all 68 steps down can be a very involved process, it shouldn't turn potential dancers away from the official Washington dance, longtime square dancers say.
"It's becoming a dying art, but it is a lot of fun," said Mary Stultz. "You don't have to know how to dance, you don't even have to have rhythm. You just have to move."
The 74-year-old Kennewick woman knows what she's talking about. She's president of the Prairie Shufflers, a Kennewick square dancing club, and has been twirling around the dance floor for 10 years.
Stultz and her late husband, Dick, were invited to learn to square dance by longtime friends and immediately knew they were going be square dancers. The people were friendly, it provided an aerobic exercise and it was "just plain fun," she said.
"Either you get bit or you don't," she said.
Cliff and Donna Hack of Kennewick had a similar experience -- 38 years ago.
"We got into dancing because somebody said, 'Let's go square dancing,' and we went," said Donna, 82. "Once you start, you're hooked."
Cliff, 88, and Donna have since square danced their way all over the country -- they've been to Hawaii three times. It doesn't matter where their travels take them, they can typically find a dance being held somewhere nearby.
It gives them something to do and a little familiar piece of home while visiting a new place. Square dancers can even go to other countries and find somewhere to dance. Though the music may be a bit different, the steps are the same and square dancing is always called in English.
Like Stultz, the Hacks are members of the Prairie Shufflers, a Kennewick club that will celebrate its 55th anniversary next year.
They have dances on the first and third Saturdays of each month at the Shuffler Shanty, a building at 717 N. Irving St. in Kennewick that was built by the group and still has the same hardwood floor that was put in nearly 38 years ago.
The Shufflers are one of five square dancing clubs in the Blue Mountain Council of the Square & Folk Dance Federation, a nonprofit organization that promotes square and folk dancing in Washington.
Other clubs include the Columbia River Squares and Tri-Cities Circulators, both in Richland, Family A-Fair in Walla Walla and Muddy Frogs in Milton-Freewater, according to the federation's Web site.
There are 135 clubs throughout the state and the Prairie Shufflers are one of the longest operating clubs.
But membership has dropped significantly over the years, Stultz said. There were about 300 members when the club first started, but now it's down to about 60.
"We used to have 20 to 30 squares (eight dancers make a square) on the floor, now we're lucky if we have four or five," Stultz said.
The Shufflers are trying to introduce more people to square dancing and especially get the younger generation to join the fun.
"It's something that's going to die out if we don't get young people into it soon," Stultz said.
That's why the group participates in community events and visits schools to put on square dancing demonstrations. It also offers lessons each fall and continue until spring.
There's a two-hour class Monday at the Shuffler Shanty that people can attend for free to give square dancing a try.
Caleb Lowrey, 35, and his wife, Vanessa Romero, 28, attended the free classes last fall after seeing an ad about it and the Benton City couple liked it so much they've since become co-vice presidents on the Prairie Shufflers board with Jeanne Cozad.
"We decided to give it a shot and it turned out to be an awful lot of fun," Lowrey said. "Neither of us had any experience, so this was something we could do where we were on equal footing and viewed it as an adventure together."
Square dancing, which requires a lot of memorization of the moves, also turned out to be a great distraction, Lowrey said. When he's dancing, he's focused on the moves and doesn't have time to think about anything else that may have happened that day or week.
And while many of the other dancers are quite a bit older than he and Romero are, the age difference doesn't stand in the way of finding common things to talk about, he said.
Lowrey said he doesn't know how to get young people to put down their iPods and video games and start square dancing, but said it takes someone just being brave and giving it a whirl.
"I don't know how it'll ever get resurrected ... to how it used to be in its heyday," he said. "You have to be willing to let down your guard about being cool and let yourself enjoy it."
The dancers acknowledge that the square dancing attire -- ruffled skirts with petticoats or long prairie skirts -- can turn some people off, but the Shufflers say people don't have to dress up to join and have fun. They prefer women wear skirts -- any kind works -- but they don't turn people away from the dances. And lessons are always casual.
The music is more contemporary -- though some clubs do play Country Western tunes -- and having a dance partner is also not required.
"Our club is very, very good (about including singles)," Stultz said. "I never sit out a dance unless I want to."
The Prairie Shufflers' dances are family oriented, but it is an adult club. That means dancers can't become club members until they're 16, though there were some 15-year-olds who took lessons recently, she said.
Some clubs do have teen or children's groups. Donna Hack said she remembers being at a national square dancing convention in Spokane where there was a club from Michigan with 250 children square dancing.
"You never saw so much dancing in your life," she said.
Besides providing something to do on a Saturday night and being a fun way to get in some exercise, Stultz and the Hacks say one of the best things about belonging to the Prairie Shufflers is that the other members are like family.
Before Stultz's husband died in 2004, the Shufflers went to their Hermiston home and danced under the carport for him one last time.
"We had to say good-bye," Donna Hack said.
Stultz said it meant a lot to her husband to see the group, and their support helped her through the tough time.
There's a saying that square dancing is friendship set to music, and while Stultz and the Hacks aren't sure they're fond of that adage, lasting friendships have been formed through the group.
Everyone's so busy dancing, they don't have time talk about their latest ailments or get into heated debates about politics and religion. They're there simply to dance and have fun, Stultz said.
"People who aren't dancing are missing out on a lot of fun," Stultz said.
* Paula Horton: 509-582-1556; phorton@tricityherald.com
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