Hobby Dancing

Modern Western Square Dancing presents itself in many forms. Some of the common names for these forms are Traditional Dancing, Community Dancing, and Hobby Dancing. Traditional Dancing focuses on the early dance forms and uses exclusively traditional calls and call combinations. Community Dancing samples traditional dance, but includes easy to execute modern calls and touches on related dance forms.

The term "Hobby Dancing" was coined a few years ago to describe folks that enjoy attending Square Dance events at least one or more times a week. This is one of their hobbies. Hobby Dancing is worldwide. This form of the activity supports multiple levels of involvement and dance complexity. Callerlab, the International Association of Square Dance Callers, has devised "Dance Levels" based on lists of calls. These standardized lists permit a person living in rural California to travel to Sweden and dance with a club of suitable level.

This amount of organization affords significant mobility. Aside from personal pleasure, no benefit is obtained from dancing at one "level" or another. It should be noted, however, that attempting to dance at an event for which one is not prepared is bad form, not recommended, and will lead to an unhappy experience for all those involved.

The links below will help you make contact with local Hobby Dancers.

Square Dance clubs of the northern counties of California: www.NorthStateDancersAssociation.com

The CalVet Ridge Runners (of Paradise, CA) web site:
www.RidgeRunnersOnline.com