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The following information is published with ROUNDALAB's permission from the ROUNDALAB Reference Manual compiled by Richard & Jo Ann Lawson, 1987.

How to Promote Round Dancing??????
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"Helping Square Dance Callers Help You Promote Round Dancing"

Jean C. Ferrell
Corte Madera, California

The Northern California Association of Round Dance Teachers works closely with the Northern California Association of Square Dance Callers. The Square Dance Callers are ultimately responsible for the bi-monthly selection of the square dance level Round-of-the-Month (ROM). However, they have relegated the process of screening new rounds to the Round Dance Teachers Assoc. This tentative selection by the R/D Teachers Assoc. is then carried to the callers meeting six times each year. At present, Lon and I are the liaison between the groups. It is our responsibility to present and teach this dance to the callers and their partners. At the time of this article, the ROM is "Piano Roll Waltz".

Keeping mind that we hope the caller will learn, teach, and cue (or some of the above) this dance to his square dance club, our procedures are as follows:

  1. Encourage the caller to tape each teach.
  2. Develop short cues for them to use for cueing.
  3. Print these cues in easy-to-read form on cards 5½" by 6". Distribute these at the meeting and/or include in the jackets of the R/D records.
  4. Demonstrate how the caller may teach the round by packaging parts, isolating other parts, etc.
  5. Identify "tricky" parts; such as "sudden" changes of direction, "wrong" foot leads, changes in timing, etc.
  6. Keep it as light-hearted and as much fun as possible.
  7. Total time of presentation: about 35 minutes.
  8. On rare occasions, I will mail a cued tape of the dance to an absent caller.

On the theory that potential round dancers come through the square dance movement, it behooves us to keep square dance callers interested, informed, and enthusiastic about round dancing by helping them include round dancing at their square dance clubs.

Roundalab Journal, December, 1981