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The only square dance club in the KMC, the Action Fraction, sponsors an open house April 16 in Kaiserslautern. The event includes a student level dance starting at 2 p.m.
Mike Goff and Kevin Brown, the club’s callers, will lead this student festival. “Visitors are welcome at any time between 2 and 10 p.m. and watch what we do,” said Mr. Goff. Anybody wanting to try square dancing can participate in an intro dance at 6:30 p.m. “We will teach at least 10 calls and by the time people leave they’ll be square dancers,” he added.
The square dance is known as the only American folk dance. It has about a 200-year-old history. Its traces go back to the time when the first European settlers came to America. From dances of their home countries, elements were taken over and mixed. The French brought the Minuet and Quadrille dances. English settlers included the country and Morris dance. Also included were steps from the German, Polish and Austrian polka and waltz.
Different groups of settlers met on weekends to have some fun after a hard week’s work in the woods. They met to dance by combining different steps and movements from various dances, and directors were designated to give commands. These directors, or callers, had to remember the sequence of steps and call them out. They even invented new figures. Today the 69 calls are given spontaneously with limited memorization only to get all the dancers back together and to their home positions.
Over the years these dances merged into the Appalachian Mountain Dance and the New England Country Dance to make up today’s modern American Square Dance. This formalized today’s dance which was reborn and reshaped in the 1930s.
Henry Ford, the first mass producer of vehicles, helped to revive old traditions and cultural activities in New England. Interested people formed new square dance groups.
After World War II, Americans brought the dance over to Germany.
“The neat thing is that anyone can do it anywhere in the world,” said Mr. Goff. “Square dancers do not have to be able to carry a tune nor do they have to move poetically like a waltzing couple.” Square dancers must only be able to translate the definitions of the calls, the commands they have learned from the brain to the feet so all eight dancers do the same thing at the same time.
Mr. Goff’s wife, Tina, also is a member of Action Fraction.
“I got into contact with square dancing as a teenager. My parents were members of the local club,” said Mrs. Goff. “In 1994, my interest for this dance was revived and I joined the club.”
“Our members consider square dancing fun, healthy and relaxing and is likely nothing near what many Americans think it is,” said Mr. Goff. “Most believe we only dance to country and western fiddle music, not true. There is some of that but we also dance to rock and pop and other music.”
The Goff’s hope that many interested people show up Saturday to learn about them.
“We really hope that Americans don’t hesitate to come to our dance location off-base,” said Mrs. Goff. “It’s my sincere wish to get some more Americans to join our club and have fun in square dancing.”
Student and graduated dancers will pay €5 for up to eight hours of dancing. Food and beverages are available in the hall so participants are asked not to bring their own food and drinks. There is no cost for visitors of the open house.
The Action Fraction club meets 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Mondays. Dance location is the building of the Alte Knacker, An der Feuerwache 10 in Kaiserslautern. Travel on federal street B40 from Vogelweh toward Kaiserslautern. Turn right after the Porsche Center. Alte Knacker is past the fire station on the right.
For more information, call Mr. Goff at 0172-651-0996 or visit www.geocities.com/ktown_square_dancing.
