A square dance is a dance for four couples (eight dancers) arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, facing the middle of the square. Square dances were first documented in 16th-century England but were also common in France and throughout Europe.

The Western American square dance may be the most widely known form worldwide, possibly due to its association in the 20th century with the romanticized image of the American cowboy. Square dancing is strongly associated with the United States. Nineteen U. S. states including Maryland and Virginia have designated it their official state dance.

The various square dance movements are based on the steps and figures used in traditional folk dances and social dances from many countries. Some of these traditional dances include English country dance, Caledonians and the quadrille.

In most American forms of square dance, the dancers are prompted or cued through a sequence of steps (square dance choreography) by a caller to the beat of music. Modern Western square dances are not learned as complete routines; the dancers learn basic movements, each with its own distinctive call, but do not know in what order they will be called. Source: Wikipedia

TRADITIONAL WESTERN SQUARES

The quadrille and Appalachian mountain-style square dance forms traveled with the settlers of the American West, and a new style of square dancing slowly developed combining elements of both forms. This new form of Western square dance (now named "traditional Western") eventually captured the attention of the American public, through the efforts of a young educator in Colorado named Lloyd Shaw. Motivated in part by Henry Ford's book, Good Morning — which was written to help revive the "old-fashioned" American quadrilles, contras, and couple dances that had been, by the early 20th century, largely replaced by the jazz-inspired fashions of the ballroom — Shaw published a book, Cowboy Dances, of traditional American square dances with a particular focus on collecting and documenting dances found in the American West. The book, Cowboy Dances, gave rise to Shaw's popular caller training classes, as well as his nationally-traveling teenage dance demonstration team, the Cheyenne Mountain Dancers. This energy and exposure led to a square dance craze in the mid-20th century, with millions of Americans participating in the activity on a regular basis.

MODERN WESTERN SQUARES

This extraordinary interest in square dancing gave birth to the branch of the activity now named "modern Western." The 1960s and 1970s saw a flood of new calls appearing as callers tried to outdo each other in creativity. It became difficult for dancers to keep up with the vast number of new figures that were being invented. Some effort at standardization was essential to support the continuing widespread growth of square dancing. As a result, the governing organization for modern Western square dance leaders, CALLERLAB, was founded in 1974 "To put the dance back into square dancing; establish standardization for calls; and provide adequate training for callers." Source: Country Dance and Song Society.