The Moose Lodge No. 706 in Waukegan is next to the Brick & Mason Local 20 building and across the street from the office of chiropractor Jeffrey Johnson.
It`s a chilly, dark night, and couples enter the Moose Lodge, shed their coats, pay the $6 entry fee and wait for the open dance to begin at 8:30. Under the glazed eyes of a moose head hanging on the wall, 64 men and women, split into squares of eight, are finishing their lesson.
Watching is 67-year-old Don Klem of Waukegan, wearing dark trousers, a white shirt with drawings of square dancers on either shoulder and a red scarf tie. The tie matches wife Lill`s red- and white-checked dress that bells way out due to her white petticoats.
Directing the dancers` moves from a small stage is a leather-vested caller from Milwaukee, who speaks into a microphone in a soothing, sing-song voice to banjo, bass and fiddle music. ”Grand swing through . . . Triple scoot … Just the girls pass the ocean . . . ”
Occasionally the dancers clap to the rhythm and let out a spirited yell.
These are the Tuesday Night Twirlers, or TNTs, as they call themselves. They hold a square dance every Tuesday night, except for Christmas and New Year`s Day.
Although the names change, the same scene is played out in countless other community centers, church halls, school gyms and other locations throughout Lake County, Illinois, America and a host of foreign countries.
Square dancing? Do-si-do and all that in sophisticated suburban Lake County?
Absolutely, say fans of the folk dance.
Just look at the National Square Dance Directory sometime. ”People are amazed when they find out how many clubs there really are,” said Lill Klem, 65, who, besides being a president of the TNTs, is an insurance coordinator for the State Council of Illinois Square Dance Associations.
Of 232 pages in the directory, pages 73 to 203 list, in eye-straining print, all of the clubs in America. That`s followed by pages of foreign clubs, such as the Argonaut Squares in Brisbane, Australia, and the Shindig Squares in Johannesburg, South Africa, and the Dansk Square Dance in Aalborg, Denmark. ”I think people are misinformed. People think square dancing is still in the barn with a piece of hay in their teeth and a jug on their shoulder,”
said Bob Wilson, a 56-year-old Waukeganite and square dance caller.
”I think they think it`s hokey,” agreed Anne Burghard, 52, of Wilmette during a recent TNT dance.
Standing nearby was 43-year-old Shelley Mayfield of Skokie. ”This is what I say: This is the only place you go where everyone is smiling and nobody is cracking a dirty joke.”
Steve Rosengarden, 25, of Wonder Lake, said: ”Square dancing is all right. There`s not a lot of geeks, I would call it. They`re just normal people.”
If you`re still not sure about that, consider the following:
– There are an estimated 700,000 square dancers in America, according to Joy Hoyt, 65, a member of the Ocean Waves club in her hometown of Lombard. She`s also the education director for the state square dance organization and president of the 6,400-member United Square Dancers of America.
Hoyt added that there are about 260 clubs in Illinois alone.
– Last summer`s national square dance convention in Cincinnati drew 25,000 to 30,000 people, and this year`s state convention in Peoria had 3,000 participants from Kentucky, Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and even a few from Alaska.
– Around the Corner, a 37-year-old Chicago-area square dance publication, has 2,300 subscribers, said Cliff Benson of Morton Grove, the magazine`s fifth owner.
– Illinois is one of 17 states that have made the square dance their official dance. Square dance fans are pushing other states to do the same, with the ultimate goal of having the square dance honored as America`s official dance.
”It is part of our American heritage. I mean, this came over with the Pilgrims. It came from many other (English and French) dances, but the square dance is part of the American heritage,” said Wilson, who with wife, Elizabeth, began the Buoys and Belles club after he was transferred to the Great Lakes Naval Base 21 years ago. They learned to square dance in 1967 on a naval base in Spain.
The Buoys club is one of about 12 in Lake and McHenry Counties that belong to the Lake County Square Dance Association. Some other association members are the Swiss Swingers in Lake Zurich, the Lake Promenaders in Libertyville and the Recyclers Square Dance Club in Deerfield.
Each club is based on one or two of eight square dance levels, with mainstream being the easiest because it requires people to know only about 75 moves, or calls. Challenge 4 is the most difficult level, involving more than 1,000 calls and the ability to modify any of them within seconds.
The dances are normally backed up by traditional fiddle and country music, though that`s not a rule.
”I kind of like the pop music and the rock `n` roll,” said 46-year-old Rita Stephens of Wildwood, president of the Promenaders.
Rock `n` roll like Guns N` Roses?
”I don`t think so,” Stephens said and laughed. ”I`m talking more like Elvis Presley.”
Stephens and other square dancers are quick to point out the advantages of their hobby: that it`s relatively cheap, costing about $6 a couple; that it`s good exercise and something couples can do together; and that it`s wholesome, because no alcohol is allowed.
”You get too dizzy; your equilibrium and timing are off,” Stephens said in explaining the alcohol ban.
Many dancers say concentrating on the caller`s quick directions forces other thoughts from their minds.
”So you get a 2 1/2-, 3-hour mini-vacation every time you dance,” said Rosengarden`s mother, Louise, a 56-year-old Recyclers member from Deerfield.
”That`s right. You go into the square dance, and that`s all you think about,” said Mayfield`s husband, Mike, 42.
And you can`t forget the fun of dressing up, some say.
”I feel very feminine wearing it,” Louise Rosengarden said of the poofy skirt. ”In today`s world where everyone is wearing pants, it`s nice to wear a skirt on occasion. I like to feel like a woman sometimes.”
Underneath their relatively short skirts, women wear petticoats made with 30 to 100 yards of material, said Bob Stevens, who with wife Doris owns The House of Western Fashion in Mt. Prospect, which is one of the few shops in the Chicago area that carries square dance clothes.
Beneath those skirts, women have to wear fancy drawers called pettipants, Stevens said. ”When they twirl around, their skirts go up so they have to have something on.”
But Miriam Frick, 62, of Waukegan, said the fun of dressing up wears off. ”At first you look forward to (dressing up), but then it gets to be a hassle.”
That`s a small point, however, compared to fans` larger concern of seeing participation fall off in recent years. It could be that getting a baby-sitter nowadays is expensive, they say, or that square dancing is losing against country-western line dancing, which can be learned in about eight lessons as compared to the 30 recommended for square dancing.
”If something doesn`t turn us around, it will (die),” Rita Stephens said of square dance.
But others are more optimistic. ”It has dropped somewhat these last several years, but I think it`s starting to pick up again. It goes in cycles. All of a sudden one generation says, `Hey, why haven`t I been doing that?`
” Hoyt said.
Currently, most members are in the mid-30s and up and from all types of ethnic, economic and work backgrounds. There are firefighters, lawyers, African-American callers and even a Chicago square dance club for gay people. ”It`s not a white American thing. There are several black square dance clubs in Chicago,” Stephens said. One Promenader, she added, is an Algonquin Indian, and another is Mexican. ”We`re open and welcome to anyone who wants to join us.”
Her son said he joined up at age 13, a year after his parents started taking lessons. ”I never really had any problem with (getting ribbed by friends) because they (already) considered me a hick. They considered square dancing fit me.”
Not long after learning how to square dance, he and his brother, Dirk, now 22, started the Rocky Toppers square dance club for teens, which lasted four years.
Steve Rosengarden also started square dancing in his early teens, though he wasn`t excited about it. ”It was something I didn`t want to do. . . . I guess it wasn`t cool,” he said. But the social benefits soon became apparent to him. ”I would say half my girlfriends from junior high and high school were from square dancing.”
Don Klem took his first lessons 21 years ago. ”This guy in the neighborhood said, `Hey, why don`t you come out (for a lesson),` and I said,
`No, I don`t think so. I got two left feet.` But I went anyway and I haven`t stopped since.”
