[Callers] Family dance- educational supplements?

[James Saxe via Callers]

Claire,

A while back, you wrote:

> I’m calling my first Family dance on March 6th for a home-school community.   I was hoping to offer a page of INTERESTING , Kid-friendly, FUN info, activities, links in case someone wants to delve further into the history, dance or music.


Here are a few items that may be fun, educational, or both:

1.  This web page 

    http://www.voyagerrecords.com/LN358.htm

has some interesting (to me, and perhaps also to some of the
older kids in the group you'll be calling for) information
about the role of music and dance in the Lewis and Clark
expedition.  These are notes to accompany a CD of tunes from
that era.  If you look at the note on the individual tunes,
you'll learn (from the notes for track 18) that the Virginian
Reel, also known as "Sir Roger de Coverley", was a favorite
dance of George Washington.  (Washington died in 1799, just
a few years before the start of the Lewisand Clark expedition
[1804-1806]).

2.  In this video

     http://squaredancehistory.org/items/show/71

dance caller, musician, and historian Phil Jamison talks
about the role of African American musicians i(mostly slaves,
some free) in the development of dance calling.

3.  Here's a Paramount newsreel (I wonder how many kids today
know what newsreels were) about the world's biggest square
dance, held as part of the Sant Monica Diamond Jubilee in
1950:

     http://squaredancehistory.org/items/show/1311

This page

     http://squaredancehistory.org/items/browse?tag=Santa+Monica

has links to various other items about the event.  You can
read about some of the amazing organizational work that went
into putting it on.  (Chartered buses bringing in dancers from
square dance clubs in surrounding cities, where they'd been
practicing dances from the Diamond Jubilee program at their
regular dance nights; local boy scouts with flags [pieces of
colored cardboard on long sticks] signaling places where
squares needed another couple so that they'd be more easily
spotted in the huge crowd; all sorts of special preparations
by the city 

     Well, we’ll repave the street – we’ll put up this band
     stand – we’ll get the local anti-aircraft battery still
     stationed here to furnish the lighting – we’ll go to the
     studios – we’ll get them to set up the speakers – ...

etc.)

4.  Speaking of studios, did you know that Chuck Jones, one
of the animators of Bugs Bunny and other Warner Brothers
cartoon characters, was an avid square dancer?  He sometimes
contributed artwork and articles to _Sets in Order_ square
dance magazine.

Here are covers from all the issues of the magazine

     http://newsquaremusic.com/sioindex.html

Can you some covers featuring Bugs and friends?
Scroll down for a list of the ones I've found.

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   Keep going.
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   Just a little more.
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I see Bugs Bunny on the covers for March, 1951; April 1954;
and June, 1956.  The cover for June, 1962, shows Pepé Le Pew
on his way from Paris to the National Square Dance convention
in Miami.

Cheers,
--Jim