Mo Waddington wrote:

< Barn dance, ONS, square dance, ceilidh are one thing.
But some of the things Tony was talking about in the first post (if I remember????) assume more knowledge maybe.>>

As Mo may have suspected, we’ve been talking about two different things in this thread: (1) the eclectic style of square dancing and calling that I’ve seen emerging over the last 10-20 years, primarily in the contra dance scene, and (2) the world of one-nighters or barn dances, which has always been eclectic to some extent because the simpler the material, the less difference between regional styles and the less it matters which way you give hands. Both (1) and (2) are legitimate expressions of a folk art.

My original post was entirely concerned with (1). It was an attempt to find out if others agreed with me that square dancing and calling has become more eclectic, and to find out whether anyone has given this style a name that is worth perpetuating. My impression, after several responses, is that there is no such name in common use. I’ve just about decided to use “neo-traditional” in my own writing; I don’t expect anyone else to follow suit, but I do suspect that anyone reading my words who is familiar with the recent and current dance scene will know what I mean.

Tony Parkes

Billerica, Mass.