A National Convention for Square Dancing?

 

We just spent a long weekend (Wednesday thru Sunday) on a trip to Oklahoma City for the 2013 National Square Dance Convention. The trip was an adventure: one flight three hours late, one flight missed and another cancelled provoked an unexpected overnight stay in Chicago. Arriving a day late, the adventure continued when we stepped off the airplane in Oklahoma City and sucked in 102 °F air. We put our Michigan sweaters away and bought another tube of deodorant.

Even after that adventuresome beginning, we found both Oklahoma City and the 2013 Convention a hoot. The Square Dance Convention was held in the city’s Cox Convention Center which is adjacent to Bricktown – an updated old warehouse district that had gone to ruin. The old warehouses have been converted into trendy nightspots with an array of eating and drinking establishments including the only quadricycle bar I’ve ever seen. The wheeled bar sat outside its parent tavern, apparently for those who got thirsty just thinking about leaving the downtown scene.

The quadricycle bar was a wheeled contraption with two opposing bars and the bartender in between. Patrons sat on bicycle saddles with their feet resting on pedals. After assuring that all had their drinks, the bartender suddenly announced, READY?... PEDAL. The drinkers began madly pedaling away while the bartender manned a steering wheel. The ungainly behemoth of a bar on wheels began slowing moving from the curb as the bartender steered it into a gap in oncoming traffic. It was a noisy undertaking, with the sounds of traffic muted by the hoots  and hollering from the woozy, wobbling drinkers. I was surprised at how long it took us to get to the dance from the tavern.

The dancing was a treat. Imagine an arena, a half dozen large halls and scores of smaller rooms full of gaily dressed dancers. No suits or ties here; boots and bolos, flashy shirts and skirts are the rule with only a few dressed in Sunday-go-to-meetin’ cowboy attire without something shiny. The rooms were awash in moving colors as the dancers constantly sashayed to mostly country music that escaped each room and mingled in the hallways.

Throughout the convention, dancing began each day at 10:00 AM and continued to midnight. The rooms were full of weaving, bobbing bodies as the women whirled and the men bucked to the beat, hats askew, shirtsleeves rolled up and perspiration flowing. Most of the rooms were devoted to square dancing although an impressive number of large rooms housed ballroom dancers, better known in the square dance world as round dancers. Their clothing reflected their dance style, from Latin to formal. One couple performing an elaborate waltz were formally dressed with the gent in tails and white gloves. A few rooms were devoted to contra dancing; that old formal dance where men and women line up to face each other recalling the practice of John Wayne in a cowboy movie dancing in a military uniform.

The arena housed the largest number of square dancers directed by the best callers and headed by a five piece band, The Ghost Riders. Dancing here was conducted in approximate five minute intervals; after each song the caller would retire and they would run in a new one to see if he could do any better. Some of the callers were really good singers. I especially liked the two or three who interrupted their singing with brief outbreaks of yodeling, a literal hoot. Among the most interesting callers were those Japanese who traveled from across the world to perform. An American country song sung with a Japanese accent by a slender Asian wearing a cowboy hat and jeans is something to behold. We enjoyed all the callers and live music and we spent some time watching the several hundred dancers surrounded by those of us watchers forced to the edge of the floor by exhaustion.

Even the chartered bus rides to and from the convention center were amusing. After three days the twice daily trip became so familiar that we concocted names for the bumps and dips in the road. By day three, the entire busload was in unison when flying over a bump. “Wheee,” we called out. We simple-minded folk know how to make a bus ride entertaining.

The dancing, singing, drinking and eating (did I mention bicycling) over three days did take a toll on some of us. I suspect there was a significant national upsurge in sales of Aleve and Pepto Bismal during the event. Although I taped my ankles each morning before the bus ride, I suspect it will be several days before I’m able to venture onto a dance floor again. Yahoooo!