It’s hip to be square

BY ELYSE AMEND

elyse.amend@transcontinental.ca

Over 200 beaus and belles came together at the Kirkland Community Centre on Saturday for an evening full of dosados, promenades, allemandes, and plenty of swinging your partner round and round for the Circles and Squares dance club’s 50th anniversary celebration. “It’s an intriguing activity. It has music and rhythm. It’s a challenge, and it’s great exercise,” said Alan Marjerison, who is among other members – like David and June Hunter – who have been with the club since its beginnings. The 93-year-old Pointe Claire resident started square dancing in British Columbia after one of his friends convinced him to give it a try, and he’s been an enthusiast ever since. When Marjerison and his wife moved to Montreal in the 1950s, they had some difficulty finding people who shared their passion, but eventually found a small group of “kindred spirits.” In February 1958 Circles and Squares was born.

Today, the 105-member club is the biggest of its kind in the West Island and dances three times a week at four different skill levels in a number of West Island locations. On top of the Circles and Squares dancers and their two callers, just over 50 square dance devotees and two other callers came in from the Ottawa region to join Saturday’s festivities. “With square-dancing, you can go anywhere in the world and dance,” explained club co-president Norma Morton, adding she and her husband Jim actually met at a square dance in New Brunswick in 1954. “Norma and I, personally, we’ve danced at the Brandenburg Gate (in Berlin), the city hall in Stockholm, Sweden, and we’ve danced on the Great Wall of China,” added Jim.

Marjerison said square dancing spread across the world during the Second World War, thanks to the American soldiers. “Wherever they want, they took square-dancing with them,” he said. “That’s why they have it in Japan.”

Corry Lowden started calling at square dances when he was 14 years old, and has been one of the two Circles and Squares callers since 1989. “It’s really a lot of fun. You meet a lot of nice people,” he said, adding pretty much anyone can pick up square dancing, no matter their age or skill level. “All you have to do is listen. As long as you can take instruction (from the caller) and you know your right from your left, you can dance.”

Jim Morton listed the major reasons why people should consider checking square-dancing out, which also happen to be the same reasons why anyone who tries it usually ends up sticking with it, he said. “It’s great physical exercise. Apparently, a night of square-dancing is about equivalent to walking five kilometres at a good click. It’s a great mental exercise, because you really have to concentrate. It’s relatively inexpensive, and you meet a lot of nice people,” he said. “And, it’s fun.” “We have a saying: it’s friendship to music,” Norma added. “It’s like a family. If somebody’s hurting or ill, they’re right there. The community is right around to support everybody.”

Marjerison also said camaraderie is the main reason he has square-danced for over 50 years, and plans to keep at it for many more. “There’s something almost magical about joining hands in a circle,” he said. “We say friendship flows from hand to hand in the ring. And it really does.”

The Circles and Squares dance club is open to all ages and all skill levels. For more information, call 514-626-0979 or 514-697-8689.