"Yes, I'm
sorry that I must admit that square dancing abilities, i.e. abilities of the
dancers in general are often, not always, much better in Germany than in the
USA, and I think it's most often due to the average age of the dancers. In the
USA you have an average in the clubs of mostly more than 60 years, our average
age in Germany is - there are no official statistics of course - estimated 40-45
years. Of course it depends on the clubs, there are also differences, but in our
area (Cologne/Bonn) we certainly have this average; in many clubs in our area we
have dancers ranging from 10 to 70 years, so you see, but neither teen clubs nor
retired people clubs nor single clubs, that doesn't exist. So we are very happy
here in Germany to have those intermingling of ages and sexes and persons. There
are certainly some couples (married or not) who only dance with their partner,
but rather few. This fact contributes, in my humble personal opinion, to more
fun in square dancing. So we dance all together, and this is wonderful.
I don't want to offend any American dancer, they are all very nice and friendly, and we had so many kind receptions and meetings and dances with the clubs we visited the last three weeks, but most of the dancers are in the retired age and physically often not able to follow the quick calling of the younger callers. So I think the style of the younger European dancers contributes to more fun in dancing, and I really have this feeling when I come back to Europe dancing in our clubs. I must admit, too, that dancing abilities of our MS and Plus dancers are higher than in the US, because we are trained better, I think, and we are often learning to dance from all positions (APD). There is no rushing to Plus, and we never continue to learn Plus just after having been graduated in MS. I think this is important to know. Therefore we have certainly less dropouts after the MS graduation." - Harmut Heiber
There has never been anything written that tells Americans what is wrong with Square Dancing in America as well as you just read. German callers don't rush new dancers to Plus. German dancers can dance many places to good Mainstream dancing. Dancers learn Mainstream well before going on to other levels. In America dancers are rushed to Plus before learning Mainstream well. We end up with a lot of poor dancers at Plus dances who are breaking squares down on Mainstream calls.
Modern Western Square Dancing was popularized here, yet we have gotten away from the roots of the whole idea of the dance. That root is fellowship with all kinds of people. We have become very exclusive with our dancing. We have single clubs, retired clubs, Advanced clubs, Challenge clubs, etc.. It can take years to dance at the higher levels. We have "partner glue" to the point that most single people don't feel comfortable coming to most clubs. In Germany they have all kinds and ages of people dancing in clubs. They rarely dance with the person they come to the dance with. The more exclusive we become the less welcomed new dancers feel joining in. Without the new dancers we all know what will happen in the future. I am not saying exclusive clubs should be shut down. My point is that we should keep Square Dancing open for new dancers and give them many opportunities to dance and have fun without waiting for many months to achieve a certain level. We should not forget our roots. Square Dancing became popular because it was easy to learn and appealed to the masses. The dance form has now become exclusive in nature and no longer appeals to the general public.
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