Each square wore their own color of clothes. There were two callers who took turns calling. They danced on carpet, and green carpet at that. There were 11 dancers in each square. Each dancer was numbered, and wore a big number on his shirt. I say "his shirt" because, strangely enough, all the dancers were men.
Modernizing the attire definitely helped attract younger dancers, because the oldest dancer there was in his 30's. Strangely, the hall would have easily held 400 squares, but at any one time, only two squares of men were dancing. The dance was staged as a competition, and it was on National TV. Spectators were charged admission, and this money was given to the dancers. There were 64,876 people there to watch the two squares of men dance.
It was strange. The caller would call all the moves for a sequence, while all the dancers listened. Then when the caller said "go" (actually he said "Hut!") the dancers tried to execute the sequence. This apparantly didn't work too well, because the squares kept breaking down. When the squares broke down, they did what we do: formed facing lines. What I don't understand is why when the squares broke down, the other dancers jumped all over the poor caller, as if they were trying to hurt him. It didn't seem too nice.
Sooner or later it was time to let the other caller call for a while. I thought it was SO rude that when one caller left the dance floor, all the dancers who had been dancing to that caller also left. Each caller brought his own dancers with him onto the dance floor.
It appears these dancers use a different set of moves from CALLERLAB, but I recognized several calls: Run, Slip, Slide, Pass Thru, Rotary Spin, Bend the Lineman.
I tried to call normal square dance moves for the 8100 squares of spectators, but they ignored me and kept watching the two men's squares instead.
It was the strangest square dance I've ever been to.
Nasser "Dallas Cowboys 34, Philadelphia Eagles 12"
Shukayr