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WHRILWINDS: Deb Henigson, ’99,
is one of 30 Stanford enthusiasts.
Glenn Matsumura |
the ladies—one in
pigtails—are fiddling with their petticoats and
pantaloons, the gents easing into shiny boots. There’s
enough black calico to clothe a modest army. When a
small voice lets out with a “Yeeeeeehaw! Ow, ow!”
and banjos start strumming, a passerby can’t help
but look around for a bale of hay to sit on.
Instead, there are only the suburban shrubs of White
Plaza and the bemused smiles of Stanford academics as
eight square dancers leap-step-step into a circle for
the opening figure of their World AIDS Day performance.
Caitlin Kline, a junior from Boulder, Colo., is the
caller.
Straining to make her voice heard over the recorded
bluegrass tune, Kline calls out the moves for a fountain
formation, making sure each dancer is in place before
advancing to the next step.
Ladies circle left while the gents run around
Turn that circle till your partner’s found
Then the ladies arch and step right back
Gents duck under to the inside track
Make that fountain bubble and flow
Way up high and way down low
Then join up hands and circle wide
Stretch it out like an old cowhide. . . .
The Cardinal Whirlwinds are turning heads as they help
preserve a style of Western square dancing that is both
an American original and a dying tradition. Performed
by only a few groups nationwide, the dance, rooted in
the Appalachians, is characterized by smooth, gliding
steps and complex choreography. It features impressive
aerial figures that use centripetal force to send ladies
soaring above gents in any number of poses.
The idea of a backcountry folkway taking root on an
erudite campus may seem incongruous, but Kline says
the club has flourished since she started it last year.
There are now about 30 members, and they have traveled
as far as Alaska to perform in dance festivals.
“People don’t quite know what to think
when they first hear about it, but once they see us
perform they’re very excited,” says Kline,
who taught herself to clog and fiddle —at the
same time—while in grade school.
Kline started square dancing at 15 in Boulder. Colorado
is the former home of Lloyd Shaw, whose name is synonymous
with traditional American dance. As superintendent of
the Cheyenne Mountain School in Colorado Springs, Shaw
got rid of the football team and replaced it with a
square dancing group after he’d become intrigued
by the old “cowboy dances” of the region.
Tracking down old-timers in remote mountain towns and
mining camps, Shaw taught their moves to his high school
exhibition group. Later he recorded the choreography
in a book. Shaw’s Cheyenne Mountain Dancers toured
the United States in the 1930s and 40s and launched
a square dancing revival.
By the 1960s, the renaissance had petered out. Boulder
is one of the few U.S. cities where old-fashioned square
dancing still can be found. Aficionados fear for the
tradition’s future because performers are mostly
middle-aged and older adults. Kline’s establishment
of the only college-age club of its kind offers some
hope. Members of Calico and Boots, Kline’s hometown
club, were delighted to see the Cardinal Whirlwinds
in action when the group flew to Oklahoma City last
summer to perform at the National Square Dance Convention.
“It was wonderful to see a group totally outside
of Colorado performing this type of dancing and spreading
it across the country again,” says Susan Seamans,
a Calico and Boots coach who calls Kline “an amazing
young woman. To pull 16 kids together who have never
danced before and teach them to do this wonderful performance
after just one year is a pretty amazing feat.”
 |
WHOOSH! Juniors Katie Cueva
and Sam Brremmer, left, join John Fu, ’01,
and Kline.
Glenn Matsumura |
Seamans taught Kline how to call during Christmas and
summer breaks as Kline prepared to launch the club.
Kline also had to learn how to sew the group’s
Western-style shirts and ankle-length dresses, whose
heavy skirts require 12 yards of fabric. (The resulting
twirl whips up quite a draft when the dancers go spinning
through the air.) This year the whole club, men and
women, joined in a 24-hour sewing marathon—fondly
referred to as “the sweatshop”—to
make four more dresses.
Kline has a sense of duty about helping preserve an
endangered heritage. “It kind of makes me sad
that people aren’t aware of traditional American
things,” she says. “When people say ‘American
folk dance’ they don’t have a clear idea
of what that is.”
It was partly the tradition’s egalitarianism
that drew Kline in—her motto is “If you
can walk, you can square-dance.” Its origins date
back to the 1800s, when Old World immigrants traveled
west, bringing with them their national folk dances—the
Scottish schottische, the French quadrille, the English
contra, the Irish jig and more. Finding it difficult
to remember the steps to each dance as they gathered
for group festivities, they came up with the idea of
a caller to announce the moves so everyone could participate.
Gradually the various dances melded.
“Square dancing is very much a dance of the people,”
Kline says. “I think it’s a good example
of how a lot of diverse people came together and created
a style they could all relate to.” She also likes
the interdependency of the dancers. “You’re
not just dancing with yourself; there are seven others
in your square.”
Club members say their experience defies the stereotype.
“Everyone has this impression that it’s
hokey, not fun—it’s not like that at all,”
says Evan Parker, a fifth-year coterm in computer science.
“It’s just like any dance. It’s movement,
it’s music, it’s people.”
David Brown, an African-American sophomore who lives
in the ethnic-themed dorm Ujamaa, says he has to fight
off jibes from his friends when he tells them about
the club. “People are like, ‘Why aren’t
you in hip-hop?’ But after they see the performance
they’re like, ‘Oh, I want to do that.’”
This year, the club is adding Appalachian clogging
to its repertoire, thanks to Kline’s careful coaching.
Her mentor thinks Kline may be unique in her ability
to perform complex moves while playing the fiddle. “She’s
a phenomenal clogger,” Seamans says. Rooted in
the step dances of Ireland and Scotland, the dance also
incorporates African and Native American rhythms, making
it another melting-pot tradition. Kline calls the dance
a cross between “tap dancing, Irish step dancing
and square dancing.” At a recent practice, club
members looked like seasoned experts after only two
months.
Kline dances at least 12 hours a week; she also belongs
to the campus social-dance performance group Decadance.
While she plans to continue dancing indefinitely in
some form, she sees it as a necessary balance to her
life, not a career. Fluent in Spanish, German, French
and Japanese, she is majoring in comparative studies
in race and ethnicity and hopes to work with minorities
in the field of education. |
