The 2008 Publicity Video: World Premiere!

After months of filming, editing, and splicing, I've finally finished our updated publicity video, now on YouTube for all the world to see!



You Can Help Spread the Word!

• If you're a YouTube regular, log in, give the clip a high rating, and add it to your favorites!
• Send the video to your friends and encourage them to do the same. You can share directly from the YouTube page or by sending this link:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puCj8mMRmPg
  

Enjoy!

With thanks to everyone for the interviews and permissions,
Michael

Updates Updates!

R&R You Ready? Raiding and Retriving: January Dates Coming Your Way!

Raiding and retrieving came up at the first full meeting of the new Board earlier this month, and here's the poop:
The Board is agreed that R&R is really, really important at the same time we realize it's a tough sell sometimes.

It's important as a source of many and varied dancing opportunities. It's important as a vehicle of change, taking us one rather large step towards a world where people see GLBT Americans as equals. It's glue that keeps us in a community that knows a LOT about keeping square dancing clubs going ... and what leads them into decline.

Without raiding and retrieving, we lose friends, we lose perspective, and we lose financial support that our club might one day depend on.

But let's also be honest -- it's more fun when enough of us go in on it together! To that end, Cheryl and I are working on narrowing down January raiding and retrieving opportunities to at most two targets and recruiting a core group to shoot for them! We'll be looking at weekday evenings throughout the month, steering clear of our special dances and the Hotlanta fly-in. Don't be shy about shooting either of us a line to declare yourself R&R-Ready!

Federation Picnic June '08: Sign Up Now! And Don't Throw Any of Those Unwanted Presents Away!

Every year in early June, the St. Louis Federation of Square Dancing Clubs holds a picnic at a park in Overland. Hundreds of people, hundreds of pieces of grilled meat, hours and hours of dancing.

The Gateway Squares were invited to host this time on June 1, 2008, and the outgoing Board accepted. We'll be forming a committee and starting prep work in January, so now's your chance to sign up! Larry, Doug S, and Sandra have already graciously agreed to help out, but we'll eventually need a task force of 10-15. This is your invitation to step forward!

Raffles and bingo games are part of the event, for which we'll need lots of prizes. So please don't throw anything away after all the holiday presents are unwrapped! I'm serious! Keep all the misfit kitchen gadgets, clunky napkin holders, and bizarre glass ornaments. One person's dreck is another person's treasure!

A Guide to Gateway Squares Slang

The Class of 2008 is coming along nicely, about to break out of Mainstream in the New Year and get into Plus, coming up to their first-ever Fly-In in March!

To help welcome this year's class into the family, the Board thought it would be a good idea for students to have a dictionary of our most frequent slang words. And here it is!

Terms: Fly-In ~ Community Dance ~ Club Dance ~ Special Dance 

Basic, Mainstream, Plus, Advanced ~ Styling ~ Patter, Singing Call, Tip

Fly-In		This term is particular to the Gay square dancing world. It means an all-day or weekend-long dancing event in which a hosting club invites dancers from all over the world. Usually, the event involves out-of-town callers and lots of social events. A regular fly-in has a name, something built from a pun on a square dancing move. Ours is "Arch & Dive Through." What else could it be? The Gateway Squares hosted a Fly-In over a weekend in March 2006 and drew about 50 dancers from across the U.S. and Canada, with the largest groups coming in from Chicago and Kansas City. Our sister club in Kansas City, the Sho-Me Squares, hosts their fly-in in odd-numbered years, which means our turn is coming up in March of 2008.
Community Dance		This is a dance we host on the first Tuesday of every month, barring major holidays. It's open to any and all square dancers, gay or non-gay, who can dance at the Mainstream level or above. Most of our visitors come as part of "raiding and retrieving." What's raiding and retrieving? It's a system that's meant to keep clubs within a given area dancing with each other. It's a way to encourage mixing, getting to know other dancers, and is pretty crucial to the financial health of every club. Here's how it works. Every club has a collection of banners bearing its logo. When a club hosts a community dance, any other club bringing at least eight dancers can show up and announce that they've come to "raid" the hosting club's banner. If the raiding club has more dancers than any other club that happens to be raiding that night, they get to take the hosting club's banner home with them. The club that got its banner raided can only "retrieve" it by showing up at a subsequent community dance hosted by the club that raided them, and they can only take their banner back if they bring at least eight dancers.
Club Dance		On the third Sunday of every month, there's a dance that's open only to Gateway Squares members, announced visitors from other clubs, and sometimes students as they get close to graduation. This tradition started in the Fall of 2006, with Aaron Wells as our club caller, to supplement to community dances. It gives anyone who wants to come a place where we can all let our hair down, so to speak, and get into styling with great abandon. It's also an important outlet for members who aren't free to be out at work and can't take the chance of running into a co-worker at a community dance.
Special Dances		These are like fly-ins, only on one night. They usually involve out-of-town callers, are built around a theme like the Winter Dance, and draw dancers from our sister club in Kansas City, sometimes even Chicago.
Basic, Mainstream, Plus, Advanced		These are the levels of square dance moves you hear about most often. Here are definitions and even little animated diagrams for Basic, Mainstream, Plus, and Advanced. Our students finish learning Mainstream moves around January/February and graduate as Plus dancers in May. About a dozen dancers in the club have gone as far as Advanced, but the club does host Advanced lessons on Tuesday nights!
Styling		This word refers to flourishes on common moves that you only find in the gay square dancing world. Kicks, spins, twirls, and general body contact are added onto moves like weave the ring, dosado, swing and promenade, grand square, etc. You'll also hear people vocalize during certain moves, like calling out "Quack!" during an acey-duce or "You betcha!" during a spread.
Patter, Singing Call, Tip		"Patter," also known as "hash" is when a caller puts a square through a sequence of moves with music but no singing and generally less styling. Also, at the end of each "figure", or sequence of moves, the girl always ends up where she started. You won't hear certain calls during patter, such as grand square, teacup chain, or weave the ring. In a "singing call," the caller mixes square dancing moves with sung lyrics of a particular song, and at the end of a figure, the girl ends up with the boy to her right. There is styling galore and any move at the level the caller has chosen. A "tip" is a combination of patter and singing call, always in that order, and is the usual unit between which we take breaks.