Square dancing in the 21st century

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/11/2014 (4265 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the September Manisquare newsletter on square dancing, I came across the name St. Vital Swingers, the square dancers’ group at Greendell Community Club on Woodlawn Avenue.

It twigged a soft spot in my heart, for I’d helped coin that name when I was a member there in the 1980s and ‘90s. Yeah, Swingers! The chief architects of that dance group were Dorothy Naish and Barbara Webster Freeman and so, with help from Don Fraser and his managerial manner, we were off and running. Rather, dancing.

At first we danced in the basement of Regents Park United Church, with Hannis Thomasson as caller. Needing more space, we tried Hannis’s basement and the St. Mark’s Anglican Church hall until Greendell became available. Today, the Swingers dance there once a week, from 1 to 3 p.m. on Tuesdays — the only club in our city to meet in the daytime. Everyone is welcome.

One gracious and dedicated member, Bonnie MacGillivray, recently invited me to attend a dance session at Greendell to witness first-hand the kind of fun-and-frolic time they’re having in the 21st century — the better to report on it for The Lance, she said.

As I walked in, caller Thor Sigurdson was guiding the dancers through energetic  routiines as they stepped along to the music — for possibly up to four miles in one session, I understand. But the Swingers also have Ernie and Shirley Hollender to take over as caller couple when Thor and wife Marvis, now in their 51st year of calling, snowbird in Arizona.

Our former callers, Hannis and Christine Thomasson as well as Joyce Johnston, have passed on, and Ron Johnston is retired, but their contributions are equally cherished. What caller couple Fred and Lorraine Barnett once taught the Hollenders and McCallums and Yanchyshyns at Oak Bluff lives on at Greendell via Ernie, Shirley, and Wilf.  

I met other accommodating people over coffee break, among them Art and Lynne Wilding, president couple, and Isabelle Bossuyt, Manisquare reporter. A quote from the president reads: “See you across the square.”

Then there was dancer Ralph Wild, who started dancing in 1950 and now, at 96, is the oldest active square dancer in Canada. Congratulations! Truly a survivor, he’d served in the RAF in the Battle of Britain in 1940.

Square dancing is not as rigorous as the aerobic exercises I once attended but is equally health-and-fun-promoting. Swing your partner, Allemande left, and Do-si-do put color in your cheeks and vigor in your step. That’s something both young and old can benefit from in the sedentary environment we live in today. It certainly enhances llife for participants.

Swingers’ secretary Anne Thoroughgood endorses square dancing as “the best thing that’s happened to me in the last 30 years.”

Touché.

Anne Yanchyshyn is a community correspondent for St. Vital.