When I say that I do square dancing, some of my friends say “Oh, Achy Breaky Heart!” and I have to correct them. They are thinking about line dancing, which is a kind of dance that is done over and over to the tune of a particular song. The dancers memorize the dance and do it in time with the music.

Square dancing involves sets of 8 dancers working as a team and one caller. The dancers memorize a large number of potential steps (e.g. 100 steps) ahead of time. The caller then plays music and calls out some of the steps that the dancers have memorized. The order of the calls is not decided, and it usually cannot be guessed ahead of time by the dancers.

In this video, the explanation is not quite right. First of all, vines are not square dance steps. Also, square dancing can be done to any kind of music that has the right beat. It doesn’t have to be commercially available music that is designed specifically for square dancing. If you are interested in learning more about the kind of music that is used in square dancing, you can have a look at some songs that callers have recommended in the past.