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American Square Dances |
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The Square Dances of the East and West are both derived from the "formal" Quadrille, but each with a different accent and style. One stayed at home, the other traveled West with the pioneers and grew up with our ever-widening frontiers, adding a bit here, changing a little there, and developing a "rolling" rhythm in the music, the calls, and the style of dancing. Much of the different and distinctive quality of the Western dance came from the influence of the Mexican Quadrilles, the "Las Cuadrillas" of New Mexico, the Contras and Quadrilles of old Spanish California, particularly in the Southwest—Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and southern Colorado—where the dances of the Spanish Colonies came down the trade trails and blended with the dances the pioneer settlers brought with them from New England, the Southern highlands, Middle West, and the Eastern states. |
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