hoedown

Via Super Punch, our attention is shifted to the profoundly strange and fraught development of square dancing in the US. Though rooted originally in European folk dance, the American version of it is a big departure that saw a revival in the 1940s and 50s as a romancing of cowboy pastiche and not having the historical context and provenance that I thought.
Make of this what you will and do explore the thread at the link above for more dance-conspiracy, industrialist Henry Ford and educator Dr Lloyd “Pappy” Shaw strongly prompted the wholesome activity as a counterbalance to the deleterious influence of jazz and pushed to make modern Western square dance (as distinct from New England quadrilles and that of Appalachia whose dances are a direct descendant of Scots traditions) a national dance. While it certainly does not seem as provocative and divisive as American Confederate monuments erected decades later and only to intimidate and I don’t know how nefarious the above characterisation is, it is a little shocking to learn and I wonder if our Cosplay Nazis might not adopt and champion the return of this trend. Then I am confident that the forces of good would prevail in when challenged to settle their differences with a dance-off.