Square Dance Tutorial

Guided Tour of A-1

Table of Contents
Introduction
Formations and Positions
Same But Different
Not All That Different
Grand
Concepts
New But Simple to Describe
New Big Calls
Where to Go From Here
Tutorials Home
 

2: FORMATIONS AND POSITIONS

There are no new formations introduced by the A-1 program. The calls are normally used from the same formations that Plus dancers are familiar with, such as parallel waves, two-faced lines, columns, diamonds, and 1/4 tag.

However, in Advanced dancing it becomes more important to be aware of your position within a formation. You will need to know if you are a leader or a trailer, an end or a center, both because these ideas are used in the definitions of many of the calls and also because the caller is more likely to use them to select the dancers to do a particular call.

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Beau/Belle
There are also two new terms introduced to identify dancers: Beau and Belle. In a couple, the beau is the dancer on the left, and the belle is the dancer on the right.

Beau and belle are not the same thing as boy and girl. At the beginning of a tip, when everybody is in a squared set, all the boys are beaus and all the girls are belles, but at other times any dancer might be a beau or a belle. "Beau" and "belle" refer to position within a couple, which changes during a tip, while "boy" and "girl" are roles that stay constant throughout a whole tip.

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