Sunday Herald (Sydney, NSW : 1949 - 1953), Sunday 22 October 1950, page 1


SQUARE DANCING

When the weekly puppet plays at Burnie Park, Clovelly, end on Saturday, the Children's Library movement plans to replace'them during the summer season with square dancing for young people, CQUARE dancing, a type of ^ American folk dancing very popular in the United States, has a number of basic steps similar to those used in English country dances. In square dancing there is a "caller," a person who calls the different steps to the dancers. Often the dancers sing the direc-tions which have been written to fit the music.

Classes to teach young people square dancing will be held every

Thursday afternoon at Clovelly. -Teenagers can. attend classes held on Thursday evenings.

Square dancing is not entirely new to Australia. At the last Jacaranda Festival in Grafton several square dances were performed.

At the 1946 Folk Festival, Legacy boys and girls danced

In a marionette play by Bernard Shaw, he and Shakespeare arc the main characters. Here the two dramatists meet in puppet form.

square dances before the Duchess of Gloucester, and during the war there was square dancing at the afternoon parties in the Domain given by the Folk Lore Associa-

tion.

Girl square dancers wear gay dresses of printed,ginghams and cottons,

in the peasant style, while the men wear colourful western clothes. ,

Because young people may want to go to the beaches in the summer, the square dancing will not begin until late afternoon.

Director of Theatre and

Puppetry, of the Children's Lib-rary Movement, Mrs. E. C. Mur-ray, said:

"We also plan to have square dancing at the Erskineville centre, and perhaps at other centres. We hope to get an accordion, because

the accordion and fiddle is the real music for square dancing."

In two years the puppet shows at Burnie Park have entertained large audiences. The programme was changed every few weeks.

During the season, some of the work of the young people inter-ested in puppetry was shown. A play, "The Friendly Ghost," was written by 13-year-old Anne

Keogh to fit an exceptionally good' set of puppets. The play was set in Elizabethan times and ran for four weeks.

"Some of the plays sent in by the children are very interesting," Mrs. Murray said. "Since we started the puppet shows, their plots have become more and

more elaborate."

Other puppet stages are being

built at Erskineville and Brad-field centres. Mrs. E. C. Murray

hopes to foster interest in puppetry I throughout New South Wales. ¡