Square Dance Events with DC Lambda Squares!
Last Updated: June 28, 2009
We dance at National City Christian Church at 5 Thomas Circle. We want to see you there! You are always welcome! The floor in Scott Hall, where we dance, is carpeted. So you should wear some hard-soled shoes for really smooth dancing.
THIS WEEK - New Club Format Begins
A new club-night format starts this week. It is:
| First Thursday: | Plus |
| Second Thursday: | Plus and Advanced |
| Third Thursday: | Advanced |
| Fourth Thursday: | Plus and Advanced |
| Fifth Thursday: | C1 and C2 |
Mainstream can be added on Plus nights for the benefit of any MS dancers attending.
IAGLCWDC Hoedown - Coming This Weekend
The International Association of Gay/Lesbian Country Western Dance Clubs (IAGLCWDC), of which Capital Country Dance Club (CCDC) is a member, is preparing for its upcoming Hoedown and needs some volunteers to help. (CCDC volunteered at DC Diamond Circulate, and raised over $500 for the All Join Hands Foundation.) Half of the funds raised from this event are designated to go to 'Brother, Help Thyself', which provides support to people with HIV/AIDS, and the other half to the Mautner Project, which provides support to Lesbians with cancer.
The convention will be at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill (400 New Jersey Avenue, NW) on July 3rd, 4th, and 5th with the theme "Stomps and Stripes Forever". For more information, visit the Hoedown 2009 website. If you would like to volunteer, please send an email with your schedule preference to . We need help checking in registrants, and handing out info, Thurs. 7/2, 4-8pm; Fri. 7/3, 8am-8pm; Sat. 7/4, 8am-noon. Choose any 2 hour slots, or whatever time you can spare will be greatly appreciated.
DCDC Says Thank You
The DC Diamond Circulate Committee wishes to thank the volunteers who made the convention such a terrific event. So they are giving us
a fancy picnic. A catered affair.
Everyone in DC Lambda Squares is invited since the whole club supported the convention. Also invited will be DC Diamond Circulate volunteers from our sister clubs and WASCA.
Saturday, August 15, 2009 Parklawn Group Picnic Area 12274 Veirs Mill Road Rockville, MD
Watch this space for more details including including picnic times and driving directions. It's going to be a big lah-di-dah event (we said catered).
"Food! ... Drink! ... Fun! ... Friends! ... Games! ... and More!" promises the Committee.
("More"? But really, what else could there be?)
Open House
There was a good turnout of DC Lambda Square members for the first of a series of open house ABC dances to quickly introduce new people to square dancing and get them dancing immediately. Decorations (splendid) and dinner (also): a fine fun evening.
The next two such evenings will be July 23 and August 27 when Skip Cleland will be calling the ABCs of square dance intro. It is important to your club that members come out to support this event. So come on down to the church hall to eat and check out the new people.
Click here for the full ABC Dance Invitation.
More TechnoDCLS News - IAGSDC and Social Networking
IAGSDC is revamping its website. The main page at www.iagsdc.org has been updated to reflect the new networking services that have been incorporated. These include:
Twitter; Dish!; YouTube.
IAGSDC invites you to visit their new home page.
Other News - Art Exhibit
DCLS member Wess Brown has a photography exhibit in this year's Art-O-Matic. This massive non-juried art show takes place through July 5th, taking up the entire building at 55 M St. SE (at the Navy Yard Metro station). Wess's exhibit is on the 4th floor, section 11. For more information, check out www.artomatic.org.
Plus Class
No Plus class Monday, June 29.
Updated Plus Class Schedule
- 06/29/09 - No Class
- 07/06/09 - YES
- 07/13/09 - No Class
- 07/20/09 - YES
1016 South Wayne Street Arlington, Virginia Time: 7:30 - 9:30p
- 07/25/09 - Graduation (Community Dance)
NEW LOCATION
This community/graduation dance is at a new location.
Please take
Takoma Park Middle School 7611 Piney Branch Road Silver Spring, MD 20910
And Now - for the Advanced Dancers Looking for a Real CHALLENGE
Ready for C-1? No. REALLY ready for C-1? Dayle is giving you a terrific opportunity. He's having a C-1 Boot Camp, one weekend only, New York, August 7, 8, 9. Dayle explained that even though you may not (will not) remember all the calls and be able to suddenly join a C-1 club, the next time the class comes around, you'll be even MORE ready.
Click here for the full C1 Boot Camp flyer.
This Week
06/29/09 - DC Lambda Squares Dance Class - DARK
06/30/09 - Chesapeake Squares Club Night - Mainstream thru Advanced, 8 - 10p, Waxter Center. For more info, contact: .
07/02/09 - DC Lambda Squares Club Night - Plus, 7:30 - 9:30p, National City Christian Church, 5 Thomas Cir NW Washington DC, Caller: Brian or Kent. For more info, contact: .
Next Week
07/06/09 - DC Lambda Squares Dance Class - Plus, 7:30 - 9:30p, The Barkley 1016 South Wayne Street, Arlington VA, Caller: Butch Adams. For more info, contact: .
07/07/09 - Chesapeake Squares Club Night - Mainstream thru Advanced, 8 - 10p, Waxter Center. For more info, contact: .
07/09/09 - DC Lambda Squares Club Night - Plus & Advanced, 7:30 - 9:30p, National City Christian Church, 5 Thomas Cir NW Washington DC, Caller: Dayle. For more info, contact: .
Mark Your Calendars
- July 20 - Night OUT at the Nationals
- July 23 - ABC Dance / Open House
Community Dances
- July 25 - Plus Class Graduation, Caller: Butch Adams
- September 12 - Homecoming, Caller: Dayle Hodge
- October 31 - Halloween, Caller: Nick Martelacci
Coming Soon...
07/13/09 - DC Lambda Squares Dance Class - DARK
07/14/09 - Chesapeake Squares Club Night - Mainstream thru Advanced, 8 - 10p, Waxter Center. For more info, contact: .
07/16/09 - DC Lambda Squares Club Night - Advanced, 7:30 - 9:30p, National City Christian Church, 5 Thomas Cir NW Washington DC, Caller: Dayle. For more info, contact: .
07/20/09 - DC Lambda Squares Dance Class - Plus, 7:30 - 9:30p, The Barkley 1016 South Wayne Street, Arlington VA, Caller: Butch Adams. For more info, contact: .
07/21/09 - Chesapeake Squares Club Night - Mainstream thru Advanced, 8 - 10p, Waxter Center. For more info, contact: .
07/23/09 - DC Lambda Squares Club Night - ABC Dance/Open House, 7:30 - 9:30p, National City Christian Church, 5 Thomas Cir NW Washington DC, Caller: Skip Clelnad. For more info, contact: .
07/25/09 - Community Dance, 7 - 10p, Location: Takoma Park Middle School, 7611 Piney Branch Road, Silver Spring, MD 20910; Caller: Butch Adams. For more info, contact: .
07/28/09 - Chesapeake Squares Club Night - Mainstream thru Advanced, 8 - 10p, Waxter Center. For more info, contact: .
07/30/09 - DC Lambda Squares Club Night - Challenge (C1 and C2), 7:30 - 9:30p, National City Christian Church, 5 Thomas Cir NW Washington DC, Caller: Ett McAtee. For more info, contact: .
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Useful Contact Info
If you have news, dish, rumors, or comments, email your newsletter editors, .
If you have a question about DC Lambda Squares, , or snail mail your inquiry to DC Lambda Squares, P.O. Box 77782, Washington DC 20013-8782.
If you have questions about the web site, or you have found broken links, the site behaves in a weird way for you, contact , and he'll fix it.
Gay Square Dancing Links:
The URL to the DCLS website is: http://www.dclambdasquares.org
The URL to the International Association of Gay Square Dance Clubs website is: http://wwww.iagsdc.org/
The URL to the East Coast Dancers Calendar is: http://www.iagsdc.org/timessquares/NortheastCalendar.html
Square Dancing and then some:
Ettseteras
Challenge dancers: Ettseteras. The club dances every second and fourth Monday of the month, and all C1 dancers are welcome to attend. Gay-friendly club, $7/dancer, singles welcome, casual dress. Location: 9800 Cherry Hill Rd, College Park, MD. Contact for more information. Please note: no dancing if Prince George's county schools are closed, or close early, due to weather. If in doubt, call Ett at 443-745-1709.
Butch Adams
Butch Adams offers some great Plus dance-by-definition (DBD) square dancing. Plus DBD is all of the calls you know and love, but often from new or different positions. Butch offers workshop dances and classes. Here's his schedule:
Plus DBD Workshop
7:30 to 10 P.M.; 2nd, 4th and 5th Tuesdays of the month
Thoreau Middle School
2505 Cedar Lane
Vienna, VA 22180
Plus DBD Workshop/Class
7:30 to 9:30 P.M. every Wednesday evening
Lincolnia Senior Center
4710 North Chambliss St
Alexandria, VA 22312
For more information, contact .
Square Dance Animation
The TAMinations website will take you to a wonderful place with examples of all the square dance calls in all the land. You can watch the move happen at a fast pace, a slow place, or manually, at your own pace.
Noriko Takahashi has a great animated square dance site for Basic through Advanced. Check it out and enjoy: http://members.tripod.com/~noriks/ENGLISH/English-Index2.html. If your browser attempts to download a Japanese character set, just cancel the download operation.
Another animated site where you can order a CD. This site shows some examples from the CD. Work those skirts.... http://www.squaredancecd. com/sdance.htm (Uses frames).
And for a change of pace, check out Lavender Country & Folk Dancers at http://www.lcfd.org.
Board Members:
| President | |
| Vice-President | |
| Secretary | |
| Treasurer | |
| Membership | |
| At Large | |
| At Large | |
| Newsletter Editor | |
| Class Representative | |
| Web Guy |
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Learn to Square Dance with DC Lambda Squares
Read more about our classes....
DC Lambda Squares welcomes singles, couples, and those on the rebound. We provide an energetic activity that encourages smiles, promotes friendship, and is a ticket to the hip, social, sexy world of square dancing. We promise that without any irony at all, and we do it in a smoke-free, alcohol-free space. Suddenly, Monday nights are fun again!
Remember, if you can walk, you can dance! Meanwhile, we'd love to come and put on a dance demo for your club or organization, and throughout the year, we host a number of open houses and fundraisers for the community. If you would like more information about any of this, please contact , our Membership Chairperson. Come back to this page for updates and details.
From time to time, we schedule dance open houses. At our open houses, you'll meet club members and learn about a dozen calls of Modern Western Square Dancing! Men, women, singles, and couples are welcome. You don't need a partner, and you don't need any previous dance experience. We'll teach you everything you need to know.
Admission is free at the open houses, and we'll provide refreshments in a smoke-free, alcohol-free environment. Dress is casual. You don't need to wear crinolines, unless you really want to. We recommend comfortable clothes.
We dance at National City Christian Church (NCCC) at 5 Thomas Circle, Washington, DC. Please for more information.
Club Member Corner
Every so often we're going to feature a club member. So if Tonja, Ace Reporter, asks you for an interview, be sure to say yes, because we all want to get to know you better. Read all of Tonja's club member interviews.
Meet Mein
Mein, who came here from the Philippines via Long Island, is now, since this past ACDC weekend, a seasoned Advance Level dancer.
But here's the thing. Mein has been square dancing since the spring of 2006 when he began with an Accelerated Learning Program. He completed the Plus lessons in 2007. And began Advanced in the fall of 2007. He's almost through the Advanced class. Almost. So... since at ACDC he danced every tip, as lead and follow, it would appear he's fast onto becoming a dancing machine.
Well, maybe he already is. Mein dances Latin dances Samba, Rhumba, ChaCha; he teaches Salsa, is in a Salsa Rueda group (Rueda is a called dance pattern lying somewhere between round and square dancing); dances counry and western, line dancing, east and west coast swing.
Oh, and he could polka if he felt like it.
Mein had been vaguely aware that there was such a thing as gay square dancing. But it wasn't until the 2005 ASGRA rodeo that he was personally introduced to it. In the demo tip. And the invitational tip. He had to wait until spring to begin classes. And then danced irregularly at club night awaiting the next set of Plus classes.
After the rodeo and before the Mainstream classes began, Mein just showed up one evening to see what the Lambda Squares looked like in their home. Knowing no one, he was immediately made to feel welcome by the friendly Lambdas who, but of course, invited Mein to dance anyway, and pulled this natural through a few tips.
Mein has a fondness for the five- and six-couple formations that Jim Wass used when he taught. Thinks Harper's Ferry Hoedown to be the best thing going outside of the weekly dance nights. That is, until he met ACDC. And is quietly thrilled to have come so far as to be able to help newer dancers (and even some older ones) make their way through the calls.
Amazing Mein; how cute thou art.
Visit Mein's website, www.SonMas.net, for salsa information.
Meet Nick
With an admitted fondness for toes, Nick is presently the DC Lambda Squares club treasurer (and a fine thing it is, too).
Nick's beginning involvement with the club stemmed from a great sadness. As the caretaker of a loved one dying from HIV, he sought some kind of respite among people who would be unawares of the daily problems and issues he faced. He wanted a place or activity that would be separate from the other life of constant cares, a small space of freedom and relief.
He discovered DC Lambda Squares at a Gay Pride event and found the balance he had been seeking in a safe, wholesome atmosphere where for a brief while, he could slip away from the nightmare. Taking lessons up through Plus from Doug Barnett, DC Lambda Squares long-time instructor, Nick considers himself now to be "stuck" at Plus. This is inaccurate as he will jump into an Advanced Square (he completed Gary Felton's Advanced class) where he injects, always, lightness and laughter, an infectiousness that even travels to adjoining squares.
It is this spirit of joy, of fellowship and camaraderie that Nick cherishes about the club. Lambda members really do care about one another. He has seen them laugh together and cry together; he has witnessed warmth and support in times of sorrow, and shared pleasure in happier times.
Nick's first convention was in 1990 (either Seattle or Vancouver). He was awestruck. From the initial excitement of the Trail Inn, to the leather tip, the moonshine tip, to the dressing up, the costumes, the constant color and theatre of it all, he was, and remains, hooked. A thousand, twelve hundred gay men and women dancing together….where else can you find that?
We don't know where else. But we are getting a pedicure.
Meet Katherine
Katherine has come a long ways from Nebraska, but maybe the Midwest and corn fanned a spark for square dancing.... Katherine is another reluctant convert to the joys of square dancing. Two short years ago she accompanied her grandparents to a square dance class in Missouri. She nixed the notion of her own participation. No, no. She’d just sit and watch. Thanks, but no thanks. But then she was sorry as she saw how much fun it was. She knew immediately that she wanted to join in.
Coming to the DC area, Katherine tried for a whole year to find a place to square dance. It wasn’t very promising. The straight clubs she found had two glaring negatives. One was the average age of the members (her grandparents’ age); and two was that "have-to-be-coupled-up" factor that bedevils singles, especially single women, in straight clubs.
Noodling around on the internet, Katherine nearly missed a tiny link to gay square dancing. She went back and clicked on it and TA DA! DC Lambda Squares. She signed up instantly.
Katherine hasn’t been square dancing long enough to have racked up a huge number of square dance moments. However, she does mention the time a woman joined her square wearing a baby in a sling. How was this woman going to be able to...? Katherine surprised herself as she found during the tip that she didn’t even notice the baby. Hey, start 'em young!
Her first encounter with DCLS gave Katherine the slightest moment of pause. Alone and knowing not a soul in the group, she entered the Baptist church basement and found a group of older men standing around... who turned and looked at her. (She did stand out, after all.) And made her wonder. Um, was she in the right place? Had she made a terrible, terrible mistake?
That feeling of uncertainty was quickly transformed by the warmth and welcoming atmosphere that Lambda Dancers shower on newcomers. And now she’s a terrific booster for the club. Katherine dances Plus, having learned it all here with DC Lambda Squares.
Meet Ed
Originally from far off Cumberland, Maryland, Ed has been square dancing for an indeterminate number of years. One of two things: either it's a secret number, or he's quite forgotten (it's been THAT long).
Ed did not come willingly to square dancing; he was more or less forced into it. Totally uninterested, even actively disinclined towards the activity, he couldn't be bothered. Square dancing? Puhleeze. Besides, Ed was really busy.
But he had three friends who were eager to square dance. More than eager. And thinking it was necessary to show up with a partner, Ed (the driver) was coerced into making the fourth. Only if he absolutely HAD to, he said. Then they arrived at CUMC (early location for DC Lambda Squares) and discovered that no, you don't need your own personal partner.
Apparently the reality of square dancing differed from Ed's preconception of it; he's been dancing ever since, learning from Doug (the original article), Warren, and then Ett. His first impression that long ago night? A whole room full of gay people and the lights were on.
After the first lesson was over, Ed and his gang of four topped off the evening with a visit to Mr. Henry's. This was a huge success. They had such a good time that Mr. Henry's became a tradition carried through to the completion of Mainstream classes.
One of Ed's brightest square dance memories occurred at the Baltimore convention. The Edo 8s, a Tokyo club, introduced the Miss Honky Tonk Queen contest with a dance number Ed insists has yet to be equaled. It involved fireworks. (Well anyway, sparklers.)
Among other things, Ed appreciates that being part of the DC Lambda Squares means participating in a gay activity that doesn't require going to bars.
Let's hear it for Mr. Henry's.
Meet Cindy ------->>>>>>>
Everyone, absolutely everyone, who comes to the DC Lambda Squares makes mention of how friendly and open and warm everyone was to them from their first visit. Cindy is one of the people they are talking about. Cindy makes a new person feel that she couldn't be happier than to see you there. She immediately puts you at ease. She wants to dance with you. YOU.
Cindy knew nothing about square dancing until a friend who was a DC Lambda Squares member introduced her to the club. Cindy had been looking around for things to do, things to get her out into the community, ways to meet people, get exercise. She came to an open house and, shazaam! There it all was.
<<<<<<<---------- Also there! Olivia, Cindy is her special angel!
Cindy dances full Advanced level, having learned Mainstream and Plus DC Lambda Squares, and Advanced with Baltimore's Chesapeake Squares.
During her ten years of square dancing, one of Cindy's favorite experiences was seeing Happy in his Wonder Woman costume at the IAGSDC Wish Upon Thar's masquerade ball in Anaheim. And right up there with that event: the convention's Honky Tonk Queen contest where people in drag compete to win a title in a lame beauty contest, the rules of which continually change to accommodate unexpected trends. (The escort had morphed from one person to an entourage which at one point included a whole chorus of Rockettes.) Some past contestants: Cow Patti. Leona Davenport. Sharon Husbands. Ima Cornholder. Tammy Whynot. Are we having enough fun?
A tough day at work and Cindy looks forward to club night where she can count on getting happy and relaxed. Along with the friendly, smiling faces Cindy encountered when she joined DCLS, there has been another, and unexpected, boon. Before DCLS, she had few male friends. Now she has more friends of both sexes than she ever dreamed would come out of square dancing.
See? Join 16. Go home with friends!
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