July 3, 1998 • Ju st out 2 )
Friendship Set to Music
sidekick to the gay rodeos, but the movement
took hold and other clubs began popping up
across the nation. The association became
international with the formation of Squares
Across the Border, the Vancouver, British
Columbia-based club established in 1983.
Portland’s Rosetown Ramblers joined the
association in 1984. Since then another
Portland group, Heads to the Center, has been
established to accommodate advanced square
dancers.
Between the two groups, several activities
take place throughout the year. Classes are
offered on Wednesday during fall, winter and
spring, while the first Saturday of every month
finds dances at the Portland Police Activities
Association in Southeast Portland. These
dances, Philips says, are a hybrid of square
dancing and country western, which Philips
describes as basically line dancing and two-
stepping.
“We’ll dance to pretty much anything,”
Philips says. “We’ve danced to the Village
People, of course. And at Christmas time we’ve
done a square dance to ‘Jingle Bells.’ ”
Continued from page 19
bine and recombine steps to keep as many peo
ple as possible moving. He dreams, he says, of
becoming a full-time, professional caller.
“It’s about how we treat each other,” he
says, and takes a thoughtful pause. “Square
dancers aren’t made, they’re bom. Only lots of
them don’t realize it just yet.”
t h e R o s e , the 15th annual convention
of the International Association of Gay Square
Dance Clubs will be held July 3 to 5 at the Jantzen
Beach Doubletree Hotel Ballroom, 909 N .
Hayden Island Drive in Portland.
The (dancing) general public is welcome to par -
take in a country western dance with DJ Don
Harris on July 3 from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m . at the
Doubletree. Cost is $5. The public can watch
dancers at the conference free of charge throughout
the weekend.
For more information about the ROSETOWN
R a m b l e r s , call 234-9944, or visit the group’s
Web site at www.rdrop.com/users/ramblers.
I WEAVE
A bove: O u r Com m ittee S o F ar displays the Portland prom otional tourist bags that will greet convention attendees; below : “ W ith gay danc
ing the term s ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ are ju st technical term s.’’ — K ate Yule
S
quare dancing,” says Michael McMullen,
the Rosetown Ramblers’ caller, “is friend
ship set to music.”
McMullen caught the bug quite by acci
dent. Employed as an organist at a church, he
was asked to keep an eye on the square dancing
group practicing in the basement. A few weeks
later he took his partner along, and they were
both hooked. Years later, when the interna
tional convention took place in Seattle, his
partner, who was then nearly blind due to the
ravages of AID S, still managed to dance.
“To say there were tears in the hall would
be an understatement,” says McMullen.
Five years ago, he decided to enroll in the
school sponsored by the gay callers association
prior to the convention.
“I was told I had talent,” he says. “But I was
also urged not to quit my day job.”
McMullen works as a financial planner and
speaks of calling square dancing in decidedly
logical terms.
“It appeals to the problem-solving, analyti
cal side of me,” he says. “The choreography is
like geometry in motion. There are 4,000 dif
ferent square dance calls, and you have to fit
the call to the crowd. It requires a great deal of
creativity.”
The goal of calling, McMullen says, is to
keep 80 percent of the floor dancing. If every
one is dancing, he explains, then the more
advanced dancers are probably getting bored.
For the past two years, he has left his notes
at home and called by sight, which requires
him to constantly monitor the crowd and com
R est “ e a s y ” w ith o u r v e ry v is ib le
m eans o f su p p o rt.
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