Everything I know about this neglected genre of Jewish dance-calling comes from Helen Winkler’s excellent page on the subject. There’s another great article about a Sephardic version which even has photos of the dance caller Rosa Azvaradel’s gestures.
Like so many things in this field, all we got are scraps insufficient to recreate the real thing, so why not make it up and have some fun? (Which is what I did below.)
Winkler’s page preserves some fascinating hints at what was, including some oral histories about all-women dances accompanied by singing. I was particularly tickled and inspired by Steve Weintraub’s comments:
The calls seem to combine actual instruction with funny/nonsensical rhymes and formulas. Its interesting that the lyrics make fun of the dancers and expect them to mess up. This might be, perhaps, that dancing a kadril or lancers was "putting on airs" in a way, and was made more acceptable by being made fun of. (We're Jews, we don't take this dancing thing too seriously). I don't know if the lyrics can really be used in an archeological way to reconstruct a dance- no more so than lyrics of 60's dance songs could help you reproduce, say, the twist (round and round and up and down you go, again) without knowing the vocabulary of the dance in the first place. Rather, I think the value might be in giving some novelty and authenticity to calling dances.
Perfect. So here’s my tantsleider, it’s nothing special, but I hope this topic will inspire others to make and share their own silly attempts and reinvigorate this moribund tradition.
Tantsleider for the 21st
(With Apologies to William Moore and his Old Country Rock)
C'mon now, let's go for an old country rock,
Face your partner,
Say how do you do,
All right, all right,
Everybody in, all hands up,
Now grasp the sparrow's tail,
Girls rock, boys rock,
Circle Left,
Circle right,
Get back to the country, back on that old country rock.
Part the mane of a wild horse,
With last year's rain,
Abandon all remorse,
Do the heebie jeebie,
On a frosty window pane,
Now one more time,
All right all right,
Now everyone back,
Back to the Rappahanock, Tappahannock
'Cross the river, boys, 'cross that river,
Circle left, circle right,
Bow to your partner you sad lonely morons,
Rivke, why are you all the way over there,
I swear to god woman,
One foot up and one foot one down,
Wave hands like clouds in snow,
Bring it back home and swing around
Rivke seriously!? Are you even listening..?!
Now everyone ride the Green Lion,
Find the Needle at the Bottom of the Sea,
Alright alright,
All hands in, all hands in,
Gitl Gitl -- turn to the middle
Tra-la-la
Swing the night gate wide
Render the veil,
Face your beloved,
Ask how do you do,
Aww shucks,
Under the bridge, now open the fridge,
Moan alone on your microphone,
Two little ladies a-right and a-left,
Someone help Rivke, please,
Do si do and all join hands,
Now everybody historicize,
Your material conditions,
Descry the ancient flower,
Any ancient flower will do,
Everybody all hands in and,
Feast on unctuous paps of a fat, pregnant sow
Ah that old country rock
Ah that old country rock
Postscript: Many Jewish folks may be, rightly so, turned off by the square dance revival’s anti-semitic associations. It seems to me that nothing would make old Henry Ford madder than a big fat Jewy square dance, full of irony and hips and curly hair.