Modern Western Square Dance

Many activities were still running side by side. The groups dedicated to the Country Dance and the Square Dance worked separately from each other. Each region had its own dances and special customs. In the 60s, a group of callers began to collect material and standardize it. In the early 70s they created the first programs.

In a large collection more than 5,000 square dance figures are documented. About 400 of them are listed in approximately 10 programs that are danced around  the world. The address list of international square dance clubs is a book of letter format, two inches thick and contains about 10,000 addresses.

The square dance came to Germany after the end of World War II with the U.S. Armed Forces. In 1949, Paul Hartman founded the first European Square Dance Club in Bremen. Originally intended for the U.S. Army only, the Square Dance virus spread all over Germany soon.