General Dance Resources
Allan Hurst’s Square Dance Articles … LGBTQ+ square dance articles.
CALLERLAB List of All Formations … Every possible (“legal”) square dance formation.
Cap City (LGBTQ+) Dance Flourishes … How to do all those wonderful stylings!
CCS Club Apparel … How to dress to impress at Pride parades, festivals, etcetera.
“How May I Help?” by Barry Clasper … When to help and not help while dancing.
Etiquette & Courtesy by Karen Schmidt … Do’s and Don’ts on the dance floor.
Karen Schmidt’s Tips For Becoming a Better Dancer … Exactly what it sounds like.
Knowing Your Opposite … Why it’s useful to note who your opposite dancer is.
Square Dance Terminology by Karen Schmidt … Decode some of our weirder terms here.
Taminations … Web version of app with animations of all square dance calls.
Vic Ceder’s website (ceder.net) … Callers, music, choreo, and call definitions.
Northern California LGBTQ+ square dance clubs
Diablo Dancers, Walnut Creek
El Camino Reelers, Palo Alto
Foggy City Dancers, San Francisco
Midnight Squares, San Francisco
Oaktown 8’s, Oakland
Prime 8’s, Sacramento
Redwood Rainbows, Sebastopol
Western Star Dancers, San Francisco
RELATED Organizations
IAGSDC (International Association of Gay Square Dance Clubs)
Just as the name says, this is the umbrella organization supporting LGBTQ+ square dance clubs and dancers all over the world.
IAGSDC produces an annual gay square dance convention. It also has an informative website with information about all the gay square dance clubs, and an events calendar of fly-ins, conventions, and other gatherings.
Capital City Squares is proud to be a founding member club of the IAGSDC.ASDSC (Associated Square Dancers of Superior California
Our local association of square dance clubs. Capital City Squares is a full club member, and sends a representative to their Board meetings.
Part of the CCS annual membership fee goes to the ASDSC, which provides our insurance. The ASDSC presents the annual Harvest Hoedown weekend in October, and occasional dances on the 5th Saturday of the month (when they occur).
Information on each member club is on the website. CCS is proud to be a member of ASDSC.PACE (Pacific Association of Challenge Enthusiasts)
As the name suggests, this is a Challenge Level club, but they also have A2 dancing as well. There is a Northern California chapter that presents one weekend a month with special callers at locations around the Bay Area.
A typical schedule will have A2 on Friday night, C1 or C2 (alternating months) all day Saturday, and C3A or C3B on Sunday.CALLERLAB
The international association of square dance callers.
They have an annual convention in March.
CALLERLAB is responsible for creating and maintaing the definitions of Modern Western Square Dancing calls, as well as defining all of the dance programs from Basic through C3B.GCA (Gay Callers Association)
A professional association for callers who call for LGBTQ+ clubs and/or who are LGBTQ+ themselves.
In association with All Join Hands (see below), they present a three day calling school prior to each IAGSDC convention.
They have an interesting newsletter named The Call Sheet that anyone can subscribe to for a nominal annual subscription fee. Plus, they welcome articles for the newsletter from anyone.All Join Hands (AJH)
All Join Hands (and their Canadian counterpart, All Join Hands Canada), is a 501(c)3 charitable organization that can receive and distribute tax-deductible donations to support LGBTQ+ square dancing and clubs.
Many clubs hold an annual fundraiser of some sort so that they can donate funds.
AJH frequently sponsors the Trail-In dance at convention, subsidizes student fees for GCA Caller School, provides convention registration assistance for low-income dancers, and more.
If you shop at Amazon, AJH can be selected as your charity to support while shopping. It costs you nothing, but 5% of your purchase goes to AJH.