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7: THE SQUARED SET
Before we introduce any more actions, we need to first cover some terms relating to the idea of a square. This is, after all, called "square dancing". And that's because, in square dancing, each group of eight dancers starts out arranged in the shape of a square, consisting of four couples each facing a different wall. Everything in square dancing happens among these eight people. There may be hundreds of people dancing in the same room, but they are each part of a particular square, with all the squares doing the same thing at the same time.
The eight dancers in a square are of two types, Boys and Girls -- four of each. They start out arranged as shown, with each couple consisting of a boy on the left, holding a girl by his right hand, and a girl on the right, holding a boy by her left hand.
In this tutorial, when it matters which dancer is a boy and which is a girl they will be shown in the illustrations in blue and pink. But for most actions it actually doesn't matter -- they can be done equally well by any combination of boys and girls. In the illustrations for those actions other colors will be used.
An example of an action where it does matter is Slide Thru. This is done by dancers who are facing, and starts like a Pass Thru, but as they get to the other side the boys Face Right while the girls Face Left. They end up in the same spots as for a Pass Thru, but facing sideways, relative to the direction they were originally facing.
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