Irving Andert
Channel: Square Dance Interviews
Date: 2013-07-20

Interview with Connecticut square dance caller Irving Andert, conducted by Paul Trowbridge, July 9, 1983, recorded in the Brooklyn (CT) Grange. At that time, Andert had been calling 52 years, starting when he was 13 years old. He describes some of the early callers who influenced him, and talks about calling at a major square dance event at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, with more than 1,000 dancers attending. Andert calls "Eastern" squares, meaning traditional phrased calls; the distinction is between those and "Western" squares, meaning dances where the caller makes up the sequence of figures, rather than repeating a given sequence over and over.