Tony Parkes

AMERICAN SQUARES AND CONTRAS

Tony Parkes has been calling square and contra dances for more than 50 years. Starting in the 1960s, he learned from many of the leading callers and teachers of the day, such as Don Armstrong, Don Durlacher, Michael and Mary Ann Herman, Dick Kraus, Dick Leger and Ralph Page. He has taught at Mainewoods, Mendocino, Ontario, and Texas folk dance camps, as well as at Augusta, Brasstown, Buffalo Gap and Pinewoods square/contra camps, and innumerable state and regional weekend festivals. His calling has taken him to 35 states, Canada, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, England and Germany.

Tony specializes in the contra dances and quadrille-type squares of New England and the “transitional” squares of the 1950s, when traditional Western square dancing was developing into the modern variety. Like his illustrious mentors, he believes in keeping these dance forms accessible to as many people as possible. He has beginners doing real dances within seconds, and can keep experienced dancers entertained with a bit of challenge or elegance.

Using traditional basic movements, Tony has composed over 90 square and contra dance routines, some of which have become modern classics. He is the author of a standard text on calling contras and is writing a companion volume on calling squares. Several recordings feature Tony as caller, pianist, director and/or producer. He is a core consultant to the Square Dance History Project (www.squaredancehistory.org), a virtual online museum of over 1,500 videos, audios, photographs, and articles documenting both traditional and modern square dancing.

Tony and his wife Beth, also a caller, live in the Boston area. When not at a camp, they divide their calling time between appearing at weekly and monthly dance series throughout (and beyond) New England, most with live music, and presiding at corporate, civic and private parties for people who are dancing for the first time.