Seattle Times
On a Monday, the lights are up inside one of Ballard’s best-loved watering holes. The better not to step on your dance partner’s toes — not that you’ll be entirely able to avoid it. A sizable crowd has braved the chill of an early fall night to go square dancing. While attendees appear to range in age from 21 to early 50s, they skew young and attractive, and a Joan Jett T-shirt is as apt an accessory as a cowboy hat. Twice a month, The Tallboys (a self-professed “old time string band”) and their special guests provide the soundtrack for an event called Monday Square Dance. A different “caller” — who speaks over the music with dance explanations and cues — accompanies the band at each event. Don’t know how to promenade? No problem. “I like to sing my calls, and I want people to figure out the dance,” says the caller on this particular night, Suzanne Girardot.