Hip to be square dancing: A once-flourishing scene rises again in the Bay Area

It’s Sunday evening and dozens of people are ping-ponging around the room at Berkeley’s Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center. It’s the end of a three-day traveling music festival called “Dare to Be Square West,” and folks are whirling, stomping and otherwise having a ball.

A man who’s perched like a shepherd eyeing his flock calls out instructions from the stage. “Take your partner and promenade!” he hollers, as people form lines, part and reintegrate. “That was backwards – it was beautiful, though,” he says.