Levels and lists
Modern western square dancing is organized into a hierarchy of standard syllabus programs (also called "levels"). Each level is described by a list of the calls that will be used, inclusive of all the material from the lower levels. The higher the program, the more material (i.e. calls) on that list, and the greater ability to recall and handle complexity is required of the dancers. The levels preceding Challenge are: Mainstream, Plus, and Advanced (A1 and A2). There are five Challenge levels: Basic Challenge (C1), Extended Challenge (C2), Extended Challenge (C3A), Challenge 3B (C3B) and Challenge 4 (C4). The first three of these are maintained and organized byWhat makes Challenge dancing challenging?
C1 dancers must be familiar with about 250 calls (including those from Mainstream, Plus, and Advanced). By C3, the dancers must be familiar with more than 400 calls. C4 dancers typically know at least 700 calls. Challenge square dancing not only involves knowing many more calls, but is typified by the extensive use ofConcepts
In addition to the calls which denote a particular dance action, Challenge dancing makes extensive use of "Formations
Just as Plus adds Diamonds and Advanced adds Hourglasses, Challenge dancing adds new formations which have their own rules for circulation as well as calls that apply specifically to them. Additional formations include Butterflies, Galaxies, Triangles, Xs, and Zs. Also, many formations used at lower levels are extended to include cases where they are "distorted" – while they have the same number of dancers and the dancers follow the same rules of interaction, they are not spaced the same way. For example, a wave may be "offset" so that the two halves are not lined up with each other, or a "parallelogram" consisting of two lines offset from each other can be considered to be two "boxes" even though the dancers in each box are not adjacent to each other. Irregular distortions, e.g., where four arbitrary dancers not lined up in any obvious way are asked to act as a wave, may also be used. In each case, the dancers must follow the rules of the basic call, but adjust their actual movements so that they correspond to the positions of the distorted formation.Phantoms
Challenge dancing makes extensive use of "phantoms" – imaginary dancers who hold positions in a formation that is only partially filled by real dancers. Challenge dancers must learn to do their part of a call in a particular formation even though many of the other dancers – possibly all of them – are missing. This requires both a clear understanding of the call definition and the ability to remember where the positions of the formation are without the usual visual and tactile cues. Calls which cause the dancers to change from one formation to another ("shape-changers") are especially challenging to dance with phantoms because the positions themselves will be changing and the entire formation may have to move to make room for other formations (even ones that have no real dancers at all to mark their position).Fractionalization
Frequent use is made in Challenge dancing of fractionalized calls, both explicitly (e.g., the caller asks the dancers to do half of something) and implicitly through concepts. Many calls are defined to have specific "parts". Other calls can be broken down naturally based on the nature of the movement involved (e.g., a Hinge is half of a Trade). Starting at the C1 level, concepts are introduced which operate on call parts. For example, the "Finish" concept means to do all of the call except for the first part. At higher levels there are meta-concepts which involve applying concepts to only certain parts of a call (e.g., "Evenly" means that only the even-numbered parts of a call should be affected by the specified concept). To properly apply these concepts, the dancer must have both an excellent understanding of the definitions of the basic calls, including how the parts are defined, and the ability to keep track in real-time of what concepts are being applied to which parts.Challenge dancing organizations and events
Clubs
Some Challenge dancing is done inTape groups
Dancers who are interested in learning or dancing a particular Challenge level often form private groups and dance using recordings.Regional events
In addition to local clubs, in many places there are events organized to offer Challenge dancing to the dancers of a larger geographic area on a less-frequent basis (e.g., monthly). These often feature callers from other areas. Some general square dance conventions and festivals at the regional or state level include a Challenge hall, but they typically have very limited offerings above C1.National and international events
The largest Challenge event currently operating is the multi-levelSee also
*External links