the.com/square dance

means A dance for four couples arranged in a square, performed to live calls that tell everyone where to move next.

from "Square" simply names the dance's formation — four couples facing inward to form a square, as opposed to "round dances" like the waltz where couples circle the room. The pattern descends from 17th-century English country dances and French quadrilles, carried to America by European settlers and reshaped in rural communities, especially in Appalachia, where fiddle tunes and the spoken "calls" became essential. The calling tradition itself is thought to have grown partly out of necessity — a way to prompt dancers who didn't know the steps by heart — and it calcified into the genre's signature feature rather than fading away.