Bend The Line

An online definition may be found here.

Bars: 2.

In ECD and Contra dance, starting from a line of four all facing up or down the hall, the dancers move in to reform the minor set.

In Square dancing, many more starting positions are possible, see Taminations.

History

Bend the line is a Square Dance call that has been applied (at least in the US) to a far older phenomenon. In My Lady Cullen, 1651, Playford does even bother to mention the behavior; he goes from a line of four moving up and down the hall to right hands across. Clearly the line needs to bend to get into position for the hands across, but this is so obvious it doesn't even get mentioned:

According to Vic Ceder's website this call was created by Bill Hansen in 1957.

First cu. cross over and fall on the outside into the 2. place, and change places The first four hands all abreast, and lead up to the Presence, and fall back

Right hands across and go round all four Left hands across and go round, back again

As is usual with square dance calls, I cannot track what happened between 1939 (when Lloyd Shaw doesn't mention it in Cowboy Dances) and 1975 when CALLERLAB published the mainstream list.

Northern Junket, Feb, 1972, page 25, uses the term "bend the line".

Some dances which (probably) use this figure

• Dances for which I have animations

Note: This list may be incorrect or incomplete.

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My work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Most of the dances have more restrictive licensing, see my notes on copyright, the individual dance pages should mention when some rights are waived.