Round and round they go

BY ANITA AMIRREZVANI
Mercury News

At most ballrooms, the dance floor is a scene of delightful anarchy. Couples motor around the room at will, trying out any move that tickles their fancy. No two couples are ever doing the same thing at the same time.

But on Thursday, when more than 300 couples took over San Jose's Parkside Hall to do the waltz, the fox trot and the tango, the dancers looked as orderly as synchronized swimmers. All of them performed the same moves in unison, including flourishes such as flinging their arms in the air and striking a pose.

This is the magic of ``round dance,'' which is like a combination of ballroom dance and square dance. Dancers learn all the familiar ballroom rhythms -- waltz, tango, jive, mambo, pasodoble and so on -- but rather than improvising on the dance floor, they respond to the calls of a ``cuer.''

Just as in square dance, the cuer announces the next moves in time with the music -- moves like ``fishtail,'' ``ladies' swivels'' or ``in-in, out-out'' -- which is what gets large groups to start and stop on a dime.

Last weekend, about 700 dancers were in San Jose for the 25th-anniversary convention of the Universal Round Dance Council, an international volunteer organization that hosts one of the largest events on the round-dance circuit.

Minnie Buck, 71, started round dancing with her husband, Frank, more than 25 years ago after they had finished raising their daughter. ``We tried line dancing and didn't like it because it was too repetitious,'' says Buck, who lives in San Jose. ``Round dancing is always a challenge because you have to the learn the choreography.''

Many couples study for years to learn all the steps. Louise Minor and Bob Fischer, a couple from Eureka who have been dancing for 14 years, say they probably know at least 1,000 round-dance ``figures'' -- bits of choreography that usually span one or two measures of music.

``It allows us to dance stuff that really fits the music without having to do the work of choreographing it ourselves,'' says Fischer.

Minor likes the fact that women know what's coming in round dance. ``It's not as much fun for women to do social dancing, because all you have to do is be this mindless blob who follows,'' she says. ``In this, at least I can add the little flourishes because I know what's supposed to come.''

Round dance had its beginnings in the square-dance revival launched by Henry Ford, says Brent Moore, president of the Universal Round Dance Council. A little-known side of the car mogul is that he took an interest in square dance and helped fund a teaching program in Detroit in the 1920s.

As part of every square dance, people began doing ``rounds,'' or dances that traveled around a ballroom. ``In the rest time between the square dances, people would do schottisches and two-steps,'' says Moore, referring to two-partner dances. ``Then, more and more, people who were educated in ballroom dance started developing little routines and introducing more rhythms.''

Round dance peaked in the 1980s, and today, it has something of an image problem.

Most dancers tend to be in their 50s or older, which is why many round-dance organizations are making an effort to reach out to younger people. ``We're struggling with how to restructure our recruiting and teaching methods to make a bridge happen,'' says Moore, who is from Knoxville, Tenn.

Round dancing has pockets of adherents around the world, including Japan. Manabu Imamura, who lives in a suburb near Tokyo, learned round dancing more than 20 years ago when he worked for Toyota in Fremont. This year, he brought a group of 68 Japanese round dancers to the convention, many of them women who enjoy leading. ``In Japan, many women have no job, and so during the day, they have time to learn,'' he says. ``There are many ladies couples.''

Enthusiasts celebrate the health benefits of round dancing, saying it keeps their brains active and their bodies supple.

``Dancers stay much younger because of the physical activity, I think,'' says Buck, who celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary in March.