By AMBER DILLEY
PARK CITY — Since January, on Tuesday nights the Park City Lions Club building has been utilized less for quiet meetings and more for practice hoedowns.
During the evening, a group has been meeting at the Lions Club building to learn how to square dance. Larry Davenport, from near Munfordville, teaches and calls the square dancing lessons.
“They’ve really learned a lot,” Davenport said. “We’ve had a few new people come in and we teach them from scratch. They’ve all gotten pretty good.”
Davenport teaches western square dancing, which consists of about 68 different moves.
“You learn all of the moves and then when you go to a dance, the caller calls out the moves and you do them,” he said. “It’s very spontaneous.”
It’s also good exercise.
“According to Prevention Magazine, square dancing is the same value as taking a five mile walk,” Davenport said. “It’s also keeps your mind thinking because you have to listen to what’s being called so you can know what steps to take.”
Davenport said it’s a challenge for him as well.
“It’s my challenge to mix them up and by the time the record is done, have them back with the person they started with, where they started on the floor,” he said. “I move them all around the floor like a puzzle, mix it all up and put it back together. It keeps my mind working, too.”
Davenport, who has been dancing since 1972, has high hopes for this group made up mostly of amateurs and few square dancing veterans.
“In May, we’ve got a state square dancing convention up in Louisville,” he said. “Kentucky also landed the national square dancing convention in June of 2010. I think this group could be convention ready by the end of June this year. Normally, it takes about 20 to 26 weeks to go through a complete set of steps, but we’ll be all the way through by June. It should be no problem.”
Davenport tried to start up a group in Munfordville a couple of times, but the idea never took off.
“I told the council here in Park City when they approached me about this, that it may not take immediately, it may not ever take off, but if we don’t try it, we’ll enver know,” he said.
The biggest problem in getting a local group started is the cost of renting a building and the cost of hiring a teacher, but this group has bypassed both of those issues.
The Park City Commission and lions club lets the group practice in the building for free and in turn, Davenport offers his services for free as well.
“We’re going to be here from now until the end of June, for sure,” Davenport said. “The consensus among the people that’s coming is that we want to start a square dancing club that would meet every month all year round and invite other clubs from around the state to join us.”
The group should be public-dance ready soon, as they are scheduled to dance in June at Houchens Park along with the Barren County Cloggers.
