Naming the dancers

A caller has to be able to say "these four dancers, not those four" in a fraction of a second. The manual lists every way of doing it. These are the ones you will meet as a beginner.

Partner and Corner

In a squared set, your Partner is the dancer beside you. Your Corner is the next dancer round the nearest corner of the square.

              Corner   Partner
                 (you)
              Partner  Corner

Partner and Corner change during the dance. Every Allemande Left, Swing or Promenade establishes a new current partner. Your Original Partner is the dancer you first squared up with, and dancers say "original" when they need to be clear.

Heads and Sides

The two couples facing toward or away from the caller are the Heads. The two couples standing perpendicular to the caller are the Sides.

You keep the identity you had when you first squared up. If you are a Head at the start of the tip, you are a Head for the whole tip — even after you have danced into a Side position and someone else is standing in yours.

This trips up almost every beginner once. "Heads" means "Original Heads", unless the caller explicitly says "Those in the Head Position".

Couple 1, 2, 3, 4

Couple 1 is the couple whose back is to the caller. The numbers then run to their right: 2, 3, 4.

Like Heads and Sides, you keep your number for the tip. "Couples 1 and 3" means the same four dancers as "Heads"; "Couples 2 and 4" means "Sides".

Modern choreography has moved away from couple numbers, and you will hear them less than Heads and Sides.

Boys and Girls

Within a couple:

This is a role, not a statement about the people. The manual is explicit: whichever dancers squared up on the left play the Boys' parts, and whichever squared up on the right play the Girls' parts.

Older material says Men and Women, or Gents and Ladies — all the same thing. Modern teaching and choreography mostly avoid gender entirely; where a call does depend on it, it is because the call needs four particular dancers to do something.

You may also hear "the #1 Boy" and "the #1 Girl" — the two dancers of Couple 1.

Centers and Ends

Centers are the dancers near the centre of the formation. Ends are the dancers on the outside. This has nothing to do with which way anyone is facing.

In an eight-dancer line, "Centers" is ambiguous — there are two possible centre pairs — so the manual asks callers to say "Each Side, Centers" or "Center Four" instead. In a box or a wave, "Centers" and "Ends" are unambiguous.

You will also meet Very Centers (the two dancers nearest the middle of a 1×8 line) and Outside Four, Center 6 and Outside 6 in tag formations. These are explained on Formations.

Leaders and Trailers

In a box-shaped formation:

In other two-dancer formations, the dancer facing away from the centre of their own two-dancer group is the Leader, and the one facing towards it is the Trailer. Anyone facing neither way is neither.

Leaders and Trailers define some calls — Scoot Back and Zoom both depend on them — but at Mainstream the terms are mostly used for tandem couples and dancers. When a caller has a choice, "Boys", "Girls", "Centers" or "Ends" is usually the kinder word.

Adjacent, Couples, Opposite

The four identifiers

Standing at home as a Boy and looking clockwise around the square, the four Girls are, in order:

your Corner → your Opposite → your Right-Hand Lady → your Partner.

That order is worth knowing, because it is the order an Allemande Left and a Grand Right and Left will send you round the square.

Next