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Ron
Ron Masker

I have enjoyed square dancing for 50 years. I was eight years old when I began dancing with my church youth group. Because I enjoyed the music and movements, I continued with it in college as a dance education major. When I graduated from college I served in the United States Coast Guard in Ketchikan, Alaska where I became involved with a group called "The Panhandlers" and square danced with them for a year and half in the local community hall and sometimes even out in the snow. While there I was able to teach some square dancing to the local high school students for their production of "Oklahoma". After leaving the service I studied dance at New York University and became an elementary dance teacher. I taught kindergarten through 2nd graders the enjoyment of square dancing.

My first experience with Lesbian and Gay Square dancing was in 1983 with a senior lesbian and gay group in New York City called SAGE. A friend had suggested that it would be a fun social activity for them. So I held a dance for them. You wouldn't have believed the difficulties I had on how to decide what to call for same sex couples, trying to be PC. Because in square dancing there is always the terms man and a lady when you call. I tried many things colors, numbers, and then just decided that I would use the gender terms because it was a folk dance and the dancers would just have to get use to being called by gendered names. Even though some men at the time did not like to be called lady and some woman as well.

After I had done a couple of dances with SAGE a gay/lesbian outdoor group named SUNDANCE asked me to do a hoe-down for them at the first International Outdoor Gay and Lesbian Jamboree in September of 1983. A hoedown is where you teach some basic square dance movements and after teaching them the group has a chance to square dance. This was the start of my long-term involvement with the gay and lesbian square dance movement. I called on a regular basis for SUNDANCE until the interest was so great that a group wanted to start their own square dance club. Ken Pollack asked me to be the teacher. And in 1984 the Times Squares was formed. And now twenty years later I’m still teaching and calling lesbian and gay square dancing around the United States and Canada not just for organized square dance clubs but also have introduced the joy of square dancing, to nudist groups, social groups in churches and community centers, men’s organizations such as the California Men’s Gathering, and San Francisco's Discovery.

The pleasure I get from seeing the smiles on the faces of the dancers after they have learned just a few movements and start to dance is over whelming to me. The excitement grows and they want to learn more.
And so it goes. When they want to hear about were in their community they can continue, I tell them. I can't put in numbers how many men and women I have the pleasure of teaching square dancing over the last 20 years but I do feel in my heart I have left some kind of legacy. Friendships that have continued way beyond even the learning of square dancing. And I hope to continue it for a long time.

Squaredance Call

The Call:

Weave the Ring - moving around the circle starting by facing your partner passing right and then left shoulder without using hands passing

dancers till you come back to original partner. However, when it came to gay and lesbian square dancing Weave the Ring has become one call that has a lot of hand holding and flourishes so it is a very colorful movement.

The Reason why it was chosen:

I see weave the ring as the weaving of friendships through my square dance life.

How the stain glass came to be:

My first thoughts were to use a Celtic design also known as a Celtic Knot, one that would not have a beginning or end. I looked at many weaving patterns but could not find one that was suitable.

I went on a vacation to Italy. While visiting the city of Ravenna, I entered a building with mosaic floors from the Byzantine period and discovered the exact design that I wanted to use. I rushed up to the gift shop to see if they had any post cards or a book with pictures that I might purchase. They had nothing. I was not allowed to take pictures at the site so I sat down on the floor and sketched the design for over an hour and a half. The original design had the name of Nodo di Salomone. It consisted of two ovals interlocking through a square, (picture shown here). After returning from vacation I took the pattern to Dan Smith and asked him if it was a feasible idea for a stained glass, he agreed. But since there was no circle included in the design, I suggested that a circle should surround the square. Dan agreed that it was possible but hanging the finished piece might be difficult. I thought it over and moved the circle inside the square. Dan took the idea and came up with the final design.

I wanted to incorporate the rainbow  colors in the window and presented this to Dan. He came up with three ideas one of which became the final design. This is the one I feel best suits what I had in mind. The rainbow colors are used but not in the order of the color combination as seen on the gay flag. Instead of the progression of the colors of the rainbow it used all the colors interweaving them with each other. This is what I was looking for. It also included the border with the same color theme.

I wanted to make it look like the mosaics that I saw on the floor in the city of Ravenna. So it was decided not to use larger pieces of glass but individual small squares to reflect the look of a mosaic. The window consists of pieces of one-centimeter square, numbering over 1,600.