About Us | Times Squares

Times Squares is a not-for-profit organization whose purpose is to encourage and provide social, educational, and recreational opportunities within the framework of Modern Western Square Dancing for the LGBTQ+ community and its allies.

The club maintains an active and diverse educational curriculum, covering Mainstream (MS) through Challenge 2 (C2) programs. If you are new to square dancing, please visit our New Dancers page. It doesn’t matter whether you’re gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or straight; we welcome you to dance with us anytime.

Everyone gets to dance at various levels throughout the week. Once a month we have a party dance, called a Combo Dance, for the whole club. Peel the Pumpkin, our annual weekend Fly-In for the larger community, is held in late October. Most of the dancing happens at Public School 3 (PS 3), near the corner of Christopher and Hudson Streets in Greenwich Village. For more information about when and where we dance visit our Calendar Page.

Our Callers

Betsy Gotta

Betsy Gotta of North Brunswick, New Jersey has been square dancing since 1952 and calling since 1962. As a full-time caller Betsy currently calls regularly for 5 square dance clubs, calls all programs from Contra through C-3B and is an accredited Callerlab Caller Coach.

Averaging approximately 300 dances/classes per year, in addition to her regular home calling program, Betsy travels throughout the United States & Canada for guest calling engagements, weekends, festivals, and callers’ schools. Betsy also is the featured caller for instructional videos produced by Square Dance Videos Inc. and sold by Gottadance Videos, and has recorded for County Line and Desert Gold Records.

Betsy is a former Vice-Chairman of CALLERLAB. She is a founding member of the Callers’ Council of NJ, a charter member of the Square Dance Council of NJ (and it’s current Chairman), and with her husband Roy, a member of the Northern NJ Round Dance Leader’s Council and Roundalab.

In 2001, at the IAGSDC Convention in Vancouver, Betsy received the Golden Boot Award, for her efforts to bridge the gap between gay and straight square dance clubs.  In 2006, at the CALLERLAB Convention in Charlotte, Betsy received the Milestone Award, CALLERLAB’s highest honor, for her numerous contributions to the square dance activity.

At the 2012 National Square Dance Convention in Spokane, WA Betsy was honored by the National Executive Committee for her Support, Devotion and Calling at the National Square Dance Convention 1963-2012.

Betsy has been an official Times Squares club caller since 2012.

Howard Richman

Howard Richman began his training with classes in ballet and jazz at the Alvin Ailey, Steps and Broadway Dance studios. Howard then began calling Square Dances and teaching Western Dance in 1989. He attended numerous classes and seminars with CallerLab, Callers Council of New Jersey (CCNJ) and the Gay Callers Association (GCA) organizations. He has choreographed for numerous performance groups including The Times Squares, the New York Silver Spurs, and New Jersey’s Red Rose.

Howard calls and teaches for over 30 square dance clubs and groups in the Tri-State area and has called in England, France, Switzerland, Holland, Norway, Belgium and toured Germany.

For the last few years Howard has also been teaching Ballroom and Square Dancing on various cruise lines including Norwegian, Holland America and Royal Caribbean.

Howard has been directing and acting with the Hudson Theatre Ensemble’s children’s theatre department “Silly on Sixth” in Hoboken New Jersey for 4 seasons.

You can watch him calling for Times Squares on YouTube.