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Thirteen-year-old Ashley Vlachos had her reservations when her grandmother, Jeann Hudson, first suggested the two take square dancing lessons together.

"I thought it was an old person dance," said Ashley, of Bowie.

Stomping it out at a Tuesday night lesson in a school auditorium in Bowie, most of the 40 dancers, doing a do-si-do in a set of five squares, were closer to Ashley's grandmother's age than her own. But scattered throughout the squares were several children and adults learning the steps for the first time.

"It turned out to be a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be," Ashley said.

The series of classes, which started in September, have had the largest following in several years, said veteran dancer Joe Corson, 69.

"It's the biggest it's been in six to eight years at least," he said. "In fact, it's an almost overwhelming response."

About half of the students in the class are new to square dancing while the rest are what the group refers to as "angels," or veteran dancers who can help the students if they miss a step or a call. In square dancing, groups of eight people dance together, switching partners regularly, while a caller yells out the order of dance steps. The idea of the dance is for everyone to work together, said Hal Barnes, 59, the regular caller for the Bowie lessons.

Exchanging high fives as they pass one another in the square, Ruthie Ayers, 10, and Amariya Davis-Landfair, 8, are quick to pick up the new steps as they are introduced.

"I like dancing with other people," Ruthie said.

She began coming to the dances with her brother, sister and father as a way for her home-schooled brother to earn a physical education credit.

"My daughters decided ‘If he's doing it, we want to do it too,'" said Tom Ayers, Ruthie's father.

While an aptitude for square dancing runs in Amariya's family — both her grandmother and great-grandmother are avid dancers — she said memorizing all the calls can be difficult. But new dancers said there is always an "angel" waiting in the wings to help them.

"You share laughter and common difficultly," said new dancer Don Perham, 56, of Dunkirk. "It's a no-stress environment; there is nothing competitive about it."

Regularly taking breaks from the dances to dissect difficult moves, Barnes stops the music and edges into a square to demonstrate how to complete a step some new dancers are stumbling over.

"There is only one person wrong and then everybody gets it wrong because they lost confidence," Barnes said.

A caller for more than 40 years, Barnes said the Bowie club, known as the Belair Square Cats, is one of the most active clubs with a high skill level in the Washington metro area. To regularly dance with the Square Cats, dancers must gain a repertoire of 75 different calls, explained "angel" Barbara Clemence of Bowie, while other clubs may only require knowledge of 50 steps to start.

Not all of the young dancers will keep in step with square dancing after the lessons end in June, said Corson, but with an early start, they could always come back to it later in life like he did. Corson began dancing at age 10 as a way for him and his three brothers to court the four sisters that lived across the street. He only danced a few years, but at age 56 resumed dancing as an activity he and his wife could pursue together.

"We were looking for something to do together and as a relief from the stress of work," Corson said.

Now he's happy to swoop into a square that needs some pointers to help other potential "angels" earn their wings.

If you go

Square dancing lessons are held from 7 to 9 p.m. every Tuesday at Chapel Forge Early Childhood Education Center. Each lesson is $5 per person. Visit squarecats.homestead.com/squarecats1.html or call 301-262-2313.

E-mail Andrea Noble at anoble@gazette.net.