Club Caller - Allan Hurst

Allan Hurst has been dancing since 1995, and his first IAGSDC Convention was "Stars, Thars, & Cable Cars" in San Francisco in 1996. 

Allan has been calling since 1997, when he attended his first GCA Caller School, coached by Anne Uebelacker, Sandie Bryant, and Ed Foote. He has attended a number of caller schools since, both GCA and other.

Allan has been a member of CALLERLAB since 1997. He has been the editor of the GCA’s technical journal, “The Call Sheet” since 2006.

He has been a presenter or moderator at CALLERLAB for multiple years, on topics involving technology, self-improvement, and marketing, and has served on CALLERLAB’s Marketing Committee since 2019.

Allan spent many years calling and teaching at multiple IAGSDC clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area, including El Camino Reelers, Midnight Squares, Foggy City Dancers, Oaktown 8's and Diablo Dancers.  

Allan served for several years as a co-administrator of Midnight Squares, and for multiple terms as an El Camino Reelers board member. 

He’s served on multiple IAGSDC convention committees, including writing the fun badge tour scripts for Santa Clara 2005, Chicago 2010, and Salt Lake City 2014, the newsletters for St. Louis 2015, and serving on the core committees for Houston 2021 and Minneapolis 2022.

Allan also served on the committee for Capital City Squares’ 2024 fly-in, “Sactown Stomp”, and was the Committee Chair for Prime 8’s’ 2025 West Coast Advanced & Challenge fly-in, “Funky Monkey Regroup.”

In April of 2022, he moved to Sacramento, where has called on a fill-in or occasional basis for Prime 8's, Capital City Squares, Main Street Strollers, Pear Steppers, Sierra Squares, and Whirl-a-Ways.

Allan became the club caller for Capital City Squares in August of 2023, and fr Prime 8’s in June of 2024.

He enjoys calling Basic and SSD through C1, although his self-described "sweet spot" is Advanced, as several Sac area clubs have discovered. He enjoys both teaching and calling, with an emphasis on making dancers more comfortable with APD and DBD choreography.

Allan's calling style was influenced by Andy Shore, Mike DeSisto, Anne Uebelacker, Sandie Bryant, Harlan Kerr, and Scot Byars.

When not calling, Allan heads up the IAGSDC History Project, responsible for capturing and putting online the history of the IAGSDC's people, events, and culture. This includes publishing a facsimile edition of the out of print book"10 Years IAGSDC, creating the IAGSDC History Wiki, and working with James Ozanich on the (Sacramento-based) IAGSDC Memorial Panels project to bring high-resolution images of the panels online, linked to a list of decedents and memorial pages.

Allan was the 2019 recipient of the IAGSDC Golden Boot award, which he received from Barry and Pam Clasper, and which he passed on to Vic, Debbie, and Caitlyn Ceder at a most memorable presentation in Minneapolis in 2022.

More recently, Allan has been a Teaching Assistant in two GCA Caller Schools (Durham ,NC in 2024 and San Francisco, CA in 2025).

On March 13th, 2026, Allan signed out of his work systems for the last time as an IT Architect and Project Manager, and retired, finally transitioning into a full-time professional square dance caller.

Emeritus Club Callers