Line dance

A line dance is a choreographed dance with a repeated sequence of steps in which a group of people dance in one or more lines or rows without regard for the gender of the individuals, all facing either each other or in the same direction, and executing the steps at the same time. Unlike in circle dancing, line dancers are not in physical contact with each other.

Line dancing is practiced and learned in country-western dance bars, social clubs, dance clubs and ballrooms. It is sometimes combined on dance programs with other forms of country-western dance, such as two-step, western promenade dances, and as well as western-style variants of the waltz, polka and swing. Line dances have accompanied many popular music styles since the early 1970s including pop, swing, rock and roll, disco, Latin (salsa suelta), rhythm and blues and jazz.

History

1950s-1970s

The Madison was a popular line dance in the late 1950s. The 1961 "San Francisco Stomp" meets the definition of a line dance. At least five line dances that are strongly associated with country-western music were written in the 1970s, two of which are dated to 1972: "Walkin' Wazi" and "Cowboy Boogie", five years before the disco craze created by the release of Saturday Night Fever in 1977, the same (approximate) year the "Tush Push" was created. The Electric Slide was a Disco-based line dance created and popularized in the mid-1970s. The "L.A. Hustle" began in a small Los Angeles disco in the Summer of 1975, and hit the East Coast (with modified steps) in Spring of '76 as the "Bus Stop. Another 70s line dance is the Nutbush.