Speaking Volumes | Your library can help you enjoy line dancing with media, classes

If you’ve ever been to a wedding, country-western bar, or a school dance, you’ve probably participated in a line dance. Nearly every culture and music genre have a type of line dance, which has caused its origins to be somewhat of a mystery.

Did line dancing begin with European folk dances or English square dances? Are its roots perhaps in Irish step dancing or Cuban conga lines? Is this a wholly American style of dance or did it originate elsewhere? Many of these questions are up for debate, but we do know how line dancing rose to popularity across the United States.

Although there are regional line dances from the 1950s and 1960s such as the “Madison” in Columbus, Ohio and the “San Francisco Stomp”, the line dance craze really took off during the 1970s disco era. “The Hustle” was created in 1975 and became a hit in dance clubs across the country. Just a couple years later the film “Saturday Night Fever” brought some of the best-known disco line dance moves to the big screen.

Soon people across the country were showing off their dance skills, creating new iterations of popular line dances for different music genres. Line dancing quickly became a staple of country-western music. Although very different looking from their disco counterparts, dozens of line dances were created to match the tempo of popular country songs.

As country music and western culture gained mainstream popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s, songs such as Randy Travis’s “Cowboy Boogie” and Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Achy Breaky Heart” soared to popularity on the music charts along with their corresponding dances.

Country music proved that line dancing songs were primed to become commercial hits. A wave of line dancing songs such as the “Macarena” and ”5,6,7,8” flooded the radio airwaves. In the 2000s, instructional dance songs became a sensation in hip hop music with hits like “Teach Me How to Dougie” and “1,2, Step.”

Line dancing has remained popular due to its simplicity. Although some line dances include more intricate footwork, most have easy-to-follow steps. One of the most popular line dances today is the “Cha-Cha Slide,” which walks dancers through the footwork in its lyrics. Classics such as the “Texas Two-Step” and the “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” remain popular dances on the country-western scene.

Because it doesn’t require a partner to participate, learning to line dance is an easy and fun activity to do at home as a hobby and for exercise. If you are interested in line dancing, your library has several DVDs and music CDs that will help you hone your skills. Interested in joining a Line Dancing class? The library will be offering beginner and advanced line dancing classes at our Downtown Bradenton Library this fall. Check out our programming calendar online to sign up!

You can access your library online: www.mymanatee.org/library. Free masks are available at all library locations. Manatee Libraries are fine free! Please note that lost/damaged fees still apply.

Speaking Volumes is a regular column written by members of the staff at the Manatee County Public Library System.

This story was originally published September 16, 2021 at 9:34 AM.