It is performed by a number of people all facing in the same direction and moving in lines where everybody does the same steps. A line dance consists of a sequence of steps choreographed by a line dance choreographer to a specific piece of music and these are repeated several times changing direction from wall to wall. Line dances are defined by the number of counts in a dance, level of difficulty and number of walls it is repeated to. Counts are the number of beats one sequence of the dance runs over.
Generally speaking the higher the count, the more difficult the dance is likely to be, as there will be more steps to remember.
Line dancing is a fun, social way of exercising whereby you meet all kinds of different people and make new friends. Another advantage of line dancing is that you don’t need a partner, so you can come to socials alone and join in as you’re dancing with a lot of people at once.
We also have a group of dancers who do demonstrations and teach an easy line dance or two at different events such as work functions, birthday parties, charity events etc.
Despite its association with cowboy boots and Stetsons, line dancing originally had little to do with the country and western scene. It definitely does not date back to the days of the cowboys. Line dancing first started in the USA, some time in the late 1970’s to early 1980’s and was performed to disco music as much as to country music and line dancers would dance to whatever was played. Few of the dances actually had their origins in country dancing. Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Achy Breaky Heart” started the “country” line dance craze when a very well-known instructor/choreographer from Nashville, Melanie Greenwood, choreographed the original dance to this song. Line dancing spread like “a vine”, especially to the UK but also to the rest of Europe and with the help of people like Rob Fowler, Maggie Gallagher and many others, it became one of the most sought after and enjoyed dance sports in World.