“Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music.” ― George Carlin

I took up dancing 3 years ago. Never danced before aside from that free form seventies rockin and rollin. You know, alone on the dance floor gyrating.

Never did the Twist, the Monkey the Buggaloo or the Limbo Rock. I thought Disco was about undoing your top shirt buttons.

But I had this tweak in my head about Louisiana after the flood -- Katrina (2005)-- and the music I started listening to on  wwoz.org enthralled me.The station was broadcasting online because its studios were under water. 

I had always been 'into music' -- self taught and  played it 

Five string Banjo, Harmonica, Frame Drums...

and followed keenly many genres from Soul to Punk to Reggae to Old Timey banjo and fiddle to Irish traditional, Persian classical and Javanese Gamelan. I'd even built my own gamelan set.

But dance...? My daughter danced Irish Step most of her growing up, and there were the competitions and demonstrations. 

I mastered  bodhran licks instead...primarily because I realised that with the onset of my illness I'd lost the ability to learn music, esp tab. My memory wasn't open to laying down new tracks and any melody line was no longer in my reach.That plus arthritic stiffness kinda drove me out of the amateau music biziness.

So along comes Katrina, drowns New Orleans... I tune in...to Cajun and Zydeco -- and I'm immersing  myself in Southern Louisiana sounds. If you know your French speaking onions, your Creole and such, you'd know that  Cajun and Zydeco are primarily dance music forms. 

I says to myself,"Gotta get me some of those moves." By dint of keen YouTubing I come across Zydeco line dancing --out of Dallas, Texas ( French Creole speaking and music straddles the Texas Louisiana border) -- via Cheryl Williams.

And so we started a workshop process of learning the choreography. If they can do it there,methinks, we can do it here.

Of course someone had to teach the moves. Someone had to watch the videos and copy the steps. Someone had to share.

C'est moi.

Travelling North

After getting into Zydeco line dance I started to move my attention north and renewed my love  and familiarity with Soul Music. I re-grounded with Funk. Aided and abetted by YouTube and linked up with the Soul Line dance community in the United States  I enriched my knowledge of the choreographies while upping my practice and skill. 

We're talking three, then two,  years ago, leading to today. The classes I ran became popular and even in my small community I had up to 20 students for a time.

Now, I'm a competent teacher and very keen  soul line dance -- urban line dance -- dancer and (would you believe it?) choreogher. Some of the most popular dances I share are my own creation.

This is truly amazing. More so when you note that I'm crippled by chronic illness -- Fibromyalgia --  with associated memory issues. Sometimes I can hardly walk: but I can dance!

Sometimes I have to drag myself to the sessions I teach...but when the music kicks in I'm a'boppin and a'groovin  despite the initial stiffness and pain. 

Of late I've made a major turn towards dance after a very rough period of ill health. The dancing sustained me when I had to cut back on many of my other exertions. Teaching gives me a focus and forces me to keep practicing and innovating. That discipline got me through the rough patch and I've learnt to respect my dance moves even more. 

As I up my dancing focus I'm doing less other stuff like weights and HIIT. (Hardly any of it despite the need I have for exercise to hold stiffness and pain at bay).The irony is that despite this -- this cut back -- daily dancing is doing wonders for my ability to move. It's all about hips and da core I guess. As I skill up I'm gaining greater control over my body in the same way that routines like Tai Chi, some Martial Arts and Pilates will.

I 'am' a dancer because I'm getting a dancer's body. I'm more movement aware.

When you do the Funk grooves and the Zydeco and such and move into some Afrobeat 

We also dance to West African sounds and West Africa is where most Afro Americans hail from courtesy of slavery  -- such that the musical links, the riffs and rhythms, linking boths sides of the Atlantic, are tangible. 

 -- as I do -- you aint just 'dancing'. The steps, the hip moves and such are very organic and rooted. Light on the joints 'cause it's the hips that do all the work.It's a culture, a physiology.

I'm getting a good dose of 'Soul'...despite me being Whitey. You gotta hear the music.

I mention all this because these consequences astound me. Who woulda thought?

Currently, I'm engineering my focus more keenly on Zydeco and Funk as I explore Funk as an international musical phenomenon -- from the Funk of James Brown, Sly and the family Stone, et al to the Funk of the West African highlife, Washington Go-Go and Fela Kuti and Latin Funk rhythms like Cuban Timba which has such a percussive, usually conga, drive.

It's a wonderful cultural fix -- that also has such a great exercise reward. Unlike Tai Chi or Pilates or a Martial Arts or gym work... you don't have to do the same routine over and over again. New moves. New choreography to make and learn. New dances and music to discover.

All you gotta do is hear the music.

Doing the choreography:Anyone can dance it. Anyone can make dance. Even me.

Over Summer, despite my delicate condition these last couple of months I got down to it and started choreographing my own soul line dances:

• Payback (James Brown) --which also doubled as some Azonto.
• If I had no Loot (Tony, Tone, Toni)
• Into my life  (Elements of Life:Lisa Fischer and Cindy Mizelle)
• Teardrops (Womack and Womack) 

And my folk love em when I share the steps. They work.

How about that? 

Who woulda thought that a gentleman brutalised  by chronic illness would 

1. take up soul line dancing (18 months ago)
2. begin to teach it(6 months ago) to weekly classes of 15-20
3. create his own choreography (2 months ago)

Every time I think about it I am amazed. 

Hopefully this month I'll finally shoot some video of my routines. Then I'll lay claim to the choro enough to share it within the urban soul line dance network.

 And if my choro gets taken up stateside  (given  that I'm a white guy in far off Australia) ... maybe I'm souling up by groovin into it?

But hey I love and respect the music even though I know that soul line dance has to embace local urban culture and  chasing an echo of Afro American heritage  isn't sustainable. It has to be your music, your preference, your scene -- rather than something thoroughly exotic.

Since the BeeGees grew up across the bay from me here  I have a open agenda. And they aint black....

My wife is working on a dance set to a little something from Chrissie Hinde and Pretenders  .  Thats' what I love: this stuff is open season to all comers. 

Anyone can dance it. Anyone can make dance. Even me. 

---

 

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Go-Go, Azonto, Funk...Just keep on dancin'

D.C. residents dance outside the memorial service for 

go-go musician, Chuck Brown, who died in May this year.

Since I am 'under the weather' it's easy to see how useful the dancing habit is in my life. 

I can dance when I cannot do much else. 

That has to be good, right? 

Strange. But good.

Having negotiated a recent plateau in my steppin', I can now boast that the dancing and I are getting along famously.

I'm learning new dances, tackling more complicated foot work and am now ... (wait for it) ... I'm choreographing. 

Who woulda thought?

I can now lay claim to have 'created' two dance routines. 

I  need to claim the  provisional clause   as new  steps in line dance are rare  indeed. It's always about combinations and how these settle together. 

It's about flow and comfortable fit, that if put together just so, will look and feel good.

My habit has been to learn a dance off YouTube and dance it for a time to get the feel for it. Then, in some instances, I start fiddling with and adapting the choro so that I bend it to my preferred dance style and teaching approach.

Of course, in the first instance, I'm attracted to particular dances and their music because I like them, so they are the ones I choose to learn. What happens thereafter is a personal engagement with and  exploration of the choreography. 

Sometimes I reject a dance out of hand and drop it from my repertoire.

I did not expect that fiddling with the choreography would come so easily to me: given how shallow has been my dancing background.

That doesn't make me a Bob Fosse or Twyla Tharp, but it does underscore the accessibility of  democratic dance, and the constant creative impetus driven by the music.

My latest choro was to my favorite James Brown song, Payback. It is an amazing Funk exercise -- even for James Brown -- a classic!

Since I used a  simple 4 beat move  I snaffled from a West African dance, I  explored Afrobeat some more -- the beat that always leads back to the funkiness of  the Nigerian, Fela Kuti  (who reminds me so much of Brown anyway).

...and by dint of neighborhood geography I came upon Azonto -- a dance that originated in the urban slums of Ghana. 

Some soul line dance clubs in the USA are now teaching Azonto -- as it is an easy dance to learn and doesn't require gymnastic skills to dance to. It isn't just one dance to one song -- Azonto is a total cultural dancing phenomenon.

Unlike standard soul/urban line dances, Azonto uses the upper body to communicate and tell stories, usually of work related tasks or comic twists on one's love life. It's very much in the tribal line dance mode but danced with the engagement usually reserved for Break Dancing or Hip Hop. Huge in Ghana from schools to churches to street corners; big in the Afrobeat scene in London...

But, you see, my funk routine can be danced to Azonto music wonderfully. It fits.

How about that!

Since my passion for Funk is getting obsessive I'm now on this thrilling musical journey which is being fed by a keen interest in the Washington based sub genre of Funk, Go-Go.

And now I'm in West Africa too!

Funk can really take you places. 

Many places as you chase da moves for da grooves.

But hey! I love Go-Go, despite the fact that there is little familiarity with Go-Go music outside of the Washington.  Consequently, there are few records to be had, little commercial success  enjoyed by  go-go bands  and the genre survives primarily as live a dance hall music with an emphasis on  audience call and response.That and congas -- you gotta have ya congas in Go Go.

...and its a complicated dance rhythm imbued with Swing (a la  Duke Ellington) .

I tell ya, dance is a lot of fun. Best way to get into the music is via your feets.

---

 

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Let's dance anytime and soul up.

'Tis fascinating how easily  I find the time and motivation to practice dancing. It is an anytime activity. All I need is a pair of shoes -- rather than resort to sandals or bare feet -- and a flat surface.

...and my trusty mp3 player.

My average session time is an hour on the tootsies daily. 

Time flies when you are having fun. 

This isn't a routine so much as an addiction, driven by the prospect of new thrills -- of nailing a dance or exploring a new one. 

And the more you practice the more you engage with each song.

It's not  unusual for a particular melody to haunt me for days as I negotiate its initial steps. Each song becomes  a muse insisting that I deepen the physical relationship. Beckoning me to strive for a state of union....and comfort in its presence. That's the thing because the degree of difficulty lessens over time and the dance, each dance, becomes as effortless as walking.

The physiological irony is that on some days I can dance much better than I can walk. 

So when I'm wondering what did I do today, any day, I conclude that while I may not have done much else at least I danced. 

But it is dancing that has a dynamic. There is always a new dance in my repertoire and each new dance leads me onto another and then others still as my skills improve. It's a constant learning curve  partly driven by my teaching/sharing responsibilities. As they say, you don't know anything until you try to teach it.

Soul up

All this is formatted by the culture -- the 'soul' culture -- of Afro American musical preference and creativity. Soul is all   -- via zydeco, blues, hip hop, funk, gogo, disco, etc -- and that rules the programming.  But I rely on my online networking to tap into and draw on  the music and dance as I aint a brother nor am I stateside.  That means that the generosity of the dancers in the United States via the medium of YouTube is my primary resource. 

So while I'm studying a new dance I'm trawling the web collecting  more choreography. In my head there is an undoubted preference ruled not only by my projected capabilities but a certain musical niche I'm attracted to -- my 'style'. 

This boutique 'soulness' is my quest because it isn't just what you do but also how you do it and dancing soul is a world away from other dance forms. It isn't about the perfect execution of each step so much as the state of dancing the dance. One rule:stay loyal to the rhythm.  

The Sufis certainly knew a thing or two about the spiritual power of music and dance when they got those Devishers to whirl -- despite the fact that with soul the lyrics are a long way from any clerical catechism. Soul music is, afterall, continuous from  Gospel that bore it. This connectedness to a greater meaning is not  so evident in other popular musical forms.

And for me soul line dancing transcends routine entertainment  so that it becomes a core celebration of community in human culture.  Line dancing  is pervasive across all indigenous societies. Everyone danced in a line or circle. Single persons or couples dancing together are choreographic aberrations.

My problem is that I am not offered the dance culture I deserve as doing this stuff like I do is done in isolation.  This isn't just another form of line dancing for me. It's a channeling of something much broader. It's an opening to this other human cultural experience which is deeper and more significant than simply listening to the music. I've 'listened' for decades. Only now do I get it.

Dance it and you begin to understand it. The poetry is in the motion. If you don't sing it or play it, dance is the only way in. 

                             

---

 

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Urban Soul Line Dancing with SoulSteppers

I arranged for some video of our Thursday night soul line dance class. Maybe not the best shots to be had, but with a little bit of editing there is a germ of a story there.

The group dancing  is the keenest of the  Soulsteppers attendees.

It is I out front.

The venue makes shooting video difficult and that's unfortunate because video is a major 'sharing' medium for line dance.

It's the way choreography gets around and travels the world.

That's not the intention here  as you always need full body shots  with nothing cut off. So  the vid doesn't do the dancers justice.

Maybe another time?

---

 

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Dance with me

Gregory Hines

It is a bit of a misnomer to say that I do line dancing every day as every day I dance by myself: outback with a mp3 player in my ear. The 'line' is all about the choreography and excuse as every week I dance with others.

I guess if I was totally on my ownsome there'd be no reason to proceed. The fact that these others are potentially there in a line with me is motivation enough especially as I am supposed to be teaching them the steps.

But then for an hour or so every day nothing else matters but the dancing.

Quite remarkable really when you think about it.

All weathers, all times of the day -- I'm under the veranda a'dancing.

Over the last few weeks a certain core-ness has set in as the quality of my stepping has consolidated. This means that there are many ways I can choose to dance from A to B as I am confident of being in time. I know the tunes and choro so well now that I switch off, zone in and just do it, fiddling with the choreography en route.

As they say: (maybe) I can dance.

Also this last period I've been running out of Zydeco dances to reach my others as they are having trouble with the challenge of more intricate footwork. So proceeding into a deeper Zydeco  has stalled a little, and inevitably I now have turned my attention more consciously northward. And 'northward'  means exploring all the dances that come out of places like Philadelphia -- soul line dance central -- above the Mason Dixon Line.

This is really exciting as that means I get to tackle more sophisticated and challenging fare and tackle dances crafted to the music of Jill Scott, Marvin Gaye, James Brown,Megan Rochell...really the list is an amazing mix of great soul artists, legends in fact.

To dance to great music, soulful singing, to funkiness...well,  the tragedy is that the music has to stop sometime.

Another complication is that the overwhelmingly Afro American line dance community likes what's out there including Hip Hop whose influence is pervasive. Since stateside the dancers are of all ages the choreography can be very contemporary and not just based on classically formatted soul. But here, folk are resistive to Hip Hop  when I know that such a bias is not only  un-soulful but excludes  the option of tackling some  great dances. 

You can break a leg poppin' I'm sure or dislocate a shoulder --  but Hip Hop in a line is adapted to the participants although some routines are full on VO2 Max stuff only for the athletically pumped up.

And the knack that matters with line dancing is to dance injury free. Its;' supposed to be safe dancing. Even now if I find that a routine strains at an ankle or knee, I adapt and tweak it before I teach it. It isn';t about contortions or freakish moves.

In fact, my preferences are consolidating and I like my dances tight and enclosed -- not wandering all over the floor. I'm a slide and shuffle man, I guess. You dance some dances and think how perfect they are. How innovative the turn , the transitions, the way the order of steps have been strung together... It is not so much about how it looks to an audience in a So You Think You Can Dance? way but what it feels like for the individual dancer. It's all internal. 

That's the soulfulness. The 'line' is all about collectivizing that feeling, generating consensus and extending the celebration in the way that line dancing  through thousands of years of human culture has served us. 'Couple' or 'Ballroom' dancing is but a 19th and 20th century blip way out of sync from our shared traditions. 

Homunculus

So this is 'normal' activity: dancing together to the beat in lines.

Workout

Another feature of line dancing is that it is a remarkable work out. I take care to dance (and I also teach) one song directly after another so that I keep the heart rate up. Done that way, you  ensure an aerobic return that is better cardio than a lot of other activities you could take on. With all the turns, hip shaking, ankle and knee twists...you also get to remodel the body into dance mode. It's like Tai Chi Chuan or some other movement awareness regime because you get to connect with your bits and pieces in a more conscious way especially how you carry yourself. When you learn the dances you develop and challenge the Homunculus in your head as you navigate your body differently through space. Short of becoming a gymnast, it's proprioception training in a very big way.

All this sets in as your return for effort in sync with some awesome music that you cannot help but respond to. 

I tell ya, line dancing is win win win.

---

 

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Dancing,Kickbiking, Running: oh the chi of it.

Twenty years ago I was a Tai Chi Chuan practitioner -- Yang style.

Yang family-style (Chinese: 楊氏; pinyin: yángshì) t'ai chi ch'uan (taijiquan)

This wasn't my first foray into Tai Chi but at the time I  mastered the form and even help teach it.

There is a lot  to be said for tai chi-ing the decrepit bod. It racks up good consequence and I miss the ready centre-ing that being tai chi aware gives you.

Contrary to its supposed health benefits I was disappointed in its impact and over time got tardy and ceased to practice the form.

I guess I was too demanding (says he, 20 years later). My pain and stiffness staid very painful and very stiff.

Nonetheless, at the time I was studying various movement awareness regimes and was using and teaching some simple Feldenkrais exercises as well as doing Tai Chi.

I had also trained as a massage therapist and was earning a sort of at-home income from my interventions.

My front gate had a sign: Dave Riley , Massage Therapist.

Aside from the occasional request for 'hand relief' the professional excursion was instructive of what bodies can get up to.

So the years roll on by...and of late  I have moved back to an interest in movement studies.

Dancing did that.

Ironically, I have harnessed greater benefit from the dancing than  these other investigations.

My ruling is clear: dancing and learning choreography to music is more beneficial for me than doing Tai Chi.  

But dance too is 'movement awareness'. Being conscious of what you are doing when you are moving it/doing it can be achieved  via many different routes and while I greatly respect Tai Chi I think it is overrated and obscurantised by all its chi-energy mysticism.

You have to put up with a lot of yin and yang malarky when you do Tai Chi. 

If you want to believe in 'chi' energy go for it, but spare me the lecture. I used to study body sciences with chiropractors  and I know physiological spin when it is being spun.

Nonetheless, regardless of 'theory' what works is gonna keep on working despite the handicap of its  explanation.

In this regard I have been reading Danny Dreyer's book, ChiRunning -- and it is an useful movement awareness manual.

It's a brand of course but after delivering oodles of workshops and training so many runners, Dreyer has honed his method into a very useful DIY that transcends its Tai Chi Chuan origins. It is a quick way to get to the Tai Chi good oil without having to spend years learning the form.

I have referred here before to similar methods offered by Esther Gokhale: glidewalking.

Many roads can lead to Rome I guess....but what interests me is that the quest to develop a  method  for the way you move is very useful for controlling pain and stiffness ; and ameliorating muscle fatigue.

It's about being aware -- conscious of what you are doing when you are doing it.

Previously I had discussed how I thought kickbiking contributed to the way I walked or ran. In light of this 'chi' study I came back to those considerations and think there is indeed a point to them. A very similar approach to Dreyer is offered by Nate Fagan with his Tai Chi Running franchise. To me, the Fagan approach makes a bit more sense...

...More sense, that is, from the POV of a kickbiker (such as moi).

• kickbikers lean into the kick
• kickbikers crouch to kick
• kickbikers kick from the gut/abdominals
• kickbikers stamp light on the earth
• kickbikers stamp the souls of their feet  flat on the earth
• kickbikers kick square with their feet shoulder length apart
• kickbikers kick with a regular cadence and speed up by extending the length/reach of their kick

That's my ruling, anyway. All I have to do now is transpose what I know about kicking to running. So I have to be more aware while kickbiking and think how I can adapt what I do on two wheels to what I do on two feet alone.

There's also another relevance, one that affirms the Tai Chi perspective.

The exercising I do now is very slow. There's no explosion, no grunt. The lift and return of either my body or a weight is synchronous with the pace of a Tai Chi move.It may take me up to 10 seconds to slowly and consciously lift a weight (kettlebell or dumbbell) and a similar period to bring it back down again. But unlike Tai Chi I'm trying to reach muscle fatigue so I am seeking burn at some stage during the repetitions and the slowness of the exertion serves to hasten the onset of burn and fatigue. 

Tai Chi is performed without weights -- in fact weighted Tai Chi would upset the 'balance' of the form. Nonetheless, using weights and lifting them slowly has been proven to be much more effective exercise that  lifts a la the explosive clean and jerk.

Aside from these considerations, doing it slow and with utmost movement awareness isn't the nub of the business. At stake is harnessing core driven  impetus, core control. 

While we may think of dancing as so many arms and legs moving in time with music  I find myself addressing the irony that my dancing challenge isn't so much where I put my feet but where the music  begins inside of me. 

This is something of a revelation. At a time when I am stepping into more intricate footwork I find myself obsessed with the Southern Two Step -- a basic  step that can be counted as One and Two - Three and  Four. In Zydeco it can be as simple as a slide two steps one way and two steps return.

Easy right? Anyone can do that. But then this is where Soul meets Tai Chi Chuan. Taking two steps to the right or four steps to the right is going to be a move with many possibilities. If you think it is simple about keeping up with the beat you'd sentence yourself to  facile dancing.

Like Chi running, like kickbiking or Tai Chi Chuan your Two Stepping should start in your gut: its inner to outer. In Opelousas, Lousiaina, the local Creole community  passes on the Zydeco culture by drilling the youth in Two Step-ology: two steps to the right/two steps to the left/two steps to the right/two steps to the left/two steps to the right/two steps to the left/...it is an obsession insisted upon until the youngsters get so fed up with it they improvise how they get from a to b within the space offered by two steps.

Something so simple can be so crucial to  the whole caboodle. I watch videos of this two stepping business and am amazed how significant a simple  One and Two - Three and  Four can be. That may underline how creative the simple Rhythm and Blues form can be, but at its heart -- its  soul -- is the very same principles that animate the chi-ness in the running, exercising or kickbiking I've been describing.

So in a sense there aren't x number of studies  to pursue but the one focus.

Addendum: In my later life -- after Tai Chi -- I still used elements of the form and always taught a few simple exercises as preliminary to other stuff I offered. For instance I taught kids Theatre Improv for a time and would begin each workshop by utilizing the basic set-up moves for Tai Chi -- the initial descent and shift  of the pelvis and the formation of the ball in the arms followed by a left and right turn -- with concentration on the breathing cadence. It got  the children settled and quiet while encouraging them to focus on what was to follow. I've got half a mind to introduce the same introduction to my dance classes....

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A simple Zydeco slide

'Tis easy to see how far I have to go before being in anyway a good dancer. This clip is a rather formal presentation of the steps for one, among many, Zydeco slides. I'll have to be more creative with the camera next time.

Zydeco slides and shuffles are where it's at. Seemingly simple moves that demand an absolute engagement with the music and culture. You may start with the steps but technique isn't really the main game. It's all that inside out thing you see -- not something you can will on yourself or impose despite your discipline.

But hey I gotta start somewhere, right? So I start with a coupla steps to the right.

---

 

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Rigged for dancing in the dark

Another day gah gah.

It happens.

That's the cumbersome irony. I tried a couple of times to journey to the shops being the last retail day before the Easter break but I couldn't make it out the door. Put my shoes on. Reconsidered and lied down again.

As I facebooked yesterday, at times like this all is not lost:

In bed and so stiff and sore unable to do much. Hobbling around the house...at a loose end. A couple of pain killers. Then I thought I'll try the ole standbye and plugged the mp3 player in my ear and danced soul for 40 minutes. Amazes me every time how effective music and tippy tapping can be. Like ECT or something that stimulates endorphins. Kickstarts. You stand there in the lead in for the first song and say, "I won't be able to do this." But as soon as the rhythm takes over -- I don't stop for the next 40 minutes.

So if it works...? Why not do it again and again?

When you are on a good thing, right?

So today it was 9.30pm by the time I got myself upright and rigged for dancin'.

Rigged?

I have a line dancing folder/playlist on my trusty mp3 player and simply plug it into my ear to go stepping. It may look strange and be annoying for those in earshot if I start singing along with the music or count the beats out loud...but it's fuel for the feets. Quality time for the tootsies.

I have a sound system with a remote for teaching classes and I mainly use that for practice. But when the constraints are in,  I'm ear plugged instead.

Like Bruce Springstein, I'm dancin in the dark

You can't start a fire worrying about your little world falling apart
This gun's for hire
Even if we're just dancing in the dark

...lit by an Easter moon.

I have a workshop demo session on Easter Saturday with this twinkle toes stuff so I gotta be on top of my game....

Zydeco shuffling

In way of focus I am in the process of finishing off a Zydeco program.  That was my plan anyway. It was engineered along a path of difficulty with the shuffles being clumped at the end of the syllabus. But being off shore and a long way from South West  Louisiana I missed a crucial point: the shuffle is located at the core of Zydeco dance culture. In fact you could spend all your time exploring shuffling and not much else. While a shuffle can be a triple step  (like a cha cha: three steps done to two beats) it can also be covered by the more generic term, slide -- as in slide around the floor.

On offer is an array of intricate movements patterns, syncopated with the occasional different steps to add filigree. Formatted by simplicity, shuffling and sliding are about repetition and being ruled by the rhythm rather than aspiring to show off. It's very very internal as in 'you gotta feel the music'.

It's from inside then out. 

While the terminology confuses me a tad,the pivotal role played by the combo of shuffle and slide is  emphasized by this video clip -- one without music --  shot in a car park:

As an contemporary example of how this relates to dancing, The Zydeco Ballers  , a line dance team from  OPELOUSAS , Louisiana, the capital of Zydeco, have taken to choreographing 'the shuffle of the week' .

Now it seems to me that if you nail the shuffle, embrace it, accept its pristine simplicity, get it right so that it is integral to how you dance --  you embrace 'Soul music' at a core level that will anchor you thereafter in later journeys through Funk, James Brown( the god of  shuffling), Philadelphia Soul, and even into Hip Hop.

You may think, "so what?" But after scrutinising any number of soul line dance videos it became very clear to me that this is a dance form not ruled by technique so much but by, you guessed it, 'soul'.

I'm not saying that my white ass has got itself all souled up. I am thinking, nonetheless, that I wouldn't be dancing like I do if it was a biziness of technique. If it was all about skill and technique I couldn't progress like I do. In fact, technique can be a bit of  a distraction.

And besides it ain't called "Soul" Line Dancing for nothing...



 

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I only started learning to dance a few months ago.

Let me be frank. (Aren't I  always?)

I only started learning to dance a few months ago.

And now I teach dance...

How ironic, or presumptuous, is that?

But I had no choice in the matter. My partner and I had been interested in  Zydeco music for years and wanted to find some way to dance to it.  When I discovered that you could line dance to Zydeco, our options changed very much for the better.

I then realized that the Zydeco dances I was excited about were a branch of a much broader phenomenon that encompassed roots music, urban soul, R and B and Hip Hop  which was variously called "Soul" Line Dance.

That no one  taught Soul Line Dance was a disappointment which I rectified by learning to teach it myself.

And that's what I have done by using YouTube as my tutor.

So far I've learnt and taught ten Zydeco line dances. And what a fun journey it has been.

What began as a confusing lot of dance steps on video which may have taken me a week to deconstruct and replicate, is  now something I can nail in a couple of practice sessions.

I study the video of a targeted dance; slow it down; take notes ... then I practice the steps while returning to the video source to correct my choreography.

I then teach --share --  what I know.

As they say, you don't know how to do anything until you can try to teach it.

So here I am -- after a few months -- an exponent of Soul Line Dance with a repertoire of Zydeco and some students.

Who woulda thought?

I'm not claiming I am a great dancer. No way. (Nor a great teacher.) But then 'line dancing' isn't about becoming Fred Astaire, James Brown or Mikhail Baryshnikov. It is group physical activity -- to music -- that is choreographed. It is also one helluva workout.

But it ain't Zumba. There's no hype...and I'm not making any money. 

Without the teaching I wouldn't be able to form the (essential) line of dancers; and without the teaching my skill level would wallow. 

I practice every day. I practice because I love to dance this stuff. And the more I practice the better dancer I become. 

But I'm also improving my cognitive skills such that my brain now thinks in dance mode such that I can pick up, retain and replicate these at times complicated moves without getting routines mixed up with one another.

The re-training that's happening inside me is amazing and I gotta defer to all of what the exponents say about dance therapy.

On top of that is the  excitement of discovery. It is thrilling to explore  the choreographies that the US Afro American community (and Soul Line Dance is overwhelmingly a black culture)  are creating. The scene is relentlessly creative and generous. 

For any one dance I master there are many others I yearn to lean.  I'm ambitious. I look at funk and hip hop routines, dances based on contemporary soul music, classic James Brown moves  and think: some day all this will be mine. 

I'm hooked. 

I've even linked up with the Soul Line Dance community in the US through Happy Feet and I suspect  our club is rather unique: offshore and primarily white. 

In the United States, Soul Line dancing is being actively promoted as a  health tool within the Afro American community and it is not unusual to come across videos where among the dancers are folk using walking sticks.

Any and every one, you see, can dance -- but I  guess I need to point out that dance culture and music is a black American specialty. They do it better than any one else because they own the patent. 

To compare Soul Line Dance with its country cousin -- the he-haw boot scootin' stuff  -- well, there is simply no easy comparison. They are a world apart as the choro in country line dancing is tackled  so differently. It's like military drill. While country line dancing has opened up to urban and exotic sounds -- Latin for instance and pop music -- the engagement is different: straight backed, tight formations, no improv allowed -- stay in line/behave. 

There is a wide  cultural divide.

So for me the world is a land of a thousand dances and I don't know where my feet are going to carry me, but I'm looking forward to the journey.

• Useful article: Use It or Lose It: Dancing Makes You Smarter

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Urban Soul Line Dancin' comes to Australia. Y'all invited to dance.

As far as I know -- and can find out -- the little dance session we organised last night was the first conscious "Soul" line dance 'class' in Australia.

Of course we ain't Afro American nor are we aficionadoes embedded within the cultural parameters of Black American history. We don't come from Baltimore or Philadelphia ... or Opelousas (in South West Louisiana -- home of Zydeco); nor is "soul' a significant  theme on the local music scene. 

But for all that what we did last night was in no way exotic. Indeed, as far as I'm concerned "ye hah" countrified boot scootin' would be  truly foreign to our collective urban cultural experience. Baby Boomers didn't grow up on Achy Breaky Heart stuff. We grew up listening and dancing to The Stones, Hendrix, Disco and Motown. And some of us embraced funk and soul.

The  first record I purchased was an Otis Redding LP.

Maybe the white experience of the music is  of a diluted dosage, but then the main game is making it your own. 

And today the whole world explores and adapts Hip Hop.

So there/here we are, in the Antipodes, groovin on to this stuff and lovin it. 

As for me: Dancing with a group -- in fact teaching a group  to dance! (who woulda thought!) -- is a very different experience to boppin on your ownsome. My problem now, my challenge, is to keep the choreography coming so that I can feed the masses' hunger for more  dances. I'm no great dancer -- I've never really danced before -- but then I put in the time and effort into learning the routines. 

I think Soul Line Dancing could really take off in Australia because of all those stereotypical reasons that 'country' line dancing is maligned. Line dancing per se is very good therapy and ticks a lot of social, psychological, cognitive, exercise and cultural boxes. But 'country' style is so rigid, regimented ...so pretentiously cliched.

A Haka

... and most of all it is danced so differently. It is stick and boot dancing. Dancing up and down rather than sliding. "Country" style line dance may today be more eclectic in its repertoire but it locates itself as a pluralist shadow of the ball room and pop music. 

No thanks. Nor does couple dancing  really interest me. I'm a Haka man.

As far as I can make out "Soul Line Dancing" in the United States isn't necessarily a national phenomenon. In cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia, Houston and New York -- and in parts of the Carolinas --  Soul Line Dancing is pursued by concentrations of clubs, dance studios and teachers. There is a rich sub culture.

But it ain't necessarily all over the place as the next best thing since sliced bread on legs.

Part of the reason for this , I suspect, is that it hasn't "crossed over"  the US colour line .. nor for that matter is it corporate. The dance culture that rules the clubs -- your youth patronised night clubs -- is very different. There is some coming together with contemporary Hip Hop but my impression is that your average soul  line dancer is a  tad older than your clubber and may not be dancing for the sake of being in the mating game. Instead it is pursued as a sport, for exercise, and as a social gathering.

Of course you can't help but love the music.That matters.

In some churches they practice Gospel Line Dance with folk like Christopher Page  nailing a genre. All good stuff it is.

If you know your onions you'd know that "Soul" music came out of "Gospel" ( esp  through the music of Ray Charles et al).  That it is danced in church suggests how free the from is. It is without boundaries. So there is no compulsory wearing of cowboy hats and boots and buckles (yuk!).

So it lives and is driven by the here and now. That suggests to me that any local "soul" dance culture would need to adapt to local musical output rather than being  pretentiously and artificially Afro American obsessed. Maybe sometimes some local choreography is warranted? And for now -- not that I'm up to it -- I reckon this song by the Melbourne based Kimbra would make a great line dance:

Perhaps you think I'm over the top? But then some line dances are achingly beautiful...like this one -- a line for the skilled: Soul Food.

or the wonderful Terminal Reaction.

(Both dances are out of Philidelphia).

I don't dance these ...yet. I don't possess any where near the skill level to master them. But rest assured they are on my must-do list.

That's because I've seen the light:

Urban Soul Line Dance : ArtSteppers Thursdays 7pm

Yep, it's coming together. The SoulSteppers Urban Soul Line Dance Club starts up this month at Artrageous Community Arts in Deagon here in Brisbane.

Having served a few years as President of Artrageous and having run  a few workshops and  theatre courses there, I is back remade as  -- excuse me -- a dance teacher!

Who woulda thought?

That doesn't mean I'm any great hoots as a dancer  nor am I an experienced or trained one. Maybe 'facilitator' would be a more appropriate term.

Line Dance Facilitator/Animator.

While I have the inclination and focus -- and the obsession -- to put in the effort to learn the  choreography, the group -- that is,  the other  hoofers that make up the 'line'  --  get to pull it together while I remind folk that when you put your feet here or there you are supposed to do it  in sync with all those one and a- two and a- three and a- fours.

We will start with a semester of Zydeco dances and thereafter, touch wood, we move north from the rhythms of South West Louisiana to embrace the great choreographies coming out of the cities further north -- especially Baltimore and Philadelphia. I'd like to tackle some James Brown routines at some stage if the group is keen  and I know that we will be dabbling in Hip Hop without getting into all that dislocating and athletic  poppin.

Hip Hop is pervasive.

Urban Soul Line Dance may be  vigorous at times but you remain upright and moves are feet and hip formatted: slides, shuffles, twists and turns. You  lean into the moves and drop the shoulder ... and shake your tail feather.

I was thinking about the 'soul' part and I guess the point is that while you dance in 4x4 time and within standard rhythm and an 8 bar blues template, the dance steps are like riffs. You could dance the same choreography to any number of songs and it would fit right in. But that's not the point. It's not like the Fox Trot or the Waltz.  It isn't about regimentation (or any Strictly Ballroom filagree). It's about  improvising  as is the R and B norm  -- not so  much  notes on a guitar but feet on a floor.

The mix of steps are seemingly endless and dance groups keep changing and adapting the choreography they borrow. The line dance culture within the US Afro American community is endlessly creative and keeps pushing the envelope.

But the intention to move as one -- unison in a line --  rather than serving to stifle creativity,  fuels partnerships between any number of people fostering a rich vitality unobtainable from single or paired dancers.  

Moving as one with others to the beat of such music: 'tis wonderful.

SoulSteppers Urban Soul Line Dance Club 

Thursdays 7pm

Artrageous Community Arts Centre

Loftus Street, Deagon
Click here for more info.

Dance Threshold : Where are those feet going?

James Brown

My online catalogue of Urban Soul Line Dances numbers 83. That's the number of video posts I've collected of various preferred choreographies. It's my selection of dances I've really liked.

The best of the YouTube bunch.

At the moment I know and practice eight dances . So while that may suggest I have my work cut out, given that I've been doing this for such a short time -- only this year -- I am very pleased with my ability to nail the routines. 

Some dances take longer than others to learn especially as I have to watch the video of each of them over and over again -- breaking down each move to see how it is done -- to decipher the steps. 

Where are those feet going? I take notes. Pause the video. Replay in slow motion. Over and over again. Practice what I think I know and then review the video ... over and over again.

My problem is that every time I'm learning one dance there are many others I just haveta learn as well. In fact, there are maybe...um...83 of them. (And that's only today. Next week there'll be more!) I can't get enough of this stuff.

Here we have a man -- moi -- who has never ever danced before --  playing  at being Fred Astaire via James Brown. And I'm doing it so late in my  tippy toe life. 

I owe this to Zydeco.  That got  my ass moving 'cause Zydeco is such a full on dance scene.  And I would not have got into Zydeco without being drawn to Louisiana and New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (2005). Piqued, I  got addicted to the community radio station WWOZ (online, in exile and  drowned) which gave me a ready window into Louisiana musical culture. It resourced me.

From there I was drawn to Cajun music...before settling on Zydeco as my groove.

Now under the stimulus of Urban Soul Line Dancing I've replenished my passion for glorious Funk and Southern Soul. I'm now obsessed with the soul music scene to the north in cities like Philadelphia and Baltimore where so much great choreography is being generated.

...and I've learnt to respect Hip Hop...and dance it!

It's been a fantastic ride.

I reckon that en route I may have actually earnt myself some soul --  inasmuch as a white ass like mine can soul up. 

Now when I look at country line dancers dancing or the aficionados of line dancing in Asia -- such as the boot scooters in Malaysia , Singapore and China -- I judge them harshly for dancing militarily: stiff and regimented as though each step is drill.

Wrong. After watching so many hours of Urban Soul line dance danced by many different Afro American groups I rule that it aint the move but the motion that matters. It's another culture altogether. It's not dancin' so much as groovin' -- going organic with the music. It's about being connected to the floor not firing feet at it like popcorn on a hotplate. 

Since most line dancers are women, 'motion' in soul is ruled by the hips. Many choreographies explore the pelvis  as a major means to enrich the routine. Like Polynesian  and Belly dance the posterior is put out there as a primary language of the dance. It' sexy and sassy but it's still so very far removed from standard line dance routines. 

Soul line dancing is a sort of matriarchal embrace that so often runs as counterpoint to the masculinity of the songs' lyrics. Dancing soul is an odd play out of gender. That's perhaps why so few dancers are male. It exposes you to a certain level of vulnerability on the dance floor  if you want to dance it like it asks. There's no ruling over a partner -- you don't get to lead the female. It's democratic: all dancers are  equal on the floor. So there's no real opportunity to compete and for blokes that means no pissing competition. 

Ironically (but then maybe it's not so ironic) many soul line dancers are overweight. You get these big bodied people dancing -- but dancing superbly as they notch up the exercise. And they look great -- liquid motion.

After watching so many line dances on video I get enamoured with flesh moving. It's mesmerising:the way the feet move and then the human body follows in sync with wonderful music. That's the draw card -- the moving body. Feet and the steps that feet do are tools to that end. 

And it's flesh in sync: many people dancing with one another, turning, sliding, shuffling and dipping together to the same beat. Just like for eons.

Really I gotta say that 'ballroom dancing' in relation to human culture is a bit of a 20th century  aberration  as most of our existence has been governed by dancing in  a line.

That all this is done in 4x4 time within the confines of a Rand B template using a range of moves to get you about standing upright without requiring you to leap up or meet the floor...It's another magical world altogether when you are stepping.

Line dancin' deep hip hop...Dancin' Drake - The Motto

Drake - The Motto ft. Lil Wayne is way too deep Hip Hop for me. But if you put aside all that rhyming and  in-your-face stuff  you get a unique musical experience. Delete the crudity of the lyrics (although I relate to the street cred POV  as the lyrics are also very interesting and poetic despite the misogynistic theme) and settle for the instrumental version  ...

Well, there's new possibilities....

REE-SYN-MI DANCERS do a totally awesome soul line dance choreography to this song -- steps that I am currently learning. That's the great joy of being Urban Soul Line Dance engaged -- there's this rich stream of creative choreography emanating from any number of Afro American community  dance sessions. 

You have to work a tad hard to dance these dances but this one is, for me, pure Zen. 

Music and moves shift your into another groove. 

It's not about watching. It's about doing, about dancing the dance. 

This is also Hip Hop where you don't have to stand on your head to dance it.

[TIP:Turn your volume down as the audio sucks.]

Contrary to all expectations I did it: went the max to discover Dave's first Law of Motion.

I thought that since I was so stiff and clumsy such that I could hardly make breakfast -- I spilt it all over the counter

...it ran down the side and pooled on the floor. A yogurt/blueberry larva (chilled) flow. [Imagine swearing].

 -- that doing the VOMax thing a few hours after waking was not on at all. 

I stood there waiting for the count down...and I was scared. What am I thinking of doing? Those few seconds seemed endless because you wonder, "what's gonna happen at one?"

Welcome to Tabata! 3...2...1...Go! [Imagine some rapping hip hop]

But with the music and the fact that it's all an explosion of effort and adrenalin I completed the 20_10_8! Amazing. One massive burst from hell inside me. Gasping for air.

Then I went back to bed...

But later, in the afternoon -- I was still  stiff but  because I had done the Tabata earlier (I was less stiff so  ) I thought I'd do a Soul Line Dance session.

Despite that physical burden  I found I could still do it and be more into the music rather than the mechanics. I grooved on like one very cool dude. 

My head was Fibro fogged so no new steps a'learning was possible -- but I did realise that dancing outback under the veranda with the surround sound substance of an mp3 player connected to my ears I could move to another physiological space....and do much  much more than I either expected or (given the stiffness and soreness) initially preferred.

Music therapy. 

I'm on one helluva discovery here with the music/HIIT combo. 

Forget Isaac Newton: this is Dave Riley's First Law of Motion.