Soul Line Dancing

I’ve said in the past that line dancing is good for the soul but last week I found out how good the soul was for line dancing. I went Soul Line Dancing at Degenhardt’s in Mt. Ephraim, New Jersey and had a wonderful time. This is a different style of dancing done to mostly Motown music. There are a lot of similarities to country line dancing. Its very popular with women because you don’t need a partner. They have a dance lesson if you get there early. There is a DJ that takes requests and calls out the dances to each song. But it strays away after that. Soul dancing takes a lot of rhythm and you really need to listen to the music in order to do the steps correctly. Lessons are not taught to the same time that we are used to and dance steps don’t have names like kick ball change or shuffle step. There are no step sheets and the DJ does not count you in with a 5678. But somehow nearly 100 dancers from three different states managed to all do the same dances together flawlessly. It was awesome.

This style of dancing seems to be an off-shoot of Philly style dances like the Stroll mixed in with a little soft shoe style tap steps and a whole lot of attitude. From the moment I got there till I left (well after midnight) I felt welcome. We started out with a lesson from our teacher, Tina Richardson. Tina has been a dance teacher for over six years now and is familiar with all styles of line dancing including country western. She teaches workshops all over Philadelphia and in South Jersey. It’s a little like an aerobics lesson. She showed us the steps as movements, without any counts to them, and then played the song for us to dance to. You had to watch her closely to get the timing and at times it was difficult to master. I noticed that soul dancers don’t always dance to the down beat rhythm that we are used to. They danced more to the rhythm syncopations of the song. I started out learning a dance called Kicking It. It was a nice 32 count dance that went to Chaka Khan’s song, I Want. The song was at least 4 minutes long so by the time it was over we had the dance down well enough to join in later during social dancing. That’s another big difference between soul and country dancing, the length of the song. I don’t think there was any song played that night that was under 4 minutes long. The dances are not short or boring and some have some very different and complicated steps in them, but they are all really fun to do if you like to relax and dance funky. After Kicking It, I learned a dance called Grand Stand and then another dance called Booty Call (not at all like the country version). During the evening I figured out Good Foot and Soul City Walk but I’m hoping to get Jazzy Lady the next time I go. There are at least 75 different dances done there. A group from Baltimore came and demonstrated their dance called Finesse. Other groups were from all over Maryland, South Jersey and Philadelphia. Everyone really dresses up for soul line dancing. The dress code is to dress like you are going to a wedding. No one wears jeans or t-shirts and definitely no sneakers. Everyone was dressed up, women in fancy dresses and men in suits. It was really nice to see a large group of people all dressed to the hilt, out to have a good time and dancing. I haven’t had this much fun line dancing since I first started to learn to dance myself.

They were taping this dance for the Soul Line TV cable show (www.soullinetv.com), hosted by Butch Thomas, our DJ that night. If you get Comcast cable in South Jersey, Delaware and Philadelphia you will see me at my best doing the Casper Cha-Cha Slide and The Kicking It dance ? Degenhardt’s is a monthly dance but there are plenty of others popping up all over New Jersey. There is going to be a big soul line contest at the Stardust Ballroom soon and I plan on being there taking notes and I’ll be teaching a few of them myself in my classes. Soul line dances have come as far north as Trenton so I predict you will be seeing soul line dance classes soon in your neighborhood too. Try one, its just plain fun. I know I’m hooked. If you are interested in Soul Line Dancing you can get information from www.Soullinedancing.com or visit the National Soul Line Dance website at www.NSLDA.org.

I started taking lessons every month from a wonderful instructor, Tina Richardson, at Degehnhardts. So far I have learned Kicking It, Soul City Walk, Jazzy Lady, Birdland, Sakeem, Grandstand, DB2 and King.

The step sheets on the soul line dance site are helpful as reminders of what the steps are but not good for understanding the timing or teminology. Different areas spawn different variations of the dances. Moves like wobble and snoopy are hard to describe, you really need to take a class to get the rhythm and style. The "7 count step" is pretty cool, I learned that in the DB2 dance and it is a lot like a tap dance move. You step diagonally forward right on the RF (1), Slide the LF up to the RF and take weight (&), Step diagonally forward again on the RF (2), Slide the LF up to the RF and take weight (&), Step the RF back behind the LF (3), Recover weight to the LF (&), Stomp the RF forward with weight (4). Add the attitude and its a "feel good" kind of move. If you are interested in seeing a video of some of the dances, I found one from Randy Dennis' website www.RandyDennisProductions.com. The video seems like it was originally intended as an exercise video but it covers some of the popular dances. Randy also produced a song called Randy's 3 Step, its a lot like the Cha Cha Slide, you do what the song tells you to do but you really need to see it on a video first. Good dances to start with are the Booty Call, Marvin Gaye Walk, Soul City Walk, and Jazzy Lady. I will start writing the dances up with the timing as I learn them. The first one on my site is a very easy one that I first learned called Kicking It. I am working on writing up DB2, Jazzy Lady, Soul City Walk right now. You can find the stepsheets here or on my step sheet. Check back soon for more updates. Soul links are on my links page.

I also attended a Soul Line Dance competition at the Stardust Ballroom in Pennsauken, NJ. There were several teams of dancers from as far as Baltimore, Md and they were all awesome. There had to be at least 700 dancers at this event - its the biggest ballroom I have ever seen and it was packed. So it certainly seems to be a popular sport.

Please check out Butch's Soul Line TV website, you can also get Tina Richardson's teaching schedule and contact number there (Hint - Hire her for your next event). They are very nice people and I wish them success in their venture to bring Soul Line Dancing to everyone.