Line Dancing

After a very unfortunate dance unit in fifth grade (which involved learning line dancing, the bunny hop, and the hand jive), I pretty much forgot that line dancing existed. Unfortunately, St Louis's CBS station reminded me tonight with "St Louis Country! With Billy Ray Cyrus!" at 12 am Sunday morning (night?).

First, a little background on line dancing. All of my previous knowledge was from my gym teacher's enthusiasm (really, she loved that shit), and a five-second segment in Dirty Dancing (it really couldn't get high billing - line dancing is by nature, not dirty, which I'll discuss later). Wikipedia tells me that line dancing is "choreographed dance with a repeated sequence of steps in which a group of people dance in one or more lines (British English, "rows") without regard for the gender of the individuals, all facing the same direction, and executing the steps at the same time."

This whole dance style just smacks of fascism and obedience and mob mentality. People line up all facing the same direction, and perform choreographed steps in unison. The lines are parallel, and no one touches each other, and watching this country western concert on television is disconcerting. There are not merely random groups of four people scattered around in lines - there is a large group of at least 30 that has miraculously come together to line dance in uniform, parallel lines. I'm fascinated - did these people know each other? Did they confer and agree that they should all dance in unison? Or is it more magical, with the whole group spontaneously forming to walk sideways? This brings up another point - while line dancing looks very much the same all the time, there are different ways to walk sideways and rotate - how does this group of people know how to do the exact same steps and rotations every time? How???

I suppose the group mentality isn't all that different from the group consent that takes place in a mosh pit, but a dance pit feels like it has a bit more anarchy. You can get kicked in the head or punched in the face! You could fall down and get trampled to death! I don't see why anyone would prefer a safer form of concert activity! (kidding) Even without going to extremes, "regular" dancing, such as swing or salsa, isn't quite dancing if there aren't steps, but in other dances, there is room for improvising, and that is what makes dancing fun to do and fun to watch.

To end this brilliant comparison by stretching tenuous connections even more, The Electric Slide could even be seen as commending and encouraging capital punishment. See for yourself: It's electric, boogie woogie woogie.