I got my start in Country Dancing with the Texas Two-Step many years ago in a dancehall in College Station, TX called The Texas Hall of Fame (sadly, no longer with us) and then also began learning line dances after I moved to the Washington, DC-Maryland-Virginia (DMV) region.
What I like best about Country Dancing is the variety of dances you can do in a single night, from the Two-Step to Waltz, East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing, Polka, Pattern/Circle Dances, and many different styles of Line Dances!
What I like best about Country Dancing is the variety of dances you can do in a single night, from the Two-Step to Waltz, East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing, Polka, Pattern/Circle Dances, and many different styles of Line Dances!
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Teaching Dance
I've danced all over the country and even built a Country Dance program over a span of 5 years when I lived in Germany (teaching both couples/partner and line dancing). I've taken thousands of lessons and workshops over the years because dancing became a passion!
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I teach line dancing periodically (currently about once a month on Saturdays) at The Original Cancun Cantina in Hanover, MD (near BWI Airport).
I also manage the playlists for an Internet jukebox called Mubo that lets us try new dances on Wednesday and Saturday prior to the dance lessons from roughly 6:30 pm - 8 pm. Anyone in the club can download the app and vote for the songs they want to hear!
- My next lesson at The Original Cancun Cantina is Saturday, March 2, 2024 at 8pm.
- Planned dances are:
- TBD
- TBD
- Current schedule:
- Sat. Dec. 30, 2023 @ 8 pm
- Sat. Jan. 13, 2024 @ 8 pm
- Sat. Feb. 3, 2024 @ 8 pm
- Sat. Mar. 2, 2024 @ 8 pm
I also manage the playlists for an Internet jukebox called Mubo that lets us try new dances on Wednesday and Saturday prior to the dance lessons from roughly 6:30 pm - 8 pm. Anyone in the club can download the app and vote for the songs they want to hear!
The Country Dance Map
I've been tracking dances and places to dance for many years, and finally decided to compile them into my Country Dance Map. I wanted to be able to easily find places to dance while traveling, and it also lets me store links to the stepsheets and videos of dances there where I can find them again.
Then I decided to share it since a lot of you may be looking for dance venues as well!
Then I decided to share it since a lot of you may be looking for dance venues as well!
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The History Of The Country Dance Map
I started working on this map in January 2023 because Dean Hooks published a Copperknob list of the dances at Coyote Joe's in Charlotte, NC. I wanted to be able to find this list again easily, so I decided to mesh this great idea from Dean with the idea of a dance map.
After working on it for several months with beta testers who used it to find places to dance while traveling, I decided to release the map in September 2023 even though there were many major improvements I felt it still needed, because I thought it was useful to the dance community even in its raw form.
Why A Map?
Until about 15 years ago Ray Bowers used to maintain a map of the various Country Dancing clubs in the Washington, DC region and I found it very useful for being able to quickly visualize all of my different options. With a map, I could easily see what venues were within driving distance without initially needing to know the names of the towns.
Although Ray took his site down, I felt this concept could be combined with modern interactive maps, along with a data field for any Copperknob lists or video channels showing the dances at a given venue.
Incorporating Dance Lists and Social Links
At the time Ray created his site, Country Dancing was dominated by couples dancing (Two-Stepping, East Coast Swing, waltz, and later West Coast Swing as well) and a much smaller number of line dances. But with the advent of good cell phone videos on YouTube and TikTok in particular, the number of line dances has exploded into the hundreds of thousands and it's become much more difficult to simply drop into a new club as a visitor.
In addition, social media such as Facebook tends to be both more up-to-date (important when dance events vary by night, and can be suddenly changed or cancelled) and to also show some of the dancing through lists of line dances or videos of the dances.
Other Resources
One of the great things about the dance community is that there are so many resources for helping people learn about dances and dancing in general. I've tried to point people to the various web sites, events, and video channels that it took me decades to discover, including other dance venue databases.
I believe all of these tools can help great, fun dancing grow and spread!
I started working on this map in January 2023 because Dean Hooks published a Copperknob list of the dances at Coyote Joe's in Charlotte, NC. I wanted to be able to find this list again easily, so I decided to mesh this great idea from Dean with the idea of a dance map.
After working on it for several months with beta testers who used it to find places to dance while traveling, I decided to release the map in September 2023 even though there were many major improvements I felt it still needed, because I thought it was useful to the dance community even in its raw form.
Why A Map?
Until about 15 years ago Ray Bowers used to maintain a map of the various Country Dancing clubs in the Washington, DC region and I found it very useful for being able to quickly visualize all of my different options. With a map, I could easily see what venues were within driving distance without initially needing to know the names of the towns.
Although Ray took his site down, I felt this concept could be combined with modern interactive maps, along with a data field for any Copperknob lists or video channels showing the dances at a given venue.
Incorporating Dance Lists and Social Links
At the time Ray created his site, Country Dancing was dominated by couples dancing (Two-Stepping, East Coast Swing, waltz, and later West Coast Swing as well) and a much smaller number of line dances. But with the advent of good cell phone videos on YouTube and TikTok in particular, the number of line dances has exploded into the hundreds of thousands and it's become much more difficult to simply drop into a new club as a visitor.
In addition, social media such as Facebook tends to be both more up-to-date (important when dance events vary by night, and can be suddenly changed or cancelled) and to also show some of the dancing through lists of line dances or videos of the dances.
Other Resources
One of the great things about the dance community is that there are so many resources for helping people learn about dances and dancing in general. I've tried to point people to the various web sites, events, and video channels that it took me decades to discover, including other dance venue databases.
I believe all of these tools can help great, fun dancing grow and spread!