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Step by step. Left foot, then right.
That’s all you need to know as you step into the Sherman Phoenix marketplace on the nights when line dancing takes over.
“They make you feel like you can do it!” said LaToya Russell, one of the participants on a recent night. “I feel like I’m Janet Jackson when I leave here, and God knows I’m a long way from there.”
The requirements are few:
- Come as you are, in comfortable clothes.
- Be ready to learn.
- If you don’t have the moves, that’s OK. Just make sure you speak up.
“When I ask you if you have it, you say ‘peace’ to have it and you say ‘pause’ if you need to go over it again. Okay?”
Those were the words from one of the instructors during a session that just so happened to fall on the one-year anniversary of this free community event — an ongoing partnership between the Sherman Phoenix and Primetime Line Dance.
“The year has gone very surprising,” lead instructor Kim Easley said with a laugh. “It’s been really full of joy, full of community. We did not expect to have the kind of turnouts and response to this because it kind of just started as, ‘Hey, let’s just see how this goes.”
Easley has been dancing for more than 10 years, but her day job is a full-time high-school counselor for Milwaukee Public Schools. The side hustle started when she was asked to lead dance sessions for a wellness initiative at work, which led to a gig with Milwaukee Recreation, and then the Sherman Phoenix.
“For me, in terms of how it makes me feel, it’s something that I consider as my own self-care,” she explained. “So certainly when you are engaging in any kind of self-care, it feels good. More importantly, it’s about the mental health aspect, the wellness aspect of it, and we all need to be in the best mental state we can be to be functional in what we do.”
Russell has been in the scene for a while and talked herself through the learning process at the Sherman Phoenix event: “I’m about 75% there. I’ve got it. We got this.” She’s a repeat visitor because of the positivity. “They’re great. And line dance heals. I was going through just a dark moment in my life, and it helps with your mental health so I just kept coming.”
Nesha Joiner is also a regular and brought her best friend LeLe Cross — who was still working it out. “Yeah, I got two left feet. But I’m Black, so I try,” Cross laughed.
“I think I did pretty good,” Joiner added. “I do Kim’s classes on Monday’s at Marshall through the Rec, so I think it was an easy little pick up.”
In her time encouraging people to try line dancing, Easley has heard all the excuses. But she always points out that with good instruction, anyone can catch on.
“I feel like we have a real opportunity to bring people out of their comfort zones, out of their social isolation, out of depression, out of being afraid to be vulnerable,” she said. “These are things that people have told me this initiative has done for them. It’s gotten them out of a dark place. So I think that’s the biggest thing that I want to imprint here with what I do.”
