Isn´t couple dance your piece of cake? Do you like country music? Why not test line dance? Line dance is one of many country & Western dances. In the film "Saturday Night Fever" John Travolta is dancing line dance.

"Maybe we will see the whole new Bridge between Sweden and Denmark vibrate by line dance when it will be inaugurated. There is thoughts of filling the bridge with linedancers from one side to the other", Catarina Johansson dance instructor from Stockholm tells us. She estimates that about 4000 persons regularly dance linedance in Sweden. She and her husband James Nyström carry on Stockholm LineDancers in the center of the capital. They got in contact to line dance when a Country & Western festival visited Stockholm four years ago. Since then they have been hooked on line dancing. They decided to start training courses and these were very fast fully booked.

"More people should dance - it makes you glad and happy. And you also get good condition", Catarina says, who as a profession works with research in inland waters at the Environmental Protection Agency in Stockholm.

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According to Stockholm LineDancers line dance have been practised in the USA for more than 20 years. It started in the mines and on festivals connected with agriculture as a way to cheer up weekdays. Today the dance is spread all over the world. There is both WC and Swedish Championships. The last weekend in July is the days for SC.

All people! The pupils are between 6 and 80. Most are between 30 and 50. Many people thinks it is an advantage with line dance which is a so called single dance - which means that you can get along alone.

Jeans, T-shirt and cowboy boots. Or skirt for those who likes it. It is important with heels so that you can really "stomp". But Catarina insist that the boots must be comfortable.

Warming up is very important and stretching the muscles afterwards.

There are signs which indicate that line dance can prevent fragile skeleton. Research is going on at the University Hospital in Umea.

The speed of the dance can be everything from very slow to very fast and sweaty. It is not only slow, sad country music it could also be hip hop or waltz, pop and discomusic.

It contains mostly 32 steps with name such as grapevine, hitch, hook, toe fan, hip, full spin, pivot. A choreographer makes the steps together in a pattern. Today there is over 9000 choreographed dances (April 2000) and new ones are created all the time. All dances have their own names and patterns. As the name of line dance indicate - the dancers stand in lines.