Electric Slide

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For the film, see Electric Slide (film).

The Electric (better known as The Electric Slide) is a four wall line dance. Choreographer and dancer Richard L. "Ric" Silver claims to have created the dance in 1976.[1]

Dance popularity is sometimes attributed to its setting to Marcia Griffiths and Bunny Wailer's song "Electric Boogie", which was written and recorded for the first time in December 1982.[2][3][4]

There are several variations of the dance. The original choreography has 22 steps,[5] but variants include the Freeze (16-step), Cowboy Motion (24-step), Cowboy Boogie (24-step), and the Electric Slide 2 (18-step). The 18-step variation became popular in 1989 and for ten years was listed by Linedancer Magazine as the number-one dance in the world.[citation needed]

The original dance was choreographed to be danced in two lines facing each other and in the course the opposite dancers circle each other.[1]

Controversy

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In 2007, Silver filed DMCA-based take-down notices to YouTube users who posted videos of people performing the 18-step dance variation. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit on behalf of videographer Kyle Machulis against Silver, asking the court to protect Machulis's free speech rights in recording a few steps of the dance in a documentary video posted to the Internet.[6] On May 22, 2007, the EFF came to an agreement to settle the lawsuit: the settlement states that Silver will license the Electric Slide under a Creative Commons noncommercial license[7] and will also post the new license on any of his current or future websites that mention the Electric Slide.

The NPR reporter Patricia Meschino wrote: "Broadway Choreographer Ric Silver created the popular line dance the Electric Slide for the song-a routine Wailer nimbly demonstrates in a 1989 video".[8]

In recent decades, there has been some controversy regarding the creation year of the Electric Slide line dance. Silver claimed that he received a demo of the song 'Electric Boogie' in 1976, which he used to create his dance steps.[9] Yet according to Marcia Griffiths, the song 'Electric Boogie' was written for her by Bunny Wailer in early 1980s.[10]

References

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  1. ^ a b LineDancer Magazine, June 2003, p. 9.
  2. ^ "Marcia Griffiths – Today's 1 Hit Wonder @ 1 [VIDEO]". 18 February 2013.
  3. ^ The Electric Slide Dance, American Songwriter
  4. ^ 1976 – Bunny Wailer & Marcia Griffiths: Electric Boogie
  5. ^ Silver, Ric. "This is 'The Electric' - The Complete Choreography". The-electricslidedance.com. Archived from the original on 2018-07-08. Retrieved 2016-11-30.
  6. ^ "'Electric Slide' Creator Steps on Fair Use | Electronic Frontier Foundation". Eff.org. 2007-03-01. Retrieved 2012-08-29.
  7. ^ "Electric Slide Creator Calls Off Online Take-down Campaign". EFF. 2007-05-22. Retrieved 2018-12-07.
  8. ^ Patricia Meschino, Remembering Bunny Wailer, Reggae Mystic And Wailers Co-Founder, March 6, 2021
  9. ^ "The Electric" (PDF). United States Copyright Office. June 10, 2010.
  10. ^ Katz, David (2003). Solid Foundation: An Oral History of Reggae (1st ed.). Bloomsbury. p. 335. ISBN 978-0747564027. I got maybe about 700 dollars, and I invested in a keyboard in Canada - a rhythm box - and it was the greatest buy I've ever made, because it had every single sound on it. I took it in the studio with brother Bunny, and Bunny was fascinated with the same sound that I loved, which was the piano playing the repeater sound, "nenga-nenga-nenga-nenga," so that was what we put down first on tape, and then the rhythm, "boom, baff, boom, baff." Bunny is a talented songwriter, and one of the greatest producers I know. He took that home in the country, and the following morning he came back with the song "Electric Boogie." The song was released coming up to Christmas in 1982
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