January 22-28, 2004
naked city
Urban Cowboys
 All together now: Soul Line TV's Paula Chandler-Paramore shows off some moves to her regulars, whom she thinks of as "a family."  |
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If you thought line dancing had to be a little bit country, think again.
Whether taken back to its roots in African ritual circle steps or the hand-jiving, wrist-rolling Harlem Shuffle in acts from the Cotton Club to the Apollo, or seen in its latest incarnation, notably through the weird wheeling of OutKast, the soul line dance is an exquisite, tasteful display of funk and grace. Long before Dre was shaking like a Polaroid with his video sisters, the "Soul City Walk" was de rigueur among the habitués of slick, dressy R&B dance palaces less in line with hip-hop than they were with the hits of Motown, Mandrill, Minneapolis and Michael.
So it seemed a dream to see, on local cable access, sharply dressed crowds swaying to Alexander O’Neal records, led by one long-legged woman while a mack-daddying MC set the tone. It was Soul Line TV, with host Norris "Butch" Thomas and step instructor Paula Chandler-Paramore, a taped broadcast based on monthly social get-togethers, that, according to executive producer Robert E. Thomas of Urban Channels Network, reaches two million homes in Philadelphia alone. While Butch tells the over-30s crowd ("no jeans, no gym suits") to roll with the groove, Chandler-Paramore leads dances with names like "Jazzy Lady," "Shabazz" (a turn-and-spin-heavy dance named after Malcolm X’s wife), "The Marvin Walk," "Soul City Walk" and "The Finesse," as well as salsa, the cha-cha and the two-step. It’s all available on her instructional videotape, Soul Line Dance with Paula. Chandler-Paramore, a 1972 West Catholic Girls graduate, previously studied and performed with Philadanco and Dave Bush Dancers. When not performing, she soul line danced at the best area clubs throughout the ’80s. She stopped when she got married, and started again when she got divorced, an event that led her to rediscover the possibilities of the line-dance scene beyond just a Saturday night’s shuffle. "It happens all the time -- people run into bad relationships or [failed] marriages. I stopped dancing because I got married," she says. "My breakup was heartbreaking. I didn’t want to do nothing." When the marriage ended, she found that she, like her pals, was in need of a social activity that incorporated baby-boomer interests. "This sounds corny. But I saw people line dancing at one of [WDAS DJ] Butterball’s dances and something clicked." She made herself an expert, going several times a week, until, at the insistence of her friends, she began teaching "the line."
Instructing the intricacies of line dance became a reality for Chandler-Paramore in 1998 -- a year after her divorce -- when she formed her own company, Philadelphia R&B Soul Line Dancing, Inc. Cut to MC Butch, an oldies DJ who’d been spinning R&B on radio and for Trenton State College dances under the name "Broadway Butch" since the ’70s, bringing in groups as diverse as The Ebonys and The Last Poets, before hooking up with Club Impulse in the ’80s. "While he was spinning, I was raising a family," laughs Chandler-Paramore. Along with bringing line dancing to Impulse, Benjamin Bynum Sr.’s off-Broad Street club, Butch brought it to Degenhardt’s and the Stardust Ballroom in New Jersey. By 1998, the moment was ripe for a soul line-dance revival: The fact that this movement had strength in numbers became apparent when Chandler-Paramore’s dance instruction business/website and Butch’s up-and-coming ballroom parties caught the eye of Urban Channels Network. The network created Soul Line TV for cable access in 2003 (it airs on WMCN-TV). "It really was a confluence of energies," says Chandler-Paramore, indicating not only the popularity of Soul Line TV in the tri-state area, but the interest in this type of dance throughout the States.
"The across-the-nation impact is immense," she says, pointing to a recent line-dance summit with instructors from Detroit and Cleveland gathering at Pennsauken, N.J.’s Stardust to banter on the boogie.
"It’s appealing because it’s great medicine," Chandler-Paramore theorizes, "a way for people going through horrible relationship woes [and] depressions, or those who want to get out from under themselves, to do so."
The dances are about posture and gesture, with movements often inherent to their region or lineage. Example: "The Baltimore," born of that city’s line-dance scene, has more aerobic squats, knee raises and lunges while grooving to a faster beat. "The Philly Connection," conversely, is smoother, a "cool-down" dance concentrating on kicks, crosses and slower rhythms. "The Booty Call" is a rump shaker. "The Running Man" is a hyper-kinetic knee raiser.
The seemingly simple dance moves are appealing to crowds of all ages and races -- like the thousand-strong group who’ll head via six busloads to the Paso Doble Ballroom in Levittown this week for a soul line-dancing event. Here, groups in dozens of lines -- Chandler-Paramore emphasizes there’s "no partner required!" -- will do their thing. The women, Chandler-Paramore says, will come because they want to dance. A lot of the men -- "I’m not saying they’re dogs," she laughs -- may be looking to score. For that reason, you’ll see lines of women rolling along the dancefloor with a beautiful linearity, engaged in a sisterhood that Chandler-Paramore finds admirable. "I can go out to a dance affair. I can be by myself or direct my usual dances. I’m a leader. But I’m never alone. It’s a family."
SoullineTV.com presents "The Back in the Day Cabaret," Sat., Jan. 24, 9 p.m.2 a.m., $12-$15, Paso Doble Ballroom, 4501 New Falls Rd., Levittown, 856-770-9201. Television listings, videos and event listings available at www.soullinetv.com.
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