THE Silver City Line Dancers have been meeting weekly for some thirty years to stay fit, keep social, and most importantly have fun, while grape-vining and heel-jacking their cowboy boots on the floor at the North Broken Hill Football Club to line dance routines.
Instructor Tim Gauci has been teaching line dancing to Broken Hill for 29 years, after first learning the dance 32 years ago when a group of bootscooters from Whyalla visited town and taught a workshop.
“I didn’t know how I’d go but I was able to do the steps, and I loved it,” Gauci said.
“I just loved meeting new people, learning new steps and new dances.”
A few locals who attended the workshops decided to start line dancing together, and the Silver City Line Dancers were born.
“Back then we had a demo team who would go to shows and birthday parties and do demonstrations to get people up and line dancing. It was really fun,” Gauci said.
When the group first began they were dancing at PCYC, and Gauci said he thinks around 300 people attended at the time.
“The whole trampoline room was full, even the back shed,” he said.
After a couple of years Gauci began instructing the classes, rather than just attending, and said he would lug around a box of CDs and tapes of line-dancing music to play at classes.
“Now I just lug my iPad around,” he said.
The Silver City Line Dancers meet on Tuesday and Wednesday nights at the North footy club, and there’s about 25 regulars now.
“We currently aren’t running a beginners class due to lack of attendance, but Tuesday evenings are an improvers class which is fairly easy, and Wednesday is intermediate which is a bit harder,” Gauci said.
Gauci also said apart from the physical benefits, the social aspect of line dancing is a vital part of the activity for members, many of whom are older.
“A lot of people have become long terms friends,” he said.
“And it’s inclusive, you don’t need a partner to dance, you can come on your own.”
Line dancer Ray Douglas agreed.
“The social side is just fantastic, and its good exercise and good for the brain to keep active,” she said.
The club hosts regular social nights too that are themed get-togethers, and former dancers who are now too ill or elderly to dance can stay connected with their friends.
“We do Halloween, Christmas, Easter,” Gauci said.
“A couple of weeks back we had a pink social night where we raised money for the Breast Cancer Support Group.
“It’s mainly an aging type activity at the moment, but we’d love new people to come along!”
Gauci said he thinks stereotypes around what line dancing is incorrect and might discourage people from trying it.
“I think sometimes people don’t choose line dancing because they think we stomp around, slap our feet, put our fingers through out belt loops and scream yee-haw,” he said.
“But it’s completely modernised. We dance to modern music and a music of genres, with steps coming from ballroom, jazz, tap and Irish dancing. It’s not all country!”
Gauci said that for him, line dancing acts as “a sort of therapy.”
“It’s good to know whatever you’re going through you can come here and you don’t have to talk about your problems, you can just dance and have fun,” he said.
“And while you’re dancing you’re not thinking of anything other than the dance steps, and listening to the music.”
