A Harrisonburg line dancing club has seen an influx of young attendees in recent years. WMRA’s Omega Ilijevich reports.
DEBBIE BRYAN [over music]: 5-6-7-8. Back and clap. Grapevine right…
That's the voice of Debbie Bryan, calling out moves to the traditional line dance “Precious Time” at Plaza Antigua in Waynesboro. Bryan is the president of Leather ‘N Lace Dance Club — a long-running line dancing group based in Harrisonburg.
From September to May, dozens of dancers flock to Mountain View Elementary for the group’s bimonthly dances. In the off season, they host pop-up events, such as a recent Independence Day-themed hoedown at Plaza Antigua. With its repetitive steps and communal flow, line dancing is newcomer-friendly. And if you forget a move, instructors are always nearby to help.
BRYAN: Nobody’s watching you. They’re all watching the instructor. And If you make a mistake, It’s your own personal move, you know. It’s not a mistake. You just made it your own.
Bryan herself was a rookie once. Just after graduating high school in 1994, she followed her friends to “The Roundup”, a country-western bar in Harrisonburg. The now-shuttered dance floor was a weekly hangout for early Leather ‘N Lace members. Within weeks, Bryan fell in love with line dancing and met her husband Tim during a partner dance.
BRYAN: He came up and asked me to dance. He was with a group of guys and our group of girls. Of course, you know, that’s just how young people are. We didn’t have Snapchat or Facebook back then, so that’s how we met.
In the late 80s and early 90s, the boot-scooting club had chapters across Virginia, riding the wave of a nationwide country music revival. When the trend fizzled out, the Harrisonburg branch was eventually the last one standing, and the smaller group had to move locations every few years. After settling down to have kids and run a cattle farm, Debbie and Tim returned to Leather ‘N Lace as a family in the early 2000s. When group leaders saw how well she remembered classic dances, they quickly recruited her as an instructor.
BRYAN: They took us under their wing. I look back and I was like, “they really taught us a lot and I didn’t even know it at the time."
After decades of shared history and dance hall love stories, Leather ‘N Lace events can sometimes look like family reunions. Like Bryan, Cindy Guertler has been line dancing since the 90s, when she brought her kids and parents along to dances.
CINDY GUERTLER: To me, it's just a really big family affair. And we’re all family. I mean, I know all these people that are here tonight.
Cindy’s adult daughter, Anna Simmons, has been coming to Leather ‘N Lace with her parents since she was a child. On this particular evening, Anna brought along her own young daughter, making three generations of dancers on the plaza. But she also sees dancing as a personal social refuge.
ANNA SIMMONS: The ones at the school really give me a place to kinda step out of being a mom and I love people. I love getting to know everybody. And it’s a really fun community where I can just be “Anna,” not necessarily “Mom” all the time.
Regulars like Cindy and Debbie have been dancing together for 30 years now, but there’s a new generation donning cowboy boots. In about 2022, Leather N’ Lace saw an uptick in attendance, in step with national trends. A club that used to see about 12 attendees can now expect to host up to 70 on a regular basis. Debbie attributes this rise both to a post-Covid desire to reconnect and to TikTok — which has popularized line dances to Top 40 hits by Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran, and more.
According to Leather ‘N Lace instructors, young adults have been a major part of that surge. Rachel Smith, a recent graduate from James Madison University, says that she started learning line dancing with her college friends just a few years ago. Now, she often comes to Leather ‘N Lace alone, as a way to push herself out of her comfort zone.
RACHEL SMITH: People nowadays are really on their phone and talking to people on the phones. This is just a fun thing everyone can learn how to do and then interact with other people with. That’s how I’m finding friends right now, actually, which is really fun!
Since becoming president, Bryan has leaned into the club’s modernization: starting club social media accounts, curating playlists with helpful YouTube dance tutorials, and creating “song swaps” to a wider variety of music. At the July 2 dance, the speakers blared pop hits such as Katy Perry’s “Firework” alongside country favorites such as Tracy Byrd’s “Watermelon Crawl” — and 20-year-olds danced alongside 50-year-olds all the while.
BRYAN: It;’s become very popular with the young people. They bring an energy to the floor, they’re respectful. It’s just a fun evening.
Leather ‘N Lace will return to Plaza Antigua on August 6 at 6:00 p.m.. Other pop-ups are announced on their Facebook and Instagram pages.
