The Electric (better known as The Electric Slide) is a four wall

line dance A line dance is a choreographed dance in which a group of people dance along to a repeating sequence of dance step, steps while arranged in one or more lines or rows. These lines usually face all in the same direction, or less commonly face each ot ...

. Choreographer and dancer Richard L. "Ric" Silver claims to have created the dance in 1976. Dance popularity is sometimes attributed to its setting to

Marcia Griffiths Marcia Llyneth Griffiths (born 23 November 1949) is a Jamaican singer best known for the 1989 remix of her single " Electric Boogie", which serves as the music for the four-wall " Electric Slide" line dance. It is the best-selling single of ...

and

Bunny Wailer Neville O'Riley Livingston (10 April 1947 – 2 March 2021), known professionally as Bunny Wailer, was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and percussionist. He was an original member of reggae group The Wailers along with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. ...

's song " Electric Boogie", which was written and recorded for the first time in December 1982. There are several variations of the dance. The original choreography has 22 steps, 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. The original dance was choreographed to be danced in two lines facing each other and in the course the opposite dancers circle each other.''LineDancer Magazine''
June 2003
p. 9.

Controversy

In 2007, Silver filed

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-based take-down notices to

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users who posted videos of people performing the 18-step dance variation. The

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...

(EFF) filed suit on behalf of videographer Kyle Machulis against Silver, asking the court to protect Machulis's

free speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recognise ...

rights in recording a few steps of the dance in a

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video posted to the

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. 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 Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

noncommercial license and to also post the new license on any of his current or future websites that mention the Electric Slide. 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. Yet according to Marcia Griffiths, the song 'Electric Boogie' was written for her by Bunny Wailer in early 1980s.

References

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External links

The Electric Slide
Line dances Novelty and fad dances Dance in the United States