The Electric Slide is a four wall line dance. The dance was created by American dancer Ric Silver1. Originally called The Electric, the dance was created in 1976 for the re-opening of Vamps Disco in New York at 71st and Broadway. It was choreographed to the international hit song Electric Boogie by Marcia Griffiths; the song was written for Griffiths by Bunny Wailer, who did not copyright the song until 1982. The song was originally released in 1976 and re-released in 1989, when it became a dance craze.

Many people felt that the dance was called the Electric Slide because in the song the lyrics state "I'll teach you the electric slide," but, as stated previously, the dance was originally called "The Electric." Silver registered his video of the dance in 2003 with the Library of Congress. It was published to the web (Tripod.com) in 1994 and copyright was submitted in 2006.

Steps (a variant)

In its original form, the dance had 22 steps, as follows:

• 1-4 Grapevine right (tap and clap on 4)
• 5-8 Grapevine left (tap and clap on 8)
• 9-12 Walks back (tap and clap on 12)
• 13-16 Rock forward & back:
• 13: Left forward
• 14: Tap right toe at the left heel, snap
• 15: Right backward
• 16: Tap left toe at the right heel, clap
• 17-20 Repeat 13-16
• 21 Left forward with 1/4 turn left
• 22 Hop onto left foot with right leg in the air to start again

The Electric Slide is actually a variation step: in place of the grapevine, you step right and slide your left foot over to it.

It takes 78 steps to return to the downbeat (1) and 88 steps to return to your original position.

Variations involve turns during the grapevine, walking backward, a spin on 22, various ways of clapping, and type of steps.

Silver gave the dance 22 steps because his birthday is January 22.2 The "broken" phrasing was a conscious decision. It introduces a certain diversity of accents which makes the pattern less repetitive. Some dance venues teach variations with extra or removed steps to make the dance fit the 4/4 phrasing, with 16 (The Freeze), 18 (the way most have learned the Electric Slide) or 24 (cowboy motion, cowboy boogie) steps.

The Electric Slide is visually similar to the traditional folk 'brassle' step but has the addition of front and back movement to the traditional lateral line.

Lawsuits

On February 3, 2007, CNET reported that the creator of the Electric Slide had started filing DMCA-based takedown notices to YouTube users who were posting videos of people performing the dance incorrectly.

On March 1, 2007, The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit against the man who claims to have created the popular line dance The Electric Slide, asking the court to protect the free speech rights of a videographer who captured a few steps of the dance in a documentary video posted to the Internet.