050605 I Remember: The Outback

This is for all of us who were dancing in 1995, NO, your memories are NOT failing ... it is NOT possible that we all learned Gordon Elliott's dance The OUTBACK as a 4 wall dance ...we learned it as a 2 wall dance. I was NOT a counter back then ...I trusted FEET ...those that were in front of me and those in back ...I knew no other way. I totally remember doing this dance on a jam packed floor at the Cowboy Country Club as a two wall dance. As I was learning it in Sharon's class on Friday morning ...the anxiety of not wanting to be the ONE to screw up 'my' line came back to me VERY vividly. I first learned the dance at the Santa Clara Senior Center ...I REMEMBER that time in my life ...I was 47 and NOT 'eligible' to be taking lessons in the senior centers ...the 'gate keepers' were dancers who knew me ....don't ask, don't tell; I got to take dance lessons!

Charlotte Skeeters taught The Outback in May 2005 to the BnB dancers on a Friday night stating that she brought back the dance from Australia from her 'first' trip there ...I wasn't in her classes back in '95 and I have NO WAY of knowing if she taught the dance as a 2 wall or a 4 wall ...I just know for a fact that at the venues I danced ...the dance was done in lines and NEVER was danced as a 4 wall dance.

NOW for what could have happened ....on Mark and Wendy Pilley's Dancin' Down Under website ...the dance is dated 1993 and stated as a 48 step, 4 wall dance ...but the step description DESCRIBES the dance as a 2 wall dance. The 1993 sheet. I have met Mark and Wendy and have 'taked shop' with Mark ...they receive the steps in their email from the Aussie choreographers ...they do NOT type in the sheets, they copy and paste.

Charlotte would have had a step sheet to teach from ....and it was probably the 'same' one that Mark and Wendy received and have posted to this day on their website.

I created LineDanceFun in the summer of 1996 for the purpose of sharing my step description collection ...at that time ...MANY instructors were re writing the sheets and CHARGING their students for the privilege of having a step sheet. Rewriting a sheet didn't seem 'kosher' to me and I learned how to scan and make 'exact' electronic copies (pdf) of the dance sheets in my collection. I was the first on the Internet with .pdf copies of dance sheets. Here is the archived link to the 1997 'help' page describing the reason I used the .pdf format.

The bottom line: Gordon Elliott has a website ...DanceWithGordon.com
Here is the link to The Outback ...he did indeed write a 4 wall dance.

Would the California dancers have embraced this dance back in '95 as a 4 wall dance? My answer is NO ...no way ...Doris Volz © 2005