How Many Counts in the Electric Slide?
18 counts, 4 walls — that’s the Electric Slide the entire world dances at weddings. But the man who says he created it insists the true dance has 22 counts, chose that number because he was born on January 22, and once sent legal takedown notices to people for dancing it "wrong" — a fight that ended with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in court and the world’s most famous line dance under a Creative Commons licence. Step through all 18 counts below, slow it down, and then meet the missing four.
The 18-count version the whole world dances — grapevine right, grapevine left, stroll back, and the quarter-turn scuff. The music is synthesized live in your browser — kick, snare, hats, walking bass and a plucked-string layer — so slow it right down to learn, then bring it back up to dance-floor speed.
The 18 counts, section by section
The genius of the Electric Slide is that it’s mostly one move wearing three outfits. Counts 1–4: grapevine right — step right, cross left behind, step right again, touch left. Counts 5–8: the same grapevine, mirrored to the left. Counts 9–12: stroll straight back three steps and touch — a grapevine’s lazy cousin. Counts 13–16: the character section — step forward and touch with a lean, step back and touch with a lean (this is where dancers add the scoop, the dip, the little hop). Counts 17–18: step a quarter turn left and scuff the free foot through — and you’re facing a new wall, ready to start again. Four repeats and you’ve toured the whole room, which is exactly what "4 walls" means on a step sheet (the system is explained on our main line dancing page).
So where did the other 4 counts go?
Ric Silver’s original choreography, titled "The Electric", repeats the forward-and-back rock — that leaning section at counts 13–16 happens twice in his version, making 22. As Silver put it on NPR: it’s the repeat "which is what everybody has forgotten." Why 22 in the first place? By his own account, because his birthday is January 22 — possibly the only piece of world-famous choreography whose length is a birthday. When instructional videos spread the dance in the late 1980s, the repeat quietly vanished, the tidy 18-count version conquered the planet, and Linedancer Magazine listed it as the world’s number-one line dance for ten consecutive years. Even the timeline is contested: Silver says he built the dance in 1976 to an early demo of "Electric Boogie", while the song’s documented first recording — written by Bunny Wailer for Marcia Griffiths — came in 1982, with the 1989 remix igniting the craze. Wedding floors, indifferent to all of it, kept dancing.
The dance that went to court
In 2007, Silver began filing DMCA takedown notices against YouTube videos of people dancing the 18-step version — wedding clips included — on the grounds that it was an unauthorised copy of his copyrighted choreography. (Choreography genuinely can be copyrighted in the US; it’s been in the statute since 1976, fittingly enough.) The Electronic Frontier Foundation sued on behalf of a videographer whose documentary caught a few seconds of the dance, arguing fair use. The May 2007 settlement is why the Electric Slide occupies a unique legal position today: Silver agreed to license it under a Creative Commons noncommercial licence, making it perhaps the only wedding dance on earth with formal licence terms. Nobody at the reception has ever checked.
Frequently asked questions
The version danced worldwide is 18 counts across 4 walls: a grapevine right (4), a grapevine left (4), a stroll back (4), a forward touch and back touch (4), then a quarter-turn step and scuff (2). The original choreography by Ric Silver, called "The Electric", has 22 counts — the extra four are a repeat of the forward-and-back rock that most dancers leave out.
Choreographer Ric Silver has said he built the dance with 22 steps because he was born on January 22. When the dance went global, the repeated rock step was dropped and the streamlined 18-count version became the standard — to Silver’s lasting frustration. He told NPR that people at weddings would tell him he was doing his own dance wrong.
"Electric Boogie", written by Bunny Wailer and recorded by Marcia Griffiths. The song was first recorded in 1982 and its 1989 remix — which reached the Billboard Hot 100 — is what turned the 18-count dance into a worldwide wedding staple. Ric Silver says he choreographed the dance in 1976 to an early demo of the song, a timeline that remains publicly disputed since the song’s documented recording came later.
Yes — in 2007 Ric Silver sent DMCA takedown notices over YouTube videos showing people dancing the 18-step version, which he considered an incorrect copy of his copyrighted 22-step choreography. The Electronic Frontier Foundation sued on behalf of a videographer, and the settlement placed the Electric Slide under a Creative Commons noncommercial licence. Choreography can genuinely be copyrighted in the US — the Electric Slide dispute is the most famous test of it.
Documented variants include the original 22-step "The Electric", the worldwide 18-step Electric Slide, the 16-step Freeze, and the 24-step Cowboy Motion and Cowboy Boogie. The 18-step version became popular in 1989 and was listed by Linedancer Magazine as the world’s number-one line dance for ten consecutive years.
It’s one of the easiest — three of its four sections are the same move (a grapevine) pointed in different directions, which is why it’s most people’s first line dance. Use the visualizer on this page: slow the tempo right down, watch the feet, then bring it back up to song speed at around 112 BPM.
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