Cha Cha Slide and Transformations

The other night at prom, one of the dances the DJ played was the ever popular "Cha Cha Slide".  It's a dance that can be done individually in rows, aka "Line Dance".  A line dance by definition, is choreographed set of steps performed by people in lines.

In the song "Cha Cha Slide" the artists tells dancers to step to the right, left, forward, back, add stomps reverses, etc in a particular order so they move around in a set space.  Normally, line dances are associated with Country Western music due to dances like Cotton Eyed Joe or The Electric Slide.

As I watched the kids participate in the Cha Cha Slide, I realized the dance was composed of transformations.  Moving back and forth, left or right are translations along the x or y axis.

If they spin around, it is a rotation and if they flip to change the direction they are facing such as you face forward and then turn so you are facing back while moving forwards, it could be looked at as a reflection.

I think it might be fun to watch a video showing the Cha Cha Slide so one could map or document the movement on a graph before analyzing the transformations contained within the dance.  The same could be done with other line dances to see if they have more transformations or fewer.  If you look at the Electric Slide, there is a quarter turn as part of the steps and a quarter turn is a 90 degree rotation around the origin or you.

This website has the steps for several popular line dances from Cha Cha Slide to The Electric Slide to  Boot Scootin Boogie.  It doesn't matter that the step you do is a grapevine, what is important is that you are moving along the x axis three steps or one.  Just think of the actual foot movement as the unit.  So if you grapevine left once, you've covered three units in the negative direction.

There are also a ton of videos on Youtube available showing the dances so its easy to watch the videos and write down the number of steps and direction along with rotations, reflections and translations or combinations of movement.

I like this as a real life application of transformations. Its something students can relate to and it builds on prior knowledge since most of the students at my school know Cha Cha Slide.  I simply asked them about that song at prom, the one where everyone moved forward and backwards and the kids knew the dance.  They really like it a lot.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.