Restarts and tags in line dancing

Until I started line dancing, I’d never come across restarts and tags. But it feels like the line dance community is torn between needing them, or hating and avoiding them. This tension between ‘to have or have not’ a restart or tag crowds is most vocal when it comes to beginner dances.

In social dancing like salsa, Ceroc and west coast swing, your whole dance is improvised and in reaction to the music you’re hearing. Even in choreographed routines, you learn the moves which are worked out to the phrasing of the music, and there’s rarely repetition of whole sections. So there’s no need to specifically have a restart. The dance just goes with the music (assuming you’ve got dancers with enough ability to listen and react to it).

With line dancing, you have a set dance to a number of counts which is then repeated around the walls.  Most of the dances I’ve learnt in beginners and improvers has been 32 counts for the dance, for more advanced dances the counts vary more.

But music doesn’t always work like that with perfect counts for the whole track. 

You’ll have musical phrasing.

Breaks in the music.

A bridge which includes added interest between chorus, verse or even repeating one of these.

So a written line dance to 32 counts, might not match the whole piece of music.  This is where tags and restarts come in.

What is a restart?

A restart is when you restart the dance from the beginning, usually after a bridge or change in rhythm or repeats in the music, or when the tracks returns to a verse. Restarts can be any numbers of counts depending on the music.

What is a tag?

A tag is an additional few steps that fill in a change in music, until it restarts at the beginning of the musical phase again. This could just be 4 counts but can also be 8 or more. Then you start at the beginning of the dance or section again.

Why do line dances include restarts and/or tags?

Restarts and tags might seem like a frustrating additional thing to remember in a dance, but they mean you’ll be starting the beginning of your steps again in time with the correct beginning of the musical phrase in the song.

Coming from a musical background, with a lot of dancing experience, even when I was a beginner line dancer this made total sense to me. It feels wrong when you end up starting the dance not on beat 1, starting on beat 1 for example. You’ll end up out of sync the rest of the dance. Shudder.

Ultimately, they make the dance more musical as the steps will fit the song’s phrasing better. And who doesn’t want to be a better dancer?

Do we really need restarts and tags?

Line dances can have any number of restarts and/or tags in. Generally absolute beginners and beginners dances avoid them, although I’ve learnt a few beginners dances that do have them in. 

Lots of line dancers (including teachers) don’t think that beginner dances should include any restarts or tags. Presumably because it’s ‘too difficult’ for dancers starting out to remember repeated sections, let alone throwing in extra steps or telling them to cut short a pattern.

Some teachers don’t include them even when the stepsheet has them in. They’ll remove them from the dances and just continue to teach the steps counting through to the end of the dance. Obviously you can continue dancing through the dance.

But this does come with issues. 

Not just for people like me who want to dance with the correct beat and phrasing of the music. For people who listen to the music, it will feel wrong to dance like this. Dancing is about movement to music, so if you’re not including the restarts or tags, then you’re just stepping to a beat with music in the background. You’re not actually dancing to the music.

The bigger issue is if you’re going to dance at other venues or go to socials. Everyone needs to learn the same step sequence. Otherwise you’ll have people turning when they shouldn’t, facing the wrong wall, and someone could end up injured.

Just follow the step sheets and learn the dance properly as it was intended. (Unless you’re only ever dancing at one venue).

How to learn and manage restarts and tags

Okay, so they can be hard to remember (my example is Mama and Me – remembering whether it’s one jazz box, two, or the tag is hard for me every time). But if you’re listening to the music, you can usually hear the change in the music coming and be prepared to do something different. Then it’s just remembering whether it’s just a restart, or if there’s a tag and some different steps to include.

Restarts are easier. You’re continuing the steps of the dance, but just restarting again when you hear the music revert back to the beginning phrase again.

Listening to more music with intent, listening for those breaks and changes in tempo or phrasing, will help you begin to hear them coming in music you’re dancing to.  Listen to the songs you dance to, count the beats, and you’ll hear where things change.

When dancing, once you get to know the steps automatically, listen to the music more and you’ll hear the restarts coming.

With tags, it’s a bit harder. You need to know the steps that go in each ‘tagged’ section. 

If you’re at the start of your dance journey, make sure you’re standing in the middle of the class, so you can keep an eye on what more experienced dancers are doing around you.

I find writing down the steps and going over the dance once out of the class helps me take in the dances.

It always comes down to practising dances outside of class which will help them sink in. After all, dancing takes practice (and memory). 

It doesn’t really matter if you make a mistake, you can just catch up again with where you should be.

My theory is dance with confidence. Tell yourself you can learn them, and it’s not difficult. It just takes practice and encouragement to listen to the music. The more you dance the easier it gets.

I say embrace the restarts and tags if they’re in the dance. They make the dances make sense to the music they’re written for.

How do you feel about tags and restarts in line dancing?