On a warm Tuesday night, more than 100 people arrived at Hill Country Barbecue Market, a restaurant in the Flatiron district of Manhattan, and headed downstairs to the Boot Bar.
They weren’t there for the drinks. And they weren’t ordering much food (although Hill Country can make a mean brisket). They had come for the line dancing. The theme that night: “Boots and Bikinis.” And the room quickly reached capacity.
Two of the dance instructors, Karli Manship, 28, and Hannah Bruns, 29, were celebrating their birthdays in between teaching the crowd how to dance the Fireball and Right by my Slide. In one corner, women were applying temporary tattoos and handing out stickers in the instructors’ honor. “Hot Dog! It’s Karli’s Birthday!” one sticker said, a reference to one of Ms. Manship’s favorite foods.
Line dancing has become an international phenomenon, but only in recent years has it experienced a resurgence in New York City, where it is especially popular among those who identify as L.G.B.T.Q. You can line dance nearly every night of the week at different places — bars, dance studios, even a roller rink. And unlike the boot-stomping crowds from years past, the crowd on the dance floor is showcasing sultry and high-energy moves that they’ve learned on TikTok and YouTube. Everyone is welcome: novice or expert, queer or not.
The playlist, while still imbued with country classics, includes Lady Gaga, Tate McRae, Britney Spears and Pitbull. And while cowboy boots and denim remain a staple, many of the younger boot-scooters favor cutoff shorts and midriff-baring crop tops over Western snap shirts. The more skin the better.
Susanna Stein — who co-founded Big Apple Ranch, a queer dance party held monthly at a Manhattan dance studio — has seen the trend ebb and flow over the course of the Ranch’s nearly three-decade history.
“Now, it’s much sexier than it used to be,” Ms. Stein said, referring to the “hot young people” who have changed the look and feel of the art form.
“Not to say that we weren’t hot,” she added, referring to her crew from the ’90s. “But we weren’t like these kids.”
The shift is something she attributes, in part, to the new moves that dancers are posting on social media and the stylings of line dancers like Bailey Salisbury, 42, and Sean Monaghan, 39, a former punk rock drummer.
In 2021, the duo founded Stud Country, a queer line-dancing and two-step party that originated in Los Angeles before making its way to New York.
Onstage, Ms. Salisbury said, they didn’t just teach — they entertained. Sometimes that meant she would “be crazy” on the microphone, wear campy clothing and add a sexy flair to her choreography like double spins or dropping low.
“We had this rock ’n’ roll vibe to us, and the music we selected spoke to a younger audience,” Ms. Salisbury said. “Like, if there’s no disco ball, we’re not going to book the venue.”
The parties became wildly popular.
Eventually, Ms. Salisbury and Mr. Monaghan parted ways. She runs a dance school called Scuff that also offers parties. He manages Stud Country.
Mr. Monaghan said that the parties were meant to be fun but could have a more serious purpose as well: to be an inclusive and queer-friendly environment that helped people connect and provided healing for people not in touch with their body or who wanted to experience dance in a new way.
Caitlyn Dorah, 27, a line-dancing regular who lives in the East Village, often goes to Hill Country. On this day, she arrived with her girlfriend.
When she first started dancing, she said, “it felt like gay church.”
Initially, she attended parties alone, frequenting Desert 5 Spot, a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, but Ms. Dorah quickly became hooked, learning as many as three dances a week and venturing to other venues throughout the city.
“This opened up a pocket that I didn’t even know existed,” Ms. Dorah said. “It’s such a community.”
Ava Tucker, 22, a New York University junior and former ballerina, views line dancing as a “safe haven” that boosts her confidence.
“When I first started, I felt like it was really hard to let loose,” said Ms. Tucker, who arrived at Hill Country that night wearing sunglasses, a leopard-print bikini top, baggy knee-length jean shorts and brown cowboy boots. “Now, I just go crazy.”
Seth Gurka, Hill Country’s director of catering and events, was initially skeptical that 125 people — the maximum crowd that Boot Bar can handle — would show up each Tuesday night just to line dance.
But more than a year later, they were still bringing in crowds, despite a dip in turnout after raising the cover charge from $5 to $10. (The restaurant closed temporarily during the late summer so that the space could be renovated. The management said it would reopen this week, with line dancing soon to return.)
“When I was in my 20s, dancing was a totally different thing,” said Mr. Gurka, 53, recalling an old New York club where the crowd would get wasted and hook up. In comparison, he said, this is “very family friendly.”
Julia Wortman, 26, a high school English teacher and one of Hill Country’s line-dancing instructors, has helped promote the night on Instagram and TikTok.
A former college athlete, Ms. Wortman began line dancing while finishing her master’s degree in English at Stanford University.
“After six months, I was so obsessed,” she said.
That night, she was hanging out near the stage, her foot still in a medical boot after having surgery in June.
“You don’t have the pressure of something like salsa dancing where you have to be touching someone else, and you have to be face to face with them,” she said. “You can truly be in your own world. And I think that creates a sort of freedom that allows you to make friends really easily and be a lot more comfortable.”
Rona Kaye, 75, taught line dancing during the ’90s at Denim and Diamonds, a now defunct line- and partner-dancing nightclub that featured cowhide banquettes and a mirrored saddle instead of a disco ball. She now teaches line dancing from a small studio on the Upper West Side, part of her quest to keep the tradition alive.
Line dancing had saved her life after a difficult divorce, she said, and she fell in love with the art form, sometimes dancing seven nights a week.
How long will the current resurgence last among young adults? “Forever,” she said.
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