A line dance pro spills what it’s like to take the reins

Claudia Fink, a.k.a. Miss Claudia, began calling line dances at Stovall’s Grove every Thursday—after getting addicted as a dancer. SLM spoke with her about what it’s like.

• I used to be a regular dancer at Stovall’s every week. There was a group of us who would go. We were addicted to it.
• I remember being out there on the floor, and I’d think, if I were teaching, I’d do this and that. I was thinking, “What dance would go to a different song?”
• The teacher at that time would see me try to help people who came in; then she met someone and moved to Florida, so they asked me to take over. I’ve been doing it for a year and a few months.
• I absolutely love it. It’s been an honor to work there, and I give it all I’ve got every week. One of my goals is to bring back the Urban Cowboy era.
• It excites me to inspire people to dance. They get this giddy empowerment. You can see it come over their face—they’re like little kids.
• Dancing is so freeing. People can work all day, come in, and start dancing, and they forget their life for two or three hours.
• I don’t get why parties don’t have much dancing anymore. I think there should be more dancing in the world.
• I’m the DJ and dance teacher, so I get to play what I want. I can tell if people are loving it or not, so I adjust my list for that. It’s important to please everyone.
• The music I play is all over the place: old country, new country, swing, oldies, rockabilly, Michael Bublé… I love to shake it up and keep the energy high. 
• I like to make people feel connected to me. If it’s their first time there, I try to home in on them. I want to go [at] their pace but also keep our normal pace.
• No two nights are the same. The crowd is always different, even though the regulars are all the same. There’s a beautiful balance.
• The beauty of line dancing is, from a distance, it might look like people out there are doing their own thing, not in perfect time. But to the person who’s dancing, they’re in their own world.

Miss Claudia takes the reins at 7 p.m.Thursdays at Stovall’s Grove, in Wildwood.