“Gotta Dance” could be Betty and Ed Navoy’s theme song. When a tune has the beat they’re listening for, this Henry Ford Village couple moves to the dance floor.

But they don’t roll back the rug to ballroom dance or jitterbug. They line dance.

About 17 years ago, they took up cowboy couples dancing—“the two-step and such,” says Mrs. Navoy. When that got too predictable, they sashayed on. Line dancing was more creative and—here it comes—more fun! They’ve been boot-scootin’ ever since, and all their Village neighbors know it.

No partner? Still fun!

“When we go to dinner Monday nights, we have our line dancing shirts on,” says Mrs. Navoy. “That’s [where we have] our dance club meeting.” At meal’s end, they’re off to the Redford Moose for a lively evening. On Friday mornings, they’re at Dearborn Heights’ senior center for line dancing lessons.

After the instructor for the Village line dancing club (called the Westside Silver Star Steppers) retired, the Navoys were asked to take over. They declined because they spend six months a year in the Upper Peninsula, but they offered to help whoever did.

Enter Diane Vidovic, wife of the Village’s then-executive director and a line dancing instructor, who restarted the club in 2008. “There was a need for something active and fun that didn’t require a partner,” she says. “I love it.”

The Navoys serve as resident coordinators and help when they’re on campus. “We all confer back and forth about new dances, music, and what we’ll do each week,” says Mrs. Navoy.

Come on in

On Thursday mornings from eleven ‘til noon, residents of all ages gather in the perfect-for-dancing, wooden-floored Edison Room in the St. Clair Clubhouse at Henry Ford Village.

“We try to accommodate everyone,” says Mrs. Navoy. “Come in and we’ll take you.” Beginners receive oneon- one help; dancers with balance issues are taught alternate steps; and takehome instruction sheets are available for everyone.

The team mixes slow, easy dances and familiar ones with new and more challenging patterns. They call out the steps to keep folks on track, review dances they’ve learned, and teach new patterns literally step by step.

Some Village neighbors, like Vidovic’s mother, Stella Wawrzyniec, come simply to watch and share in the fun. Others, like the woman who’d been invited to a wedding, show up with specific goals. “She came back afterwards all glowing,” says Mrs. Navoy. “She’d danced to ‘The Hustle’ with everyone else and didn’t feel like a dummy.”

Eye for experience

If you’ve watched line dancers, you’ve seen them turn and repeat a dance pattern facing one wall, then the next. At the Village, Vidovic, fellow instructor Peggy Buskirk, and the Navoys each dance at a different wall, so no matter which wall people are facing, they always have someone to watch.

“We try to make it easy,” Mrs. Navoy says. “And if you screw up, who cares? You’re only screwing up one person—yourself. Besides, we all make mistakes, even the instructors.”

She adds that the benefits far outweigh concerns about not being in step. “It’s great exercise,” she says. “It gets your heart rate up. It’s good for your muscles, without hurting your joints. It tones your whole body because you’re clapping and moving. It improves your posture and balance, increases your flexibility and stamina … and will help ward off depression. It even stretches your brain because you have to remember.”

But most of all, she says, “The idea is to come out, have fun, laugh, and giggle.”