I was fortunate enough to meet Flower Mound resident Isha “Boomerang” Hutchinson today at the Grapevine Middle School track on Pony Parkway. He is the proprietor of 410 Line Dancers, which is based in Coppell.
They offer soul line-dancing lessons, ranging from the easiest to most complex dances. They provide soul line-dance lessons to all, regardless of age or dance skill level, in a safe dance studio environment. There are no partners needed to learn the line dances to favorite Hip-Hop, R&B, Jazz, Zydeco, House, Dance, and Pop music.
“We teach beginner, intermediate and advanced soul line dancing,” said Hutchinson.
Hutchinson is called “Boomerang” because that was his pledge name in the fraternity Omega Psi Phi. While Hutchinson pledged in 2004, his former business partner, Jerry, pledged in 2010. As a result, the name 410 was born.
“Soul line dancing is similar to Country Line Dancing, but it’s set to more soul music, R&B (Rhythm and Blues), Jazz, Zydeco music – all these different types of music,” Boomerang explained. “Really a lot of the movements are the same, but it’s a whole different culture. You don’t have to wear cowboy boots. And it’s a whole national culture as well.
“With our group, we travel. There’s always line dancing conferences when we are not limited by something like COVID. Normally, we travel to other parts of the country. We don’t compete – it’s just for fun. [Conferences are] more networking and socializing and camaraderie and just to have fun. You get to meet the people you’ve seen on YouTube. People create dances and put them online. We watch them and then meet up at conferences to get to know each other,” Hutchinson said.
Soul-line dancing has become a popular sensation recently.
“For me, I started this because I used to go to clubs here in Dallas and I would do ‘The Wobble’ [dance] and stuff like that – the same dances that everybody does,” said Hutchinson. “At this club, every once in a while, they’d throw a new [dance] in there that I hadn’t seen. I think the fun is when you get to get out there with everybody and you get to do your own thing. You take the dance and learn the steps, but then you can make it your dance. You have to put your own flavor to it.
“With this group [at the club], they didn’t really want me to be a part of what they were doing. It seemed a lot more personal at the time,” said Hutchinson. “I felt that they were being exclusive. Looking back now, I can see that wasn’t necessarily true. But I decided to start my own [dance business] that’s not exclusive.”
Boomerang’s former club is no longer in business.
“If they hadn’t gone out of business, I wouldn’t be where I am now. My [business] was really built on being inclusive – no inner circles, no cliques, no special treatment, no nothing. I do not want any of that. Then we started realizing pretty fast that there are people there for a lot of reasons that aren’t dance-related,” Boomerang said.
“Some are there because they are new to the Dallas/Fort Worth area and want to make friends, or they’re going through a mental, physical or emotional injury that they’re recovering from, so that inclusiveness became a lot more important. We fancy ourselves as a place to come in and be part of a family, and we care about them, and we really try to work on building their self-confidence and self-esteem, and it just happens to be through dancing,” Boomerang explained.
Boomerang himself has gotten a lot out of this endeavor and has also helped many people.
“First of all, [establishing this business] has enabled me to be creative because I can create dances and I can be creative in how to build a business from ‘ground zero’ to whatever it is. And I am also creative with designing clothes. I design head-to-toe, and that’s created some opportunities for us and what we’ve been able to do.
“We’ve had some movies companies come and ask us, ‘Would you like to design stuff for us?’ so we try to include our students in that, so they can really build their confidence. We do a lot of TV production. On one of my YouTube channels, we interview the other line dance choreographers and instructors, and that thing has gotten so popular.
“Initially we let our students do that and PSAs [public service announcements] as a confidence-builder. We do a lot of commercials because I’m good at Adobe After Effects and I’m a professional photographer and videographer. We do photo shoots and that builds [students’] confidence up. We do all kinds of different stuff,” Boomerang said.
“Now with COVID, we had to take it virtual, and that’s expanded our reach. So now, we have students all over the country. We get together virtually to celebrate birthdays, and I do an annual awards program where they get awarded [for their accomplishments] and then we throw our conference. So, we have that coming up. We keep a lot of things going on that help build [students] up,” said Boomerang.
However, 410 does a lot more than offer dance lessons.
“We also do public relations and help students who own their own businesses learn how to write press releases and things like that. This year, I have been mentoring my students about a lot of political science stuff,” Boomerang said.
“I’ve been telling them, as bipartisan as I can, about the difference between the two parties. A lot of people don’t know the differences between Republican and Democrat. I try to be matter of fact. I tell them, ‘This is what Democrats believe and this is what Republicans believe. Whatever matches up best with your own beliefs is probably the party you need to look at most, and it might be a little of one and a little of the other.’ [My students] need to know what [people] are saying when they say things like: Left wing, right wing, middle wing, conservative, liberal, socialist, and all of that so they can make an educated choice. I am really trying to help them to vote wisely,” Boomerang said.
Boomerang’s classes meet twice a week. For more information, visit https://www.410linedancers.com, call 469-464-9104 or email 410linedancers@gmail.com.
“No Cliques, No Drama…Just GREAT Dancing!!!”
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