Dancing and Romancing - - - If it is a feeling of joy, love, beauty and bounty, that you want to see demonstrated in your experience, then move rhythmically when you walk and walk with full even stride, but slowly with stretch, without strain.  Dancing is an excellent way to develop the rhythmic feeling of joy and love.  Smooth rhythmic dancing I mean.  Singing too is an excellent device to set the law of balance in action.  “A good education consists of knowing how to sing and dance well.”  Romancing your beloved is especially necessary.  The higher in the scale of being you intensify the love feeling the greater will be its expression.  All things are Love in essence.  The measure of your enthusiasm for life depends on your love for life.  For LOVE is LIFE, dancing and/or singing, is a dialogue of both.   

INTRODUCTION

Felix Chavez;

 Dancer, dance educator and choreographer. 

 Mr. Chavez puts together five decades of artistic experience toward a beautiful development of Partner Dance.  He has a broad and interesting background, with many championship experiences in International Modern and American Ballroom Dance, International Latin American Dances, West Coast (original) Swing (WC Swing is also known as Sophisticated Swing), American Latin, Hustle, Mambo, Lambada, Adagio Theater arts and the dance craze of the late 80’s and 90’s, the passionate Tango Argentino and the hot “Salsa”.  Because of dance, Chavez has traveled around the World, including the USA and Canada, much of Europe and South America: England, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico City, and specifically Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

 He is a winner of the National Feather Award (The Oscar award of Partnership Dance) sponsored by the national publication, Dance Action Magazine.  He won the Feather Award for Best Tango Performer / Teacher.  And he is known also to specialize in all the Ballroom and Latin dances through their indigenous originality.

 Since 1964, the “Tango Argentino” has been Felix’s additional special forte.  This dance originating in Argentina, lacked popularity until the 1980’s.  The dance caught fire again in the 1980’s.  The Argentine Tango continues daily to grow worldwide and promises to continue doing so well into the rest of the century.

 When teaching private or group classes, Mr. Chavez adheres closely to the principles of movement and alignment over the supporting foot and the indigenous characteristics of this dance.  He pays especially close attention and development of the artistic and esoteric connections between partners.  It is this connection that expresses the emotions in the life and love of the Argentine people which tango expressed originally from its beginning.  His understanding not only of the perceptible, but especially the subtle, elusive “enigmatic” principles within partner dancing is extraordinary.  He communicates his understanding to beginners, intermediate, top amateurs, and World Championship professional dancers with exceptional unselfishness. 

 He feels that each dance contains its own unique indigenous characteristics.  Furthermore, he believes that the subtle inner relationships and a total connection between partners reveals and expresses the characteristics of each dance.  These inner connections between partners will also reveal special emotions unique to each dance.  Each and every time a couple dances with complete emotions welling from within them they will express and create a different interpretation.  This is especially true for those couples who take the time to learn the esoteric affiliations, as well as to understand the native characteristics of each dance of the originating country, of course, not excluding the physical techniques.  Likewise, Mr. Chavez says these emotional connections thus created, are then expressed throughout the whole body as they are immersed in the musical narration’s dancing “in” the music, consequently, creating additional eloquence between partners in a dance performance, whether for fun at a party, or for performance.   

 Felix Chavez is a choreographer for major motion pictures, television, and music videos.  He also has been sought after as a choreographer for top-ranked dance professionals and top-ranked amateurs.  He has performed in television shows, in major films and commercials.  In the Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel’s Coconut Grove he appeared in FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL, featuring dances from all over the world. In Las Vegas he performed at the Hacienda, Riviera and Sahara Hotels.  Also he has performed in many shows, nightclubs, hotels, theaters and conventions in many cities. 

 Additionally he has quietly taught many a movie star a dance or two. He has served as an adjudicator for many Championship Ballroom, Latin, Tango and Salsa Competitions.

 Mr. Chavez sailed during in the late 70’s, then 1980’s and 90’s over the seas as dancer, performer and instructor on many cruise liners including Sitmar, Royal Viking, Princess Lines, and the Crystal Harmony.  His ocean voyages took him across the Panama Canal several times, to Columbia, the Virgin Islands, the Caribbean Islands, Ft. Lauderdale, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Hawaii, and San Francisco.      

 Felix was born and raised in New Mexico, educated at the University of New Mexico and the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute for acting in Hollywood California.  He served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean conflict, and in 1954 held the boxing title of “South Pacific Middleweight Champion.”  He has played Semi-professional baseball and basketball, and was ranked as a “B” tennis player.  He is a trained saber fencing instructor and choreographs stage sword fighting, having studied with World Professional Saber Champion George Ganchev.

 From 1971 to 1977 he was a faculty member and a student at the Lee Strasberg School of Acting teaching movement and dance to aspiring actors and actresses.  Some of his former pupils, in their own right upon graduation, went on to achieve considerable recognition and fame.

And then: In the 1980’s the spectacular show “Tango Argentino” was playing on Broadway in New York City.  Credited to this show, the Argentine Tango music and dance again gained public attention, and immediately continued gaining popularity.  Subsequently, the original style of Tango began to spread around the nation and around the world again. 

In 1987 Mr. Chavez’s friend and fellow professional, seven times U.S. Latin Champion and World Championship Finalist, Mr. Ron Montez, was commissioned to lecture about the Tangos of the world at the World Dance Congress held yearly in Blackpool, England.   Mr. Montez became aware that Felix was traveling to Blackpool that year and therefore asked Felix to demonstrate the original “Tango Argentino” with Ron’s championship partner Elizabeth Curtiz.  In the interim Ron would do the commentary.  Ron Montez lectured extensively on the different styles and interpretations of Tango-dance internationally, and focused mainly on the now renewed popularity of the traditional Tango Argentino.  He spoke about its origins and how this beautiful dance initially was performed, and how the Tango originally spread around the world, acquiring innumerous interpretations which remained until the original style was revived by the Tango Argentino Broadway show in the 1980’s. 

 Mr. Montez invited three other couples to demonstrate a variety of styles and interpretations of tango-dance to show the differences.  The couples were Lee and Peggy Santos, Wilson Barrera and Margaret Burns, Lee Quinnones and ..........>?

His lecture was the most popular of all the dance lectures that year.  Every year at the World Congress these dance lectures are held for all Modern and Latin dances exploring the new trends and ideas that develop during the previous year.

Thus, inspired by its resurgence in the Broadway show, the original/genuine Tango Argentino was re-introduced to the World Ballroom and Latin American Dance Arena by Mr. Ron Montez, Felix Chavez and Elizabeth Curtiz.  This lecture influenced Latin dancers all around the Latin American Dance scene, particularly inspiring these Latin dancers to utilize actions and moves indigenous to the authentic Argentine Tango in their Latin routines.  The following year, these Tango actions and ideas began appearing in Latin Dance competitions all over the world, and have continued to appear ever since. 

Due to Felix’s exposure in Blackpool in 1987, he was invited to teach, lecture, and demonstrate the Argentine Tango at the French National Dance Congress in Paris.   He did this with his then-tango-partner Sandi Renee.  Out of this lecture, subsequently Mr. Chavez (on the recommendation by Mr. Walter Laird, World Famous Latin Dance educator and coach) was invited to teach and lecture at the Swiss Organization of Ballroom Dancing in Zurich Switzerland, and continued returning there for several years.

A question asked often to Mr. Chavez:   “Why don’t you write a book on the subject you know best?”  And so he has!  DCK.