Photo Courtesy LAC

BY ANDREW FRASER

Every Monday (except County holidays) from 7-9 p.m. everyone is welcome to free ballroom dancing at the Betty Ehart Senior Activity Center, 1101 Bathtub Row, Los Alamos. It is a Los Alamos County Activity organized by Terry Goodwin and Selmo Jarmillo.

Every month they focus on a particular ballroom dance, and in May the focus is Cha-Cha-Cha. From 7 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. they will be playing Cha-Cha-Cha music so that as folks arrive they can dance or watch. From 7:15 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. there will be a lesson taught by Dr. Jan Velechovsky. Then from 8:15 p.m. till closing at 9 p.m. they will play a mix of music for various ballroom dances.

Wikipedia says that Cha-Cha-Cha originated in Cuba in the early 1950s. “When Orquesta América performed these new compositions at the Silver Star Club in Havana, it was noticed that the dancers had improvised a triple step in their footwork producing the sound “cha-cha-cha”. Thus, the new style came to be known as ‘cha-cha-chá’ and became associated with a dance where dancers perform a triple step.”

Both the instructors and the dances change every month. Dr. Velechovsky, the instructor f orMay, learned to dance in his native Czech Republic. Now as a scientist at LANL he develops techniques for simulating high Mach number hydrodynamic flows. While beginners are always welcome, the lessons will build on each other. So the best day to start is Monday May 6. If you can’t make it on the sixth, you can try on May 13 or May 20, but on Memorial Day, May 27,
there will be no dancing.