Ballroom dancers burn up the floor

Eduardo Felix's passion for dancing extends far beyond the ballroom.

He practices in the men's room, the parking lot -- you name it. He can be seen making slinky, dipping, dashing moves, mindless of snickering passers-by.

"Nondancers wouldn't understand," nodded his wife, Matilda. "He got hooked; I created him."

The Felixes began tripping the light fantastic long before the current craze gained momentum with the hit TV show "Dancing With the Stars."

But the Pan Pacific Ballroom Dance Society of Hawaii, directed by the Felixes, and other clubs such as the Hawaii Ballroom Dancing Association, have seen enrollment leap in the past several years, especially with the over-50 crowd.

Ten years ago at Rumours Nightclub, Lile' Hanson locked eyes with "the handsomest man across the room." Friends dragged her there after her husband died, and "the rest is history." She and Bill Hanson have been partners in marriage and on the dance floor ever since.

"We really burn up the dance floor," said Hanson, snapping her fingers to the beat, her sequined earrings keeping time. Even though she has to sit out with a leg immobilized in a turquoise cast, "I can't contain myself! I'm in my 80s, but I don't feel any different" from when she won a jitterbug contest at 17, she said.

Hanson is a charter member of the Swing Dance Club of Hawaii, formed some eight years ago, which practices the West Coast swing, a slower version of the more gymnastic East Coast swing. "We're kinda showy. We do a lot of slinky stuff. It's a kick!" she said.

The group hangs out weekly at the funky Coconut Willy's Bar & Grill, complete with tiny tikis and grass-skirt awnings, in Waikiki's International Marketplace. The spot attracts regulars with its live music of "oldies but goodies."

Rusty Chun, 78, a dance teacher and Swing Dance Club vice president, has loved dancing her whole life, and she looks and moves years younger. As her friends aged and lost their husbands, she pushed them out of the house and onto the dance floor.

Even though women usually outnumber the men, "This is the 2000s: Women can dance with women; and women can ask a guy, 'Can I have this dance?' And women can hijack the men," she said.

"Relax! Go with the flow," Chun tells the timid. "If you can walk you can dance."

Faith and Benny Agbayani (parents of baseball's Benny Jr.) took over as directors of the Hawaii Ballroom Dance Association 10 years ago. The group calls itself the largest (19 chapters) and oldest (49 years) ballroom dance club in the state.

When they first started dancing in 1979, "We were scared. I didn't know my left foot from my right. ... We stuck to the corner right by the door" for the longest time, Faith Agbayani said. Now teaching classes in Kaimuki, they make sure newbies feel welcome. "This is what brings them back," she said.