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Country Western: Faye Chambers

"I dance a lot better now than when I was 50. Anybody can do it at any age if they stick with it."

By Tracey Minkin

Friday, February 29, 2008

"I always wanted to dance," declares Faye Chambers, the diminutive entrepreneur, wife, grandmother, and now competitive country-western dancer, "but I never had the opportunity." Yet when opportunity finally knocked in the form of her sister dragging her to a country line dancing class, Chambers almost didn't answer. "At that point I was not really a country fan," Faye says. "I got so confused. It was so hard, I wanted to quit."

But then it clicked. The can-do Southern belle formed a line-dancing team that traveled to nursing homes and country fairs, dancing on "anything we could find to dance on," she says. In 1999, Chambers two-stepped her way onto competitive dance floors.

Dancing with a partner in East Coast and West Coast swing, waltz, cha-cha, and two-step (the traditional honky-tonk dance), she happily donned specialized petite cowboy boots for dancing women and learned the ropes. She was 58. In January, at age 66, Faye placed second overall in her division (with partner Kevin Johnson) at the Worlds Championships in Nashville.

"I dance a lot better now than when I was 50," she says, laughing. "Anybody can do it at any age if they stick with it. I love the feel of the music, and the dancing to the music." And that mixed-up line dancer of years past loves the mental challenge of learning new steps. "When you learn something and you understand it, it's so exciting," she says. "You have to have a passion for something," she says. "And my passion is dance."

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