Chris Hookie Bio -
Known in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s as “Mr. Cha-Cha” with his Mega Cha Cha line dance hits such as Wild Wild West Boogie (AKA Todo Todo in the Philippines), Zydeco Lady, Cha Cha Con Tejas, Breakin’ The Breaks, Cha Cha Basique, and Jessica’s Cha Cha, Chris is not a newbee to Country Western line dance and partner dance choreography.
Chris’ first big hit was in 1984 with “SLO Cadillac” dedicated to cruise night of the 60’s-70’s at his home town of San Luis Obispo, California “SLO Town”. SLO Cadillac was unique at the time because it was one of the very first “Country” line dances choreographed to a pop/rock song – Bruce Springsteen’s Pink Cadillac (remember, we’re talking the 80’s here). It was soon found out that SLO Cadillac was a great dance to perform to the song that also came out in 1984, “Footloose”. So Chris can proudly claim that SLO Cadillac was the “Original” Footloose line dance.
Chris has a bachelor’s degree in Recreation and Park Management, with a minor-minor in Dance, and an Associate’s degree in Performing Arts.
Chris grew up in California but moved to the Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas Metroplex for 18 years and worked his way up the ranks in municipal recreation. While in Texas, he taught dance lessons at the World’s largest BYBO – “Nine Acres”, taught line dance, Ballroom, swing, Latin, and Country Western Partner and couple dance classes for 18 years at the University of Texas at Arlington, and was the creator, Director, and choreographer of The Heart of Texas (“HOT”) Country Dancers, and the Texas Boot Scooters Dance Network.
Chris left Texas and his beloved Country Western Dance family in 2006 (to his lovely protégé, Mona Puente and her biggest fan Vince - her husband) to further his other career as a State Park District Manager for the State Parks of Massachusetts.
Chris now lives in the Hartford, CT area and still teaches dance classes in various locations the area, and enjoys his pass time as a mobile DJ and helping out his beautiful wife Donna, who is an elementary school music teacher.
Chris Hookie has choreographed 26 dances, of which 2 have been co-choreographed. Their first published stepsheet on CopperKnob is Kalija from October 2007, with their most recent stepsheet of Excuse Me in October 2024.
