Senior Dance Instructor, Artistic Director Latin Street Dance Company, Choreographer & Dance performer.

As an Army child, Latin Street Dancing's Chris Manning grew up in many countries and with many cultures. In the early 1980s he got caught in the breakdancing fad and participated in contests in Munich and Flensburg, Germany. Upon returning to the United States he kept dancing, performing with a hip-hop dance group throughout high school. When he started, college at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, hip-hop receded somewhat in his life, but soon he was introduced to Salsa by a group of Panamanian and Puerto Rican friends. Though the parties were infrequent, once or twice a month, Chris was taken by the spirit of salsa and merengue.

There were no latin dance instructors in Huntsville, but this was blessing for Chris spent several years just working on smoothness, power, and having fun with the dance. His dancing became more serious in 1995 when he moved to Chicago to start graduate work at Northwestern University. Working towards a Ph.D. was difficult, but it too was a blessing in disguise, for it gave Chris enough discretionary time to work on his dancing.

Two years later he became a founding member of the Chicago Latin Street Dance Company and soon after joined Lisa “La Boriqua” when she founded the Latin Street Dancing School. Since then Chris has performed throughout the Chicago area with Latin Street Dancing. His true love is the classroom though, where he has taught hundreds of students in everything from cumbia, to cha-cha , to salsa, to mambo.

Chris received his doctorate and accepted a professorship at Loyola University in 2002, but has every intention of continuing his dance teaching. The joy of helping people find the dancer that lies within is just too great to leave behind.