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Lunch-Hour Dancer Shakes Up Downtown Milwaukee Intersection

Dancing in the streets — it’s something you don’t often see in Milwaukee, let alone on the corner of Water Street and Wisconsin Avenue. But that’s exactly what Angel Alvarez was doing during last Friday’s lunch hour.

With earphones in, he was bringing out the funk in an eye-catching outfit. For about an hour, he was showcasing his range of moves: mostly improvisation, but he says also interpretations of waltz, tango, foxtrot, rumba and cha-cha.

View this post on Instagram Dance through your day like @0000angel0000 Angel’s #dancing in downtown #Milwaukee last Friday brought much of the newsroom to the windows — we were obvi impressed by his moves. So much so that we went out to chat with him! Cheers to Angel for dancing like no one’s watching A post shared by WUWM 89.7 FM - Milwaukee's NPR (@wuwmradio) on May 13, 2019 at 10:51am PDT

Alvarez says he has more than 20 different outfits. He works in marketing and advertising, dancing to get people into businesses.

But when we caught him dancing, he was practicing while waiting for the bus to get to work. And he’s been showing off his moves there for a long time.

Credit Lauren Sigfusson
Angel Alvarez was wearing an Aladdin-style prince outfit with a sparkly gold Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter hat.

“I've been on Water and Wisconsin, like a lot of times dancing, ever since I was like 15. And the idea came to me where I started dancing, and I wasn't getting the reaction I wanted. So, I'm like, I'm going to get really good at this. Because I feel like there's not many people that are actually just dancing wherever they go, or really not having that same energy or carrying that same energy,” he explains.

While Alvarez was dancing, many people were avoiding him. But he doesn’t “knock people for doing that.”

“I really appreciate the people that like to address me and wonder what I'm doing. … I hope that more people would want to eventually, like, take classes or learn about dancing because it's very good for the body, even for the long-term effects,” he explains.

And his jam when we caught him grooving to? Earth, Wind & Fire's September

Maayan is a WUWM news reporter.
Lauren Sigfusson
Lauren became WUWM's digital producer in July 2018.