Veloz and Yolanda

Frank Veloz (1902–1981) and Yolanda Casazza (1911–1995) were a self-taught American ballroom dance team, husband and wife, who became stars in the 1930s and 1940s. They were among the highest paid dance acts during this period. They performed on stage in productions such as Hot-Cha!, which ran for 119 shows on Broadway in 1932. They also appeared in popular films such as Under the Pampas Moon (1935), The Pride of the Yankees (1942), Honeymoon Lodge (1943), Brazil (1944) and The Thrill of Brazil (1946), the latter of which is credited as being of major importance to the growth in popularity of Samba in America.

Veloz and Yolanda specialized in Latin ballroom dance styles, and opened their own chain of dance studios, where many middle-class people learned the art of ballroom dancing. The studios closed down in the mid-1950s as new forms of dance became popular. Veloz and Yolanda did much to legitimize ballroom dance as a performance art and invented the "Cobra Tango", a dance which interpreted a fight between a snake and a tiger. A full-length ballet written by their son Guy Veloz, An American Tango, is based on their life story.

Frank Veloz was born in Washington, D.C. in 1902 to a Spanish father and a Dutch mother. Yolanda Bianca was born in 1911. One of six sisters,Yolanda was from an Italian family. They met at a high school sorority dance in the Collegiate Club on 84th street, Manhattan; Yolanda was sixteen and a student at Washington Irving High School while Veloz was an office boy. They danced in public dance contests, at first without success, but then won forty competitions, with prizes of US$5 or US$10. In 1927, they won the New York City and State Championship. After this they lost their amateur status and could no longer enter the competitions.

At first, Veloz and Yolanda struggled as a professional team. Many of their engagements turned into disasters. Veloz and Yolanda featured in the 1927 Broadway show Artists and Models, starring Ted Lewis and Jack Pearl. In 1929 they were in Pleasure Bound, another revue, with Aileen Stanley, Jack Pearl and Phil Baker.The New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson described Pleasure Bound as a "rough-and-ready" revue, but called the act of Frank Veloz and Yolanda Casazza a has-to-be-seen "centrifugal dance spinning feminine heels in the air". The couple married in 1929 and soon began arguing over each other's mistakes, even considering divorce.

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