The sequester is no match for the cha-cha. A National Institutes of Health grant is funding dance lessons for seniors in a $1.7 million study on whether traditional dance helps encourage physical activity in older Latinos.

The study is being conducted by David Marquez, a University of Illinois at Chicago associate professor of kinesiology and nutrition, who also has a grant from the Alzheimers Foundation to study the same program on a smaller scale.