How Kenny, Sacramento’s ‘Dancing Man,’ kept his groove going during the pandemic lockdown

Amid Sacramento’s lockdown of bars and clubs during the early pandemic, Kenny “The Dancing Man” still continued to do what he does best.

He would drive downtown each night as he had always done and dance on the sidewalk in front of the darkened bars. When he wanted an audience, he turned to grocery stores and would sway in the potato chip aisle, taking selfies with all who recognized him.

“We would still keep the magic going,” Kenny Buchanan said.

A self-proclaimed cartoon character, Buchanan, is most known for dancing all around Sacramento. If you’ve been in the area in the past two decades, you’ve most likely seen him shaking his hips and shimmying his arms with an occasional slap on the rear. He’s hard to miss. Although the early pandemic had shut down all his regular spots, he continued to dance outside, with or without an audience.

Buchanan doesn’t need a crowd, but he said he would be teary during those times because he was all alone in what used to be a lively night scene.

“This threw a monkey wrench,” he said of the pandemic.

Things took a turn for the worse when the 78-year-old was hit with COVID-19 and pneumonia at the same time last year. He said he was at the hospital for four days and had to be hooked up to a ventilator. When he was sent home, a nurse would still come in twice a day for another month.

After three months, he started to feel a bit better. He credits his Popeye-endorsed diet and weight-lifting for keeping him alive.

“I don’t care if people hate me or love me, as long as you look,” Buchanan said.

Sleeping in, spinach and shimmying: Kenny the Dancing Man’s routine

Buchanan’s routine starts at noon.

He hurdles out of bed, lifts some weights, goes shopping and to the bowling alley and watches Dateline NBC’s “To Catch a Predator.” He fuels his 118-pound body with four egg whites, fish and spinach and then takes a two-hour nap before hitting Sacramento’s bars at 7 p.m. because that’s the best time to find parking.

He goes home at 11 p.m. and is in bed by 5:00 a.m., a routine he’s kept from his bartending days.

Despite Buchanan’s penchant for nightlife, he doesn’t drink. He used to drink alcohol between the ages of 17 and 25 but gave it up, saying it got him into trouble and made him feel sick.

When he goes out, he purposefully parks his car far away to get in more steps between going from place to place.

“All I care about is laughter and fun. That’s what I really want to do,” Buchanan said.

How Kenny became a dancer

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Buchanan’s family moved to Sacramento when he was two after his father got a new job. His dad was a landscape architect while his mom worked as a registered nurse in pediatrics.

At age 13, his father told him, “Kenny, you got to learn how to dance. Girls like to dance.” As a result, Buchanan took a few lessons in waltzing but quit shortly after.

When he was 17, he joined the army after receiving two speeding tickets. He said those citations saved his life because if he had joined the army later, he was certain he would have been killed during the Vietnam War, where over 58,000 American soldiers had died.

Buchanan was married once but ended up getting an annulment, which means his marriage was invalidated by a religious legal system. He said relationships aren’t for him.

“Romantic entanglements drive me nuts,” he said.

He worked as a bartender for 32 years, from Las Vegas’s Caesars Palace to the now-closed Red Lion Hotel in Sacramento. He said he lost his job because his bipolar disorder, which runs in his family, got in the way. The mental health condition can lead to episodes of extreme mood swings that include emotional highs and lows. That’s when he started receiving disability benefits and began taking dance lessons.

“I wanted to be social, so I said, ‘Well, I’ll try dancing, maybe,’” Buchanan said.

The haters and fans

Despite his celebrity status, his dancing hasn’t been embraced everywhere. In 2012, Buchanan was arrested and cited for disorderly conduct at the California State Fair for what he described as “sensual dance moves.” He said he’s banned from there for life.

A fair official confirmed the arrest and said that the case was not pursued by the prosecutor, according to a 2013 article from The Bee.

Nonetheless, Buchanan has found the spotlight in other places and frequents Mango’s Sacramento, Faces Nightclub, The Mercantile Saloon, Badlands and usually finishes up at LowBrau. He goes out every night, except for Tuesdays and Thursdays, which he said are the slow days.

Victoria Coleman, a ballet dancer from Sacramento, said she almost always sees Buchanan whenever she goes out in midtown.

When she first saw him, at LowBrau in December 2018, she wasn’t sure if he was serious or not.

“He was shaking his groove thing like nobody is,” Coleman said.

She recalled that they spoke about her career interest in dancing and added that he’s happy to talk to anyone that approaches him.

“Whenever you see him, it just brings joy to you,” she added.

Linda Infante, the manager of The Ballroom of Sacramento dance school, said her first impression of him was that he was weird. However, he quickly won the hearts of everyone there.

She said Buchanan takes private and group lessons, mainly in high-energy rhythm dances like the cha-cha and rumba, but that he’ll add his own twist to it.

“Kenny takes whatever he learns and makes it work for him,” Infante said.

He’ll often show his private instructor dances that he saw on YouTube and from world championships, and she will teach him a “Kenny take on it.”

Since The Ballroom of Sacramento was closed for 14 months due to the pandemic, Infante hasn’t seen Buchanan in a while but still stays in contact with him and knows about his celebrity status.

The biggest lesson she’s learned from him is to not always take people at face value.

“When he dances for you, no matter how much you think that it’s weird, he always brings a smile to everybody’s face,” she said.

Buchanan has over 13,000 followers on Instagram and has garnered millions of views on TikTok from people filming him around Sacramento.

However, he’s not yet satisfied. He wants his own dancing TV show and a podcast where he gives out relationship advice to the heartbroken.

Having already traveled the world a bit, including Germany, where he was stationed in the army, he doesn’t think leaving Sacramento is necessary.

“I came back home and never wanted to travel again as long as I live,” he said.

Still, he said he dreams of going to Rio de Janeiro one day for its dance culture and Brazil has a large population of Catholics.

His dance idols are Latin show dancers Michael Wentink and Yulia Zagoruychenko while he also aspires to be like Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck.

“I want to go out and make people nervous and irritated a little bit, but always have a happy ending where we all laugh,” he said.