Polished, yes we are talking Tango although mainly at the moment the sub-topic is Promenade Position. We also mention Alex Moore, though not as often as you do because we also mention the current association technique books. These do mention a chasse in Tango although it does not warrant a description of its own.

A chasse to the right is very often danced following a Chase. Oops! I forgot, that's another figure that does not exist because Alex Moore did not list it in his book.


Ah, wait a minute. He does mention the Chase and the Chasse in his "Popular Variations".
Here's the fun bit. One of his variations including the chasse starts with a drop oversway and includes the line "keeping slightly in PP". Anyone care to explain what that means?

The way the Progressive Link is done today. All that is necessary is for the lady to turn her head from the left to the right. Thats it. If she turns it back to the left and again to the right. There is your head flick,usually used to get into the correct rhythm. It is not necessary to open the shoulders. Just the turn of the head will do. There are enough pictures to look at if you go to Dancesport UK of couples at the end of the Progressive Link.
CliveHarrison. Was the couple you mentioned in a Tango hold. If he was isn't it possible that he was stepping out from a Link. Of course he would be in a V shape.

"The way the Progressive Link is done today. All that is necessary is for the lady to turn her head from the left to the right. Thats it.....It is not necessary to open the shoulders. Just the turn of the head will do. "

And much more importantly, the turn of her feet.

Clean promenades have the bodies quite closed. Promenade can optionally be danced (usually for teaching purposes) without changing the head.

So what's left as characteristic?

Both partner's feet aligned on a forwards diagonal, instead of one partners forwards and the others backwards or both sideways as in non-promenade positions.

(The reference to the chasse was to the chasse in waltz, and was made because it illustrates that when Moore actually provided instruction in how to dance a promenade, he included a specific note advising body parallelism)

"(The reference to the chasse was to the chasse in waltz, and was made because it illustrates that when Moore actually provided instruction in how to dance a promenade, he included a specific note advising body parallelism)"

Care to cite this reference?



jj

"Care to cite this reference?
"

If you will look up the description of the chasse from promenade in Moore's Ballroom Dancing, you will see that after the condensed description the first explanatory note is that the bodies should remain square to the wall despite the feet being at an angle to it. This note is given for both partners - therefore it means the partners bodies will be square or nearly square to each other. I suspect however that the note is targeted mostly at the upper body, wheras most other mentions of body in the textbook are targeted at the lower, especially at the hips.

I did look up Moore (9th edition), and found, just as I recalled, that he DOESN'T mention the body once in the notes, either for man or lady, just that by step 3 of the chasse, the lady is square to the man - as of course, she should be.

What IS said, is that the lady must wait for the man to turn her square to him, as in some advanced endings, the lady is kept in PP at the end of the chasse. Now isn't that odd?

The chasse from promenade is only listed as a separate figure in the 10th edition which was a major revision made after Alex's death.

The whisk first appeared in the 4th edition and its description, together with a suggested follow of a chasse based on the quickstep chasse remained largely unchanged through to the 9th edition.

As has been mentioned before, the chasse is dance FROM PP not IN PP, only the first step is taken in PP. The 10th edition description of the lady's steps includes on step 1 "turning body to L" and step 2 "body facing centre". At this time the bodies are almost parallel but are no longer in PP.

"The whisk first appeared in the 4th edition and its description, together with a suggested follow of a chasse based on the quickstep chasse remained largely unchanged through to the 9th edition."

In which case the specifics of dancing the figure from a promenade beginning may not have been given much attention, since the progressive chasse in quickstep is not in promenade.

What is very interesting is that the present description of the chasse from promenade seems to be the only place where specific instruction on how to execute a promenade is given - everything else is descriptive, but this is really the only instruction provided.

It is also quite evident that "body" in the context of this note is not quite the same meaning as "body" in the context of the chart descriptions - in the note, it clearly refers to the upper body, and in the chart the orientation given is clearly that of the lower. The opposite assignments simply would not be physically possible within a closed hold.

Ultimately, I suspect that the non-instructive (and to many, serverly misleading) description of promenade to be found in glossaries is something inherited by the described technique rather than truly part of it - it predates the codification of the type of dancing described in the books, because it's obviously somethwat incosistent with actual closed hold execution. Further, it's quite obvious that if something is turned out this must be primarily the lower body, as again turning out the upper body is not possible while remaining in what was coming to be understood as closed hold.

Clive Harrison . Not odd at all. If you go into a Chair after the Chasse. There are dozens of moves that can be done from a Chasse that finishes in P.P.. William Pino does one where he crosses behind with the right foot and goes into a Lunge to the right. He must like the move . On my Blackpool tape he does it three times in 12 bars of Waltz.
Concerning some of the other writing.Obviously somebody is quoting a Chasse to the right and trying to pass the body alignments off as a chasse to the left.

No, I was quoting YOUR hero Moore on the Chasse from PP following a Whisk. If you can't see the irony of NOT turning square if you are going to dance the whole Chasse IN PP, rather than FROM PP (ie, that in order to turn square, you have to have been NOT square), then you are a bigger fool than I took you for.