The mambo that Johnny Castle and partner (a.k.a.
Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey) were doing
in the movie "Dirty Dancing" is called "showcase mambo."
Why showcase mambo? It is mambo but it resembles
theatrical arts dancing with some aerials in it--
not just the basic mambo steps.
The dance in the movie started off with the basic
steps:
The forward and back
The cross-body lead
[Actually, the introduction to the dance started
in R shadow position line. Then as the music to
"De todo un poco" begins, the man rolls the
lady off the arm to R to R side, they do their
open body lines in open challenge, then get back
to dance position to do the basic steps.]
Then, the intermediate mambo moves:
The carousel wheel in Holland position
The extended chase in shine position
And for the experts, the most daring moves:
The lady's rocket lift
The lady's lift with man's turn at the end
The man's and lady's deep back lunge with dip
(that was the final move in the mambo dance)
Salsa is similar to mambo. I suggest that if you
want to learn all of those advanced mambo tricks,
I suggest hiring Tony Meredith and Melanie LaPatin
as your private teachers for a short term. They
are very good in the mambo. Although retired from
dancesport, they still do some demos. I love that
couple so much. If you can't hire them, look for
an instructional video from them online from
things like
www.dancevision.com.
Hope this helps.
Charles Smith
The Little Lily of Salsa
cjsmith2@uiuc.edu
http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~cjsmith2/Charles_Home_Page.html?
