Reading Ballroom Dance Scripts - Dance - Plussed.net

Position Jive Rumba Cha Cha Samba
Closed Pos. Normal Hold Normal Hold, LRH, RLH, No hold. Normal Hold,
LRH
Contact Pos. Normal Hold
Open Pos. LRH, RRH,
RLH, Double
Hold
LRH, RRH, No Hold, Double Hold
Fan Pos. LRH
Promenade Pos. Normal Hold
Open Prom. Pos. RLH, LRH, No Hold LRH, Right hand
on lady’s back.
Counter Prom.
Pos. (CPP)
Normal Hold Normal Hold
Open CPP LRH, No Hold LRH, Left hand
on lady’s back
Right Side Pos. Not specified.
Left Side Pos. Not specified.
R Shadow Pos. See note below Not specified. See note below
Left Shadow Pos. Not specified.
Tandem Position
(man behind)
Not specified.
Tandem Position
(lady behind)
Not specified. Not specified.
R Contra Pos. Not specified.
Left Contra Pos. Not specified.
Note: Right Shadow Position: For Rumba: 3 Right shadow holds. For Samba: Similar to Hold 1
from the Rumba holds. See the section on Right Shadow Holds for full description.
2.10.1 Which holds occur in each dance?
This can’t easily be answered from the above table. The above table definitely tells us things like
Normal hold occurs in each dance. But it doesn’t tell us that any particular hold doesn’t occur in
any particular dance, firstly because some possibilities are hiding under the “not specified” entries,
and secondly because a hold may occur at a point where we are not in one of the named positions
given above. For example, the following table has managed to include an entry for LLH, which
didn’t appear in the previous table at all.
In terms of clarity of explanation, perhaps a more useful question is ‘Name a figure from dance x
that uses hold y’. The following table gives such an example where I could find one. The remaining
empty cells are mostly for the relatively rare LLH. There are probably no valid entries for these
blank cells, but let me know if find one. The table excludes the rare shadow holds and Samba hand
on back holds.
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