Side by Side in the Half and Half

The illustration at left is the last of a series of illustrations for the Half and Half taken from a small book of dance music published by Malvin M. Franklin in 1914.  For general information on dancing the Half and Half, an unusual 5/4 time waltz stepped on the first, fourth, and fifth beats, please see my previous post on basic traveling steps for the dance.

In the illustration, the dancers have moved from a normal ballroom hold into a variant side-by-side position in which the lady's left arm is stretched across the gentleman's shoulders to take his left hand at shoulder height, while their right hands are joined behind her back.  In this position they move forward together with a series of "alternating steps then sliding steps" before, presumably, resuming ballroom position to continue the dance.

Unfortunately, Franklin is not terribly clear on precisely how the dancers get into this position or out of it or, for that matter, precisely what the alternating and sliding steps they perform are.

Since the change of position adds pleasing variety to the dance, I spent some time figuring out how to make this work. 

Franklin's directions for the move are quoted below.  First, illustrated with the two dancers in a normal ballroom hold, are the following two sentences:

The lady stepping forward with right foot makes half turn until she stands in place of the man.  The man starting forward with right foot makes half turn until he takes place of the lady. 

Next, paired with the illustration above, is:

The lady swings right foot backward and makes half turn until she stands side by side with man then stepping with left foot takes four alternating steps then sliding steps to four measures of music.  The man stands still while lady makes half turn then starting with left foot takes four alternating steps then sliding steps to four measures of music.

There are three elements to reconstruct: how to get into the position, what to do there, and how to get out of it again; Franklin is completely silent on the last of these.  Since his instructions overall are scanty, my reconstruction of this move is heavily interpretive.

The first two sentences appear to be a description of a normal waltz of the era, with the gentleman starting back to line of dance and the lady facing forward along line of dance.  He steps back left, she steps forward right, they turn with a side step and close.  Repeat for the next half turn with the gentleman stepping forward right and the lady back left to start.  This leaves the couple in starting position, with the gentleman's back to line of dance.

The second part is much more troublesome.  The next instruction is for the lady to swing her right foot backwards to make a half-turn to stand side by side with the gentleman.  But she is already facing line of dance; she needs either a whole turn or no turn at all.  And swinging her foot (stepping) backwards does not really make sense.  She would be stepping away from her partner, against line of dance, and either turning by herself in a counter-clockwise circle to move up next to him or simply stepping forward again with two steps at an angle to move next to him.  Neither move is particularly graceful or leadable.  The man also cannot "stand still" while the lady makes the half-turn, as his back is to the line of dance.

It is possible that the couple could have underturned to leave them standing with the gentleman facing toward the wall and the lady facing toward the center of the room, but this does not really help.  The lady could step backward to stand side by side with the man, but it wouldn't be a "half turn" and leaves her with very little distance to travel in three steps.  And it suffers, once again, from lack of either grace or leadability. 

Short of reinterpreting the earlier bit of instructions from a waltz turn to something else (but what?) and repositioning the dancers entirely, Franklin's instructions appear to be defective.

My rather creative solution to this problem is for the lady to step forward rather than back, while the man steps back left, just as in the beginning of a normal half-turn (1), though in his case with a smaller step than usual.  He takes one more step (rather than two) with his right foot (4), turning to face line of dance, then stands still (5), while guiding the lady quickly around him with two steps (4,5) to his right side, dropping her right hand to allow her to stand next to him.  Simultaneously, she allows her left hand to glide from his right shoulder across his back to his left shoulder, where he reaches up to take it, and places her right hand at her waist for him to grasp.  This is actually easier to do than it sounds.

Breaking down the steps:

Gentleman:
1    Step back left, beginning to turn clockwise
2  
3  
4    Step onto right foot, very close to left, completing clockwise half-turn to face line of dance
5 

Lady:
1    Step forward right, beginning to turn clockwise
2
3
4    Step left in front of gentleman, continuing turn
5    Close right to left, completing turn to stand at the gentleman's right side facing line of dance

The first step is effectively a pivot turn halfway, with the lady's last two steps used to complete her turn.  It is critical that the gentleman's second step on the right foot be placed very close to the left, as the lady is moving all the way around him and if he makes a step of any length at all he will block her path.

All of this accomplished in the first bar of the move, both dancers are side by side with arms as shown above, and both have their left foot free, the gentleman having skipped a step.  We now come to the "alternating" and "sliding" steps.  My best interpretation of this part of the sequence is that the dancers step forward on the first beat of the measure, then on the fourth and fifth beats step forward again at a slight angle and close the trailing foot up.  This is a variant on the standard waltz "forward, side, close" sequence.  This sequence is performed four times, starting on alternating feet:

Lady & Gentleman:
1   Step forward left
2
3
4   Step diagonally forward right
5   Close left to right
(repeat three more times, starting right foot, left foot, right foot).

To regain ballroom position, both step forward again on the left (1), then the gentleman closes the right foot to the left (4) and holds (5) while guiding the lady in two steps (right, left; 4,5) around to stand in front of him, back to line of dance.  Her left hand will naturally move back to his right shoulder and her right hand should move up to rejoin his left.  At the end of this, he will have the left foot free and she the right, they will be back in a normal ballroom hold, and they may continue onwards in a "pursuit" (waltz forward) or reverse waltz turn, as described in my earlier post on Half and Half.

The entire sequence would thus be:

2b   Waltz one complete turn
1b   Pivot half & lady moves to gentleman's right side
4b   Waltz forward side by side, both starting left foot
1b   Lady moves in front of gentleman into ballroom hold

The side-by-side section can be extended indefinitely, exiting back to normal position with the left foot lead described above after any even number of forward waltzes.

Comments

[C Mellor]

I like your interpretation of this, and I must say I also find Franklin's instructions rather vague. One thing I notice that you did not mention is that Franklin has them both starting on the right foot. To me this indicates that they are not coming into this from a normal waltz turn, but there has already been some set-up done by the time Franklin starts describing the figure (perhaps a hesitation or foot change for one of the partners). Not that this actually clarifies anything! And it's also possible it was a typo on Franklin or his editor's part.

[Susan de Guardiola]

I think Franklin is just leaving something out there. The woman normally starts on the right foot, and the man on the left. The instructions are sequential. She starts forward on the right foot [and he back on the left] for the first half-turn and then he starts forward on the right [and she back on the left] for the second half-turn. That's just how one would come in from a normal waltz of the era.

If the rest of the instructions on the page are understood to be sequential, which I'm not 100% certain of, they are coming into this move from a slight dip, where the woman is stepping back right and the man forward left. Presumably they have to change their weight back to the other foot (his right, her left) in order for the woman to then step forward right into the turn.

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