Ballroom Blitz #042

Deplacement in Paso Doble - Jun 19, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: Hello dancers, welcome back. On today's Blitz we're going to be dancing the Paso Doble and we're looking at a figure called the Deplacement (French). The word Deplacement (French) means displacement in French and that's essentially explaining what we're trying to do. We start in a closed position with our partner and we're trying to end a few steps later in a closed position but somewhere else on the floor and sometimes a different alignment. So, let's have a closer look.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: So as you could see, the base form of this movement is just three steps and then a close taking up four beats in all. [The] leader, because its Paso, starts on the right foot, [the] follower on the left. And you just saw Ian come forward for two steps before he took a sideways step turning a quarter to his left before he closed his feet, and I did the natural opposite. Now there's a bit of fun shaping that we can put in around step three, with a bit of a drag action. Even if we do that though we need to make sure that we are nice and inline with each other at the end.

So we're starting nice and square with each other, we're not offset like we are in our modern dances, so our shoulders are nice and square with each other. Ian takes his two steps forward I go backwards and on step three Ian can extend his right side to put us into a drag and then close on four. But you can see we're still nice and square with each other.

So the Deplacement (French) is a nice easy figure, it's a useful one as well not only does it get us shifting around the floor but it also can turn us to a new alignment. Now that latter point though doesn't have to be the case, we can do different amounts of turn including no turn at all, and if we ditch that first step, that first moving step for an Appel instead, we've done a blitz on the Appel so we'll put a link down the bottom; so, if we do an Appel on one and then start moving on two we have what's called an Attack!

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: So, there you have it the Deplacement (French), a nice easy move. Always make sure you add that dramatic Paso Doble flavor, but have fun, try it out.