[Callers] Re: Why is it a half-sashay?

Hi, Joe. Sashay isn’t the same thing as chasse (except when it is). I’m not a square dance caller nor dancer, but I knew this call came from square dancing, so I googled it up and went down a smallish rabbit hole. Here’s a pretty clear explanation: https://www.ceder.net/def/halfsashay.php Briefly: there’s an old call “Sashay Round Your Corner [or Partner]” which is a sideways do-si-do that returns to original place., Half of that is a half-sashay - you’ve swapped places, and you’re in “half-sashayed position” - which is a known thing in square dancing and provides a context for other calls. (Per the page above, “Sashay” and “Full Sashay” are now undefined terms, and some callers say :”Sashay” rather than “Half-Sashay” because it;’s fewer syllables, but they are wrong.) From another page (https://www.onemathematicalcat.org/SquareDancing/rollaway.htm ), I find that if you do a rollaway in a circle, only the ladies travel; if you do it in a line the gents travel as well, so you change places. Some callers started to say “rollaway with a half sashay” to remind the gents to move. That doesn’t make the sidestep the gents use to move into half a chasse step - you’re trying to make too much sense out of the name. (Google also brought me to a square dance caller facebook group discussion, where I learned that European dancers tended to take “Rollaway with a half-sashay” as “ladies rollaway; everybody half sashay”, undoing the effect of the rollaway. Callerlab addressed this by changing the definition in a way that pissed off everybody who knew it the old way.) Some think Callerlab should have just defined the whole “Rollaway with a half sashay” as a single call, which is how it’s generally treated in New England and how it got imported into contra dancing - half-sashay doesn’t really exist as a separate call in contra dancing. [On a side note, “Sashay” is an overloaded term across multiple contexts. I think “allemande” is the most over-loaded term - in Scottish it’s a progressive figure, in Regency era there’s a crossed arms pretzel term, in trad Indiana/Illinois squares it was a forearm turn, in Mozart’s time it’s a couple dance, etc, etc. In some cases “Sashay down the middle” is a couple taking two hands and doing sideways chasse / gallop / slip steps), in other cases it just means “go down the middle”. There’s a usage in vernacular American English where it means either “walk/go” or, contextually, something like “Strut” - eg, from “Poisonwood Bible” - “You can't just sashay into the jungle aiming to change it all over to the Christian style without expecting the jungle to change you right back…”. Your confusion arises from trying to cross contexts.] — Alan Winston (sf Bay Area, California) ________________________________________ From: Joe Harrington via Contra Callers Sent: Friday, September 5, 2025 10:07 AM To: Shared Weight Callers Subject: [Callers] Why is it a half-sashay? BEWARE: This email originated outside of our organization. DO NOT CLICK links or attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Would someone please explain why moving your right foot out to your right and following it by moving your body and left foot is only half a sashay? Seems like a full sashay to me. Half a sashay would be like, taking a wide stance and stopping. In ballet, a chasse' is walking by moving one foot out and following it up with the other, never crossing them. Based on some limited reading, I don't think it's counted (as in, chasse' three times), but rather refers to the style of walking, say as opposed to jogging. I could be mistaken. "Roll away with a half sashay!" sure rolls off the tongue nicely, though... --jh--