No 21 - Diagonal Rights & Lefts

Question: Should the formation which lasts 8 bars, and involves three couples, be called "Diagonal Rights & Lefts" or "Two, half Diagonal Rights & Lefts"? (i.e. the last 8 bars of "The Whistling Wind")

Answer:

a) The Society has not defined a formation called "Diagonal Rights & Lefts" - but the Irish Rover has been danced for more than 35 years, and people have been calling the last 8 bars "Diagonal Rights & Lefts" for at least that long.

b) The problem is that the deviser, J Cosh, did not call it that - he just said who changed hand with whom, and with which hand.

c) So when the Society published "The Whistling Wind" it used a similar form of words for the last 8 bars (although this has not prevented people describing the last 8 bars as "Diagonal Rights & Lefts"!).

To answer the specific question:

The difference between the first 4 bars of "Rights & Lefts", and the 4 bars of "Half Rights & Lefts" is the "polite turn" at the end of the second.

So Diagonal Rights & Lefts (or Rights & Lefts on the Diagonal) would last 8 bars, be danced by the same 4 people, and there would only be a "polite turn" at the very end.(The most recent dance published by the Society which contains this is "The Dream Catcher", but that is in a square set).

Therefore the formation which is normally danced (i.e.the last 8 bars of both "The Irish Rover" and "Whistling Wind")strictly speaking consists of Two, "Half Diagonal Rights & Lefts", as there is a "polite turn" at the end of both bars 4 and 8. It does occur as a 4 bar formation in "Eileen Watt's Strathspey".