Cutaway Waltz
Also see Mohawk Waltz
THE CUTAWAY WALTZ
The Dance That Refused to Die Eli Graham This dance dates from the 1930s, and has gone through some transformations during its life. Take the first diagram, the RSROA 1973, as your model to learn it.
If you are a bronze-level skater, it is excellent training for outer forward-to-back closed mohawks. Since rink travel is counter-clockwise, you will naturally find yourself learning the LOF-ROB mohawk first, and doing them more often. The Cutaway forces you to get to know the ROF-LOB mohawk too. Only one partner actually needs to memorize the dance in order to skate it as a couple. As long as that partner maintains a firm handhold, the other partner will follow, and automatically do the right steps. It is easy to do during All Skate when the floor is crowded. You never stray too from your baseline. You never have to cross rink traffic like you have to with dances like the Style B Waltz. It’s something to skate when a slow waltz plays, and you're tired of the Chase Waltz. What makes the Cutaway an actual dance rather than a mere footwork sequence is the movement of the freefeet at the mohawk. The freefoot of the skater turning backward moves into line of travel while their partner’s freefoot moves against line of travel. It looks nice. If the mohawk-turner had done an open mohawk instead of a closed mohawk, freefeet would always be matching. That would be boring. The Cutaway is (temporarily?) out of the test schedule. But it has a strange staying power, and could come back. There is nothing wrong with it. No steps could be changed to make it better—no swings or crosses or such. It just teaches and exemplifies good skating technique. Also, it is great for teaching bronze-level skaters how to do a border dance. I called the Cutaway “the dance that refused to die.” Before it became the Cutaway, it was the Mohawk Waltz. Back then, there was the strange idea that if it was the MOHAWK Waltz, all the turns should be mohawks—even the back-to-front turns. This meant that a skater turning forward as their partner started into an OF-OB mohawk should do, not an IF step to match, but an OF step—the two skating OFs on opposite feet at the same time. This just won’t work, unless you are part of the Fantastic Four. I quote from the notes on this website from the Mohawk Waltz: “This Waltz, it should be carefully noted, is skated wholly on OUTSIDE edges. Only to get around sharp rink corners are INSIDE edges permitted.” Good luck, pal! Stuff like this confirms my belief that the people who write the notes to dances often are not the people who skate them. Well, someone eventually noticed that the “wholly on OUTSIDE edges” business simply didn’t work. But, in the vain desire to keep the turns all mohawks, the OB to OF steps were changed to OIFs. This would keep the mohawks, but have a quick rockover so the partners would not drift so far apart they would have to let go of each other. Eventually rationally prevailed, and we have the Cutaway as it is now. Is there a lesson for you in all this? When you read notes to a dance and something seems terribly wrong, you may not be the problem. Blame the notes. |
source: 1973 USAC/RS American Roller Skate Dancing Part II
source: Roller Skating Dance Tests, Roller Skating Rink Operators Association of the United States (RSROA), First Edition, September 1938
note: parts of pages removed to improve clarity and flow of description, no dance diagrams were published at the time.