Sombrero Doble

Sombrero Doble ('double hat') is an intermediate arm figure in Cuban casino salsa — the partner style danced in a turning, circular frame rather than along a fixed slot or line.^[1] It is the doubled form of the foundational Sombrero ('hat'), whose signature motion is the partners' joined hands sweeping up and back over the head to trace the brim of an imagined hat.^[2] Where the basic shapes that brim once, the doble shapes it twice: both pairs of joined arms pass over both dancers' heads in succession, so the hat is drawn over the couple a second time before the hands resolve.^[3]

Execution

Throughout the pattern the couple holds the casino basic a tiempo, breaking on the downbeat while the arms travel overhead; the figure reshapes the upper body, not the footwork. The lead keeps the arms in a soft, level arc — high enough to clear both heads, low enough not to wrench the shoulders — and guides the joined hands rather than pushing on them. It is typically entered from a two-hand hold, frequently set up out of an enchufla, the cross-body switch that feeds so many casino figures.

Variations and progression

A documented extension, Sombrero doble con copelia, chains the doubled hat directly into a copelia combination, using the resolution of the second brim as the entry into the next figure.^[4] Casino syllabi and online move databases catalogue Sombrero Doble as an intermediate-level figure, ordinarily taught only once the single Sombrero is secure, since the doble depends on clean timing and arm geometry in the base before the motion can be repeated without crowding either partner.^[5]

Not to be confused with

The echoes in the name are coincidental. Despite the doble, the figure is unrelated to the pasodoble ('double step'), the fast Spanish military march — paced for the infantry's 120 steps a minute, twice the cadence of an ordinary unit — that grew into a concert genre and partner dance long associated with the bullring. And despite the sombrero, it has nothing to do with the sombrero vueltiao, the woven Colombian hat carried as a prop in cumbia; in casino 'sombrero' names a shape the arms draw in the air, not a physical hat.