Contact is about communication and sharing and one element we share is playing with the consequences of physical laws.

The focus for today’s session was the exploration of giving and taking weight and how this would enable us to lift our partner during contact improvisation. To begin with, partner A travelled around the space while B lightly traced her movement using her hands, significantly touching the parts of the body that initiated the movement. Developing this, B was told to increase the pressure placed into her partner’s body while A was told to resist this pressure creating moments of counterbalance between the two. When I was resisting my partner’s weight, it allowed me to not only experiment with placing emphasis on body parts I tend not to use during contact such as my lumbar spine but also I became familiar with using this sense of counterbalance to take my movement in a completely different direction to what I had been doing before. B then began to press with other parts of the body, giving more weight into her partner as she travels across the space. When I began to put pressure into my partner using different body parts, I found myself habitually using my upper body such as my shoulders or elbows as I’d become so dependent on my hands to provide that counterbalance. As the task developed I found it easier to use my whole body, experimenting with how much weight I could give my partner when different body parts were in contact. Towards the end of the task, I was a lot more daring and practically gave my entire weight to my partner lifting my limbs off the floor.

The next task experimented with a continuous giving and taking of weight. Partner A remains in table top position while B bends over her partner as a base so the two are back to back. B then tucked one foot underneath her partner to flip round so now B is in table top position and A, who follows the movement, is now pressed into her partner’s back. This followed a continuous motion constantly changing between who was the under or over dancer. While doing this exercise, I kept in mind Woodhull’s Centre of Gravity article in which she states that “when you are rolling on another person you change your body shape, the centre of gravity and point of support change, and you move, not because you have pushed or pulled yourself but simply shifting centre of gravity and allowing gravity to do the rest”. This therefore made me realise that by going with the momentum of the movement instead of resisting the change in gravity, my partner and I were able to move effortlessly and efficiently without causing injury to one another. Also by providing a strong and stable base for one another, this created a sense of trust and comfortability between my partner and I and therefore I was able to give my weight entirely to my partner. Taking her weight while in table top position was also something I felt at ease doing and want to experiment this further by becoming the under dancer to people I tend to be the over dancer with. Experimenting further with this, we played with giving weight to our partner, still in table top position, using different body parts. Primarily we focused on using the pelvis to create moments of balance and transitions which was personally helpful as when I am improvising I tend to give me weight to my partner through my stomach or upper back however I felt comfortable to provide weight through the side of my torso and lower back when experimenting.

The next couple of tasks focused on further exploring counterbalance between partners. Firstly holding one another’s wrists, both partners counterbalance their weight to allow A to pull B into the space causing her to jump through the air to then start again. The emphasis of this task was the importance of maintaining our centres in line, as this would not only allow us to counterbalance one another’s weight efficiently but also make it easier to pull and be pulled through the space, even if you’re not the same height or weight as your partner. In the development of this task, partner A was lowered to the floor still maintaining the counterbalance between her and partner B, to then prepare her to be pulled up vertically and caught. Being partner B, I found it difficult to catch my partner at first as she was resisting the counterbalance and therefore instead of me pulling her up she was simply jumping from the floor. I think the difficulty we faced was the fact we had not worked together before, which made me realise the importance of trusting your partner, whether they were someone you had or hadn’t worked with, as well as the necessity of providing that counterbalance to prevent injury to either you or the person being pulled from the floor. The next task that explored counterbalance was a side lean in which A has their arm around B’s shoulders and B has their arm around their partner’s waist. Partner B then leans away from her partner in which the momentum of the moment pulls A with her so much so that she comes off the floor. This exercise was one I explored with a number of different partners, new and old, and each time the movement was effortless as we gave and took each other’s weight with ease. The simplicity of this lift would make it ideal to further explore in improvisation or jams to not only direct and move your partner around the space but also to experiment with transitioning in and out of the lift itself.

Afterwards we tried some more advance lifts including the cradle in which partner B holds A’s nearest knee up while A has the same arm around B’s shoulders as she jumps into foetal position to be caught and spun around. To develop this, A jumped with her legs and body stretched out with her pelvis twisted into their partner’s chest. The impact of my partner’s weight on my upper body was a lot harder than simply lifting someone in a foetal position and therefore I found it difficult to do at first, worrying in case I dropped my partner or didn’t provide a stable base for her to feel safe or comfortable. The second lift consisted of partner A lowering their pelvis as partner B lifts their pelvis up and onto A leaning into them. Once this position was achieved then the base could support and lift B over her back in which the only points of contact was B’s side pressed into A’s back. B could then use her pelvis to move onto her back and slowly fall off A’s back safely. The challenging aspect of the lift was ensuring both pelvises were in the right place for the lift to work, which depended on the height of both partners. There was also this sense of being unstable when you were lifted as there was only one point of contact and no hands or arms were used to provide a ‘safety blanket’, which is something I find as a habitual necessity when lifting or being lifted. Overall I’ve realised I prefer to be the one lifted, simply because I trust my partner to take my weight more than I trust myself to carry my partner’s weight, especially in more advanced lifts such as these. However I want to work on this, pushing myself to lift others and build my confidence in my ability to do so.

Finally, we completed a short improvisational task starting with partner A lying on their backs and B lying over their torso. After listening to one another’s breathing and feeling small torso movement, this then intensified developing into a duet using the majority of the tasks we had focused on during the session. I was surprised with how easy it was to transition between the individual tasks and the versatility of where and how each lift could be developed and how it could initiate and create movement. However I found at times it was difficult to initiate certain lifts such as the cradle without verbal communication, even if I felt my intensions were clear and strong enough for my partner to understand.

Jam

To start today’s Jam we began pushing our partner’s pelvis around the space, exploring direction, pace and levels. This then developed leading with the hand, then shoulder and then the partner leading the movement became the over dance and explored ways to balance and move over the under dancer and vice versa. In the same partners, we had to fight to either be the under or over dancer which allowed us to explore ways of moving around our partners and initiating the momentum to move. Afterwards we began the jam, focusing on solos, duos and trios. As it was a smaller group this week, I found myself working with the majority of the group, especially those I hadn’t had the chance to work with yet as well as exploring different ways to give and take weight. There were a number of times I initiated people to give me their weight however I again found it difficult to try the more advanced lifts without verbal communication and a mutual understanding between my partner and I.

Citation

Woodhull, A. (1997) Centre of Gravity. In: Contact Quarterly/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook 1(4)43-48