This is a recap and summary of conclusions from our fourth session of the April 2015 dance lab at 100 Grand Dance, “Risk-Taking and All the Fun Stuff,” which I am facilitating this month.
What we did
We continued exercises from last week of exploring the “tipping point” when a over-dancer starts to slide off of an under-dancer. We then practiced rolling up an under-dancer’s lower back to the under-dancer’s shoulder (“rolling up the back”).
Warm-up
- weight-shifting from foot to foot, gradually
- walking on new foot
- extending leg to carry you off balance
- and experimenting with ways of slowing your fall down
- expand to extending arms, head
- aikido rolls
- doing them slow and controlled, reversing
- floor puzzles
Discussion
Rolling up the back
- exercise from last time — tipping point
- A on B in post
- B stands up very slowly, noting the moment when A starts to slide
- A and B play with coming back and forth from that point, occasionally going beyond and letting A fall off
- B tips A towards A’s feet, towards A’s hands
- A on B in post
- rolling up half-turn
- rolling up the back to shoulder, with spotters
Conclusions
Rolling up the back
- learnings (A = over-dancer, B = under-dancer)
- rolling straight up a flat back is difficult
- can be easier when B tilts A slightly, often towards A’s head
- seems to get the momentum going
- for M., whose weight is high, some adjustments
- placing M. as A in normal pelvis place, so tipping him towards his head
- but B pushing down on A’s leg, to get something to push against
- J. as B
- As B, did something like put her arms out after the half-turn, hooked A’s upper limbs, and rolled down and back to roll A up
- no-mans land
- as B, after A completes the half-turn, very difficult to feel A’s location
- bit of a no-man’s land
- S.
- as A, bends legs towards center to compensate for tipping towards legs
- as A, seems fairly natural to start to slip a little down the back of B once the half-turn up is finished
- rolling straight up a flat back is difficult