"sharing balance"?

by sharing balance, dancers yield independent control of their dance, committing to participate with their partner in choices and responses in the moment. in my experience, the more that partners can commit to this shared dynamic, the more mutually attuned and engaging their dance.

what's so important about balance?

balance is one of the most pervasive and viscerally compelling ways that we're involved with the world. our sense of well-being is legitimately coupled with it, and sensing, processing, and responding to its changes have an innate priority in our moment-to-moment attention [situation]. sharing the processes of balance while moving, or even while mostly still, is an opportunity to engage with another person in something that is inherently vital, immediate, and compelling.

"sharing balance through change"?

the aim here is not to stay on-center, but rather to engage with a shared center however near or far from equilibrium the shared balance goes. dancers organizing around the changing shared center respond together to the rhythms and dynamics of momentum, gravity, and other practical logistics of their cooperation.

CI practitioners often speak of "sharing center" or "sharing weight". i see these as elements of sharing balance. "sharing balance through change" emphasizes the active process: responding to and playing with the changing conditions of equilibrium - momentum, weight, trajectory - while moving together.

shared changing balance can entail fluidly shifting distribution of shared weight, shared paths through space, falling together, lifts and leaps into the air, and much more. it need not include any outwardly large, overt activity, as well - all of the shared balance can be happening in subtle inter-responsiveness of the partners, in barely noticeable movement.

this inter-responsiveness, whether large or small, can extend to a kind of balancing of choices and composition not just in physical contact, but also across space. it is a particular kind of inter-dependence, most clearly discoverable while touching. once familiar, however, it is viscerally recognizable, and, with a similarly focused partner, can be established and developed across a distance.

"commitment"?

in practical situations, balance is not optional. at least in part, it is through a commitment to sharing the dynamics of balance that CI partners develop connection. this commitment is a willingness to explore and engage, to and beyond the point where you depend on cooperation with your partner to do what you're doing. the immediacy of the connection, whether physically in contact or not, fosters a shared presence, a process of cooperating as an organism.

in order to work, the agreement between the partners in a CI dance must be a dynamic, evolving thing. to maintain integrity in their movement and their immediate well-being, each partner continuously makes choices in the moment, balancing their independence from and inter-dependence with their partners accordingly. this personal discretion is another dynamic element unique to each dance.

what's distinctive about the role of shared balance in contact improv?

shared, shifting balance [situation] is by no means unique to contact improvisation - it's a part of much partner dance (and solo dance, too [solo-balance]).

waltzing, for example, fosters elegant connection through shared balance, in a very clearly delineated form. many other practices involve it, including not only other forms of dance but also sports, martial arts, and even some meditative arts. (thus CI is recognized as having aspects of all these modalities, not just dance.)

exploration of balance-sharing dynamics is more directly the focus of CI than it is in most practices, however, in a less delineated, more wide-open range of moving. (a progressively expanding range of movement is one thing i've enjoyed through my sustained practice.)

principles supporting dynamic balance sharing

moving your self as an integral whole, by:

• being attuned to your "small dance" - the essential (overt and subtle) ongoing activity, interdependencies, dynamics in your body
• "going where you're going" - following your center with all your self, organizing your movement from your center

coordinating with partners:

• cooperating with gravity and the floor - using curved continuous paths, including rolling and sliding as well as traction with the floor and other partners

• committing to sharing center, and adjusting that commitment dynamically to suit the moment

• listening - to small dances, situation of and changes in center, in partner and self. too little attention to one or the other sacrifices integration.

  ultimately, listening to a third partner: the collaboration. ie:

  • following what's going on in the moment - "replace ambition with curiosity" (nancy stark smith)
  • yielding/releasing - yielding weight to structural support, and yielding that support to change - "tension masks sensation" (steve paxton), ie continuously falling, down and up
  • coordinating weight cycle - respecting rhythms of one's descents and rebounds relative to partner's cyle, enabling shared trajectories and mutual rides in-the-moment

• "doing less" - avoiding unnecessary holding-on, by:

  • not attempting to control partner - or self; excessive control interferes with ability of both to respect what the moment actually requires
  • finding dynamic ease - doing less that's unnecessary, so you can handle what's necessary with less effort. continuously falling, down and up.
  • avoiding excessive attachment to prior moment's direction (momentum, rhythm, situation, etc) and plans, to avoid distracting from directions of current moment
  • avoiding excessive attachment to technique, to avoid habit distracting from actual situation in the moment

sharing balance through change.

what good is all this?

i am not describing how to do contact improvisation. instead, i am suggesting a focus and principles that can be useful in cooperation pursuing CI dances. focusing on dynamic sharing of balance helps me foster the kind of cooperation that i relish.

how the dancers do that balance sharing is the subject of many CI skills and exercises, which i don't begin to cover here. (the above list of principles underlie many of the exercises, though.) i believe, however, that explicitly recognizing this ingredient can help those exercises to be more effective, orienting dancers to finding cooperation, and doing so without prescribing or prohibiting whatever other ingredients might fit.