This week in class we were exploring how to give our weight to each other rather than just the floor, we learnt how to do this safely and efficiently. We began in partners, one of us lied face down on the floor and the other lied across them and experimented with giving their weight to them and rolling up and down the body. As we did this exercise we had to try and relax our bodies completely and to give our partner all of our weight, whilst still being careful not to put excessive weight on the back of their knees. Being the partner on top I became more comfortable with giving my weight the longer I was on top of my partner, when I was the one being given the weight I was much more comfortable than I thought I would be and as my partner was rolling up and down my body it felt very relaxing.
Developing the previous exercise we had one of the pair roll along the floor whilst the other tried to ‘ride the wave’ of their movement, in order to roll over the top of their body. We continued this by experimenting with which body part we led with, in particular I thought leading with a foot and having the under dancers pull the rest of your body was very interesting.
We also played with giving weight whilst dancing. We tried this by having one dancer improvise and the partner pausing them when they thought they had found a position they could use as a rest place where they could give their weight. We continued this exercise trying different ways, I personally liked to try and push myself to into unusual ways of balancing my body so that not only would it be more interesting for the viewer, it would also be more enjoyable and experimental for me as the dancer. Our reading this week was on touch and the importance of touch as a sense. It linked well not only to our class this week as we were thinking about different intensity of touch, but it also re enforced our class last week.