After a few weeks of studying Contact Improvisation, our movement and partner work has developed significantly since the beginning, the main thing missing for us however, was more complex lifting and to have confidence for us take each other’s weight at a higher weight. After exploring trust in our research lab last week, we discovered that everyone’s ‘safety’ movements were lower to the floor as it is easier to take someone’s weight when you have a larger surface on contact with the floor. This week we developed movements which were on a higher level in order to bring variation to our movement and to stop us always relying on our ‘safe’ movement.

In our class we tried a variety of lifts and jumps which we could incorporate into our improvisation. The main aim when doing any lifts or anything as the ‘over dancer’ is to make sure that your pelvis is higher than your partners, otherwise you will always struggle to achieve the desired outcome, whether it is a lift or simply a roll over your partners back. Keeping this in mind the first thing we tried was to use counter balance to get your partner to the floor, the use resistance and a ‘pull’ action to pull your partner up. As the partner is being pulled up they had to activate their legs and jump as high as they could so that they’re pelvis was higher than their partners, in order for the partner to catch them. We did this several times and I began with a partner who was a similar height to me but then we switched and I was with someone who was smaller than me, instantly I found it harder to trust them as I didn’t want to launch my weight at them. After the first time though, and discovering that they were fine to catch me, I was much more trusting in this lift.

We did several other lifts however, my favourite lift involved jumping into your partner so that your stomach was toughing their chest. I found this lift easier than some of the other lifts, but I also found it the most fun out of all of the lifts. The principles for all of the lifts we looked at were all the same; 1) the ‘over dancer’ must get their pelvis higher than their partners, 2) the ‘over dancer’ must use their jump to gain as much height as possible. I enjoyed this week’s class very much and I am excited to further develop my skills in lifting work next week.