Responsive Leading

In partner dancing, our attention frequently goes to our arms or upper body, since these are the main points of connection for leading and following. But what if we shift our focus to our feet and let them express themselves for a moment? How might we use our feet to appreciate the music, and perhaps even communicate through them?

We vary our tone in a dance with purpose, and it starts with finding the comfortable level of tone for your partnership before sliding up and down the scale as we look for different things in the dance. If you really want to get into it though, we can also use tone itself as part of the musicality of the dance.

How to hold & be held in dance without ending up carrying each other? Giving weight, sharing weight, taking weight on or off. In any combination of body shape or form we’ll untangle efficient, supportive ways of relating to gravity that allow specific dance characteristics and movement vocabulary together.
We’ll look at: What body parts in what position enable clearer communication and more availability in dance when weighted? Where or when do we accidentally compromise our follower’s body integrity as leaders? And when do we become heavy or sluggish as followers?
Let’s practice navigating two major follow skills that often come at once:
a) relaxing some of our weight into the embrace & guidance of our partner, while also
b) bringing a grounded lightness to the partnership, that requires us to support ourselves first in order to respond with precision and more agility.

Clear propositions can come from our follower. We don’t have to make it up all by ourselves! As a lead we can use our follower’s movement as the source of our inspiration and experience followership & leadership in both roles. In this class we’ll refine the clarity in our frame as a container for creative input, going from solid and stable to gooey and elastic. We’ll identify our posture by differentiating between locking our joints and blocking a suggestion. And we’ll explore how to give space to an active follower voice while maintaining the integrity of our dancing to our partner’s suggestion/response.

Follows often have great ideas to add to the dance – or things that would feel fun for them. Sometimes the follow might ask for a thing that we often imagine it is always the leaders role to suggest! Time to become the kind of lead who is able to hear and respond to followers suggestions, incorporating them smoothly into the dance.

Follow Skills for Leads (1 hr) If you’re an experienced lead who is new to following, this class is for you. If you’re an experienced lead who considers themselves a decent follow, it’s possible this class is also for you! In this session we cover some of the most common blind spots for leads when they learn following. (Experienced follows are also very welcome – come brush up your skills and share your perspectives.)

Featuring the ultimate solo movement hack (hint: it’s elbows), the three spaces of movement possibility, and what expressive shapes best fit your own individual vibe, we’ll be diving in to lead styling and investigating how to look cool without everything going wrong.

In partner dancing, our attention frequently goes to our arms or upper body, since these are the main points of connection for leading and following. But what if we shift our focus to our feet and let them express themselves for a moment? How might we use our feet to appreciate the music, and perhaps even communicate through them?