Partnering as a Larger-Bodied Dancer
By Austin Sexton, DWC Blog Contributor
Partnering in dance is a beautiful thing. The agility, strength, and trust shown between two dancers is a breathtaking connection to watch. The grace of the dancer being lifted blended with the power of the dancer doing the lifting can make a piece mesmerizing. I love watching it, I love choreographing it, and I especially love exploring new ways to create unique, organic movement between two people.
Partnering takes trust. Dancers need to be able to rely on each other to create a safe and meaningful connection. They need to be vulnerable enough to trust that the other one will catch them as they fly. As a larger-bodied dancer, I was never chosen to do any kind of partnering other than lifting the thin-bodied dancers. I am very good at it. I can lift, throw, catch, and guarantee that the person I’m lifting will look beautiful.
But I have never learned how to have the trust and vulnerability that dancers who get lifted get to have. In my adult life, I have worked with choreographers who have wanted me to be lifted by other dancers and I have never been able to break through the mental block that years of fat-shaming in dance programmed in my brain. I am not comfortable being lifted. I bail. I freeze. I do not have trust because I was never taught how to have it.
After I had a baby, I was cast in a piece with Continuum Dance Collective. The choreographer I was working with, Amber Jackson, asked us to do a partnering exercise where each person took a turn standing in the middle of a circle with dancers around them. The objective was for the person in the middle to fall in multiple directions, and it was the people on the outside's responsibility to catch them. That person was supposed to trust in giving the others their weight. When it was my turn to be in the middle, I could not do it. I would fall, and catch myself, right when it was time for someone to catch me. Every time I’ve tried to be lifted, my brain says “no, they can not catch you.” Even if I know that they are capable of catching me, I do not have the trust in myself to give them my weight.
My brain just freezes and won’t let me give myself to another person when I dance with them unless I am the person doing the lifting. I think that I have conditioned myself to not trust others unless I am the one in control. I was never taught to be vulnerable with another person unless I was the one maintaining the safety of the situation, so I think that I missed out on an integral part of dance training. It’s so important to learn how to trust others, in the dance setting, but also outside of the studio. I think that to an extent, I took some of that lack of trust into my relationships with people. I think that I have built many walls to protect myself because being vulnerable was too difficult to face. I also think that I developed a sort of “do it myself” attitude with things, which can lead to resentment and being overwhelmed.
It’s important to note that I understand that historically, it makes sense to have a larger-bodied person lift a smaller-bodied person. But I think that partnering can be so much more than just impressive tricks and lifts. I think that teaching dancers how to weight share and counter each other’s weight can be a beautiful thing too. I would love to see the dance world start to explore new ways of partnering that don’t further the idea that only small-bodied people can ever be lifted.
Now, as an educator, I teach every dancer that important part of training. Every student in my class gets a chance to learn how to be lifted by another person. I teach trust and the proper way to weight share and counterbalance.
Counterbalance is an incredible way to teach dancers to trust each other because they’re not only responsible for holding the other person's weight, but their own as well. An exercise that I’ve done with my students is to pair them up and have them begin by just looking into each other's eyes. It opens them up to being vulnerable with their partner from the start. I have them start breathing together and try to match breaths. Then, I have them link wrists and begin exploring giving each other their weight. I have them lean away from each other and see how far they can hold each other. We build on that once they’re comfortable, by trying it with only one hand, or different parts of the body, like their backs, thighs, or feet.
At first, many students are skeptical and I see them reacting the same way I’ve seen myself react, with fear, doubt, and embarrassment. But I always reassure them that no matter their size or shape, everyone is capable of being partnered, as long as a foundation of trust is built with their partner. And usually, by the end of the exercise, I see beautiful demonstrations of weight sharing and counterbalance.
Lastly, in my classes and choreography, nobody is chosen to be lifted solely based on size, but rather what works best for the choreography and dancers. I never want to instill the mindset in my students that only the smaller-bodied dancers get to be lifted, and only the larger dancers get to lift. I want to create a space in my class that allows everyone to learn what I deeply feel I missed out on: equal trust and vulnerability.
I hope that the dance community can continue to grow to be more body-positive and allow all dancers to learn all elements of training and partnering.
