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Prompts, Methods and Advice for Physicality

All of this anatomy theory is valuable, but at some point you have to step out of the analytical mind and into the actual dancing. You have to take all this knowledge about bones, muscles and breathing and actually use it to move with more clarity, presence and authentic expression.

So now I'm going to give you some prompts to explore in your dance. These aren't techniques to master or choreography to learn - they're invitations to discover new possibilities in your own movement.

William Forsythe's Movement Technologies​

William Forsythe changed how I think about movement by giving dancers very specific tools for generating and manipulating movement in real time. What I love about his work is that it gives you very clear parameters to explore, but within those parameters, infinite possibilities emerge.

Let me share some of his core concepts that have had the biggest impact on my own dancing, and how you can explore them.

Lines and Points: The Foundation of Everything​

Point-Point-Line Construction​

Start by creating an imaginary line between any two points on your body - say, your left elbow and your right knee.

Now you can manipulate this line in several ways:

  • Transport: Move this entire line through space while maintaining the relationship between the points. The line can travel up, down, diagonally, in circles.
  • Rotation: Pivot the line around either endpoint. Your elbow stays fixed while your knee traces a circle around it, or vice versa.
  • Sliding: Move one point along the line toward the other. Feel your elbow sliding along the invisible rod toward your knee.
  • Extension: Extend the line beyond both points. Your elbow and knee are no longer the endpoints - they're points along a longer line that extends into space.

Body Part Lines​

Every bone in your body creates a line. Between any two points on your skeleton, there's a line that can be manipulated. Practice identifying these lines:

  • The line from your shoulder to your wrist
  • The line from your hip to your ankle
  • The line from the base of your skull to your tailbone
  • The line from your sternum to the back of your heart

Once you can feel these lines, you can rotate them, extend them, transport them through space.

Extruded Lines​

Here's where it gets really interesting. Any point on your body can extrude a line in any direction. Press your fingertip into the air and imagine a line shooting out from it. This line can be:

  • Short or long
  • Straight or curved
  • Shooting out quickly or growing slowly
  • Retracted back into the point or left hanging in space

Practice extruding lines from different body parts:

  • From your elbow into the ceiling
  • From your shoulder blade into the wall behind you
  • From your hip bone toward the floor
  • From the top of your head in all directions at once

The beautiful thing about extruded lines is that they give you a way to reach into space with intention, even when you're not actually touching anything.

Fundamental Operations​

Matching and Extending​

Forsythe talks about "matching" - taking a line or shape that already exists and duplicating it somewhere else in your body. If your right arm creates a particular angle, can you match that angle with your left leg? If your spine curves in a certain way, can you match that curve with the path your hand traces through space?

Extending is about taking any movement and continuing it further in the same direction or quality. If you reach your arm forward, extend that reach until it involves your whole spine.

Rotation and Sliding​

Every line you create can be rotated around any point along its length. The line from your hand to your shoulder can rotate around your elbow, your wrist, your shoulder, or any point in between. Each rotation creates completely different movement.

Sliding means moving along established lines - either lines in your body or lines you've created in space. You can slide your hand along your leg, or slide your whole body along an imaginary line you've drawn in the air.

Other Operations​

Point Dropping​

This is different from just collapsing. In point dropping, specific points on your body drop toward corresponding points on the floor. Your elbow drops toward the point on the floor directly below it, but everything else in your body responds to support that dropping.

Point dropping creates organic, flowing movement because you're working with gravity rather than against it, but in a very specific, controlled way.

Avoidance​

You establish a line or volume in space - maybe a cylinder running from floor to ceiling - and then you move in such a way that you avoid entering that space.

Moving around invisible obstacles forces you to find pathways through space you would never have discovered otherwise. And because you're defining the obstacles yourself, you can make them as simple or complex as you want.

Shearing​

When two parallel lines in your body bend while maintaining their parallel relationship - like your thighs and your forearms moving together - that's shearing.

Writing and Inscription: Your Body as Pen​

Rotation Inscription​

You can write or draw with any part of your body by imagining that part is a pen or paintbrush.

Try writing your name with your elbow. Then try writing it again, but this time, rotate your elbow as you write so the "pen" is approaching the paper from different angles. The same letter becomes completely different when you change the rotation of your writing implement.

Universal Writing​

Take simple shapes - letters, numbers, geometric forms - and write them with different parts of your body at different scales and orientations. Write a capital "A" with your whole body. Write a circle with just your shoulder blade. Write the number "8" by moving your pelvis.

Then combine: write your name with your right hand while your left foot writes the alphabet. The complexity is incredible, but because each part has a clear task, the movement stays intelligible.

How to Work with Forsythe's Ideas​

The key to working with these concepts is to start simple and build complexity gradually. Don't try to do everything at once. Pick one concept - maybe point-point-line - and explore it for a full improvisation. Really get to know how it feels in your body.

Then, when you're comfortable with the basic idea, start combining concepts. Create a line, then rotate it while you're sliding along it.

What I've found is that working with these ideas for even just a few minutes completely changes the quality of my movement. Everything becomes more precise, more intentional, more geometrically interesting.

Practical Explorations from My Own Laboratory​

I am now going to share with you a few simple exercises I like to offer during my workshops.

Body Part as Protagonist​

Choose one part of your body and let it be the star of the show for five to ten minutes. Everything else in your body exists to support what this protagonist wants to do.

Try these different protagonists:

  • Hands: Let your hands lead you through space, and let the rest of your body follow their intelligence
  • Feet: Feel how your feet want to interact with the floor, and let that conversation guide everything else
  • Pelvis: Let your pelvis be the motor that powers all movement
  • Head: Follow your head's curiosity about different directions and orientations. Let it lead and put you off balance.
  • Shoulder blades: Discover the surprising mobility and expressiveness of your shoulder girdle
  • Sternum: Feel how opening and closing your heart center changes everything

The key is not just to move these parts, but to let them move you. Each body part has its own personality and intelligence.

Partner Provocations​

Working with a partner can help you access movement you'd never find alone. Here are some effective partner exercises:

  • The Shadow: One person moves normally, the other copies with a three-second delay, trying to predict what's coming next
  • Obstacles: One person creates gentle "obstacles" with their body that the other must navigate around or through
  • Impulse Provider: One person gives gentle physical impulses - pushes, pulls, touches - that the other responds to and develops into movement
  • Silent Conversation: Move together while maintaining eye contact, having a conversation without words or predetermined choreography

Partners help you break out of your habitual patterns because you have to respond to something outside your own preferences and tendencies.

The Six Circles Exercise​

This was one of our most powerful discoveries for breaking through limitations. Work with a partner. Place six hula hoops or imaginary circles on the floor, each about three feet in diameter. Dance for two minutes in each circle, making each circle completely different from the others. Then have your partner take notes every time you repeat a pattern (it can be a way of moving, an emotion, a way of choreographing, etc.) and share their notes with you.

It's super powerful to detect your most rooted unconscious patterns.

Create Your Own Explorations​

All these exercises and concepts are just starting points. The real magic happens when you start creating your own prompts and explorations based on your specific limitations and curiosities.

What aspects of movement feel foreign or difficult to you? Those are exactly the areas where you have the most potential for discovery. If you tend to move mostly in your upper body, create exercises that force you to explore your legs and pelvis. If you avoid the floor, design prompts that make floor work irresistible. If you're uncomfortable with stillness, find ways to explore the spaces between movements.

Be creative. Be specific. Be curious about your own edges.

Maybe you create temporal constraints: "I can only change direction every fifteen seconds." Maybe you explore emotional territories: "How would jealousy move if it lived in my left shoulder?" Maybe you invent spatial rules: "I can only move in straight lines" or "Everything must be circular."

The goal isn't to become good at following other people's prompts. The goal is to become so curious about movement that you're constantly generating your own investigations.

A Word About Floorwork​

One area that's particularly rich for exploration is your relationship with the floor. When you're lying down, try pushing against the floor as if you want to leave your imprint in it - not just with your hands and feet, but with your whole body. Feel how this pressing creates lift and rebound in unexpected places. Also feel that your center of gravity is two inches beneath the surface of the ground. It will root you.

Let your spine spiral and curve against the ground, using the floor as a surface to roll along and push against. Send your gaze in different directions and let your eyes lead your body through space - when you look toward a corner of the room, let that looking pull your whole torso in that direction. Then add your "creative sauce" - speed changes, unexpected pauses, moments of suspension. Explore the in-between levels too, not just lying flat or standing tall, but all the possibilities of sitting, crouching, kneeling, and transitioning between them. The floor becomes not just a place to rest, but an active partner in your movement exploration.

The Art of Going Through: Three Essential Principles​

All of these explorations and exercises point toward three fundamental principles that I've found essential for dancing with authenticity and power.

Dance Big: Occupy Your Space Without Apology​

Dancing big doesn't necessarily mean dancing with large movements. It means dancing with full commitment to whatever movement you're making. It means believing in the movement while you're making it, even if you don't know where it's going.

Most people hedge their bets when they move. They make the gesture but hold something back, just in case it doesn't work out. But that holding back is exactly what makes movement look tentative and unconvincing.

Start with very simple movements - a step, a reach, a turn. Do each movement three times: first time with about 60% commitment, holding back slightly; second time with 100% commitment, but staying within your comfort zone; third time with 100% commitment and going 10% bigger than feels safe.

The key is finishing the energy line of every movement. Don't let movements die halfway through. Follow them to their natural completion. If you're reaching toward something, reach until you actually touch it, even if it's imaginary. If you're spiraling, spiral until the spiral naturally wants to reverse direction.

When you dance big in this way, you start to inhabit your movements instead of just executing them. And when you truly inhabit a movement, people can feel it.

Jump and the Net Appears: Moving into Uncertainty​

This phrase became our motto during The Go Through Experiment (a 3 weeks retreat I lead in my dance studio in the south of France). The willingness to jump - to initiate movement without knowing exactly where it will lead - trusting that your body's intelligence will catch you.

Most of us wait until we know exactly what we want to do before we begin moving. But authentic movement often works in reverse. You begin moving and discover what wants to happen through the process of moving.

Set a timer for five minutes. Every time the movement stops or you feel stuck, immediately initiate a new movement without planning what it will be. The only rule is: no pausing, no thinking, no deciding. Just jump into the next movement and let it teach you what it wants to become.

The net that appears is your body's innate intelligence about movement, timing, and spatial relationships. Your body knows how to move safely. It knows how to find balance. It knows how to create transitions between different qualities of movement. But it can only show you this intelligence when you give it permission to move without predetermined plans.

Staying in the Flow: Dancing from Presence Rather Than Pattern​

Flow happens when you're responding freshly to each moment, when you're dancing from presence rather than from memory. The moment you start repeating something because it worked before, you've stepped out of the flow and into pattern.

Practice what I call "the edge of the unknown." As you're moving, stay as close as possible to the place where you don't quite know what's coming next. The moment you feel yourself settling into something familiar, gently shift toward something you haven't explored yet.

One practical way to stay in flow is to keep changing the protagonist - the part of your body that's leading the movement. Another way is to keep changing levels, directions, or qualities. The goal isn't to be constantly changing for the sake of change. The goal is to stay present to what wants to happen next, rather than defaulting to what happened before.

How to Break Free from Patterns (Without Fighting Them)​

Here's a question I get asked a lot: "But what about my patterns? I keep falling back into the same movements, the same style. How do I break free from this?"

And you know what? I think we've been thinking about this all wrong.

We all have patterns in our dance - our own style, movements we fall back into, ways of organizing our bodies that feel familiar and comfortable. And honestly? That's completely fine. We shouldn't worry about it too much.

Think about it: you have different patterns for different situations, contexts, and intentions. When you're tired, you move one way. When you're excited, you move another way. When you're dancing to hip-hop versus when you're dancing to ambient music, your body organizes itself differently. These patterns aren't obstacles - they're resources. They support you. They're your body's intelligent response to different circumstances.

The problem isn't having patterns. The problem is getting stuck in them - recycling the same material over and over again, even when the present moment is asking for something completely different. If you only recycle, even if you look good from the outside, you actually miss the whole point of the exercise. You miss the opportunity to meet this specific moment with fresh creativity. You miss the chance to discover what wants to emerge right now, in these circumstances, with this music, in this emotional state, with these people.

The Art of Pattern Recognition​

The key is developing awareness of when you're in a pattern. This is actually a skill that can be cultivated. You need to become like a witness to your own movement, able to step back slightly and notice: "Oh, I'm doing that thing I always do with my arms when the music gets intense" or "I'm falling into my default way of relating to the floor."

This isn't about judging yourself for having patterns. It's about developing the sensitivity to recognize them as they're happening. Because once you can spot a pattern while you're in it, you have a choice point. You can continue with the pattern if it feels right for this moment, or you can make a creative decision to go somewhere else.

The Mind as Creative Director​

Here's where the mind comes in as what I think of as the "creative director" of your movement. The mind's job isn't to control every detail of how you move - that would kill all spontaneity and flow. But the mind can make strategic, creative decisions in real time.

When you notice you're in a pattern, your mind can ask questions like: "What if I took this familiar movement and did it at half the speed?" "What if I kept the same quality but moved it to a different part of my body?" "What if I maintained the same intention but expressed it through my legs instead of my arms?" "What if I took this pattern and turned it upside down?"

These aren't predetermined choreographic choices. These are creative decisions made in response to what's actually happening in the moment.

Practical Strategies for Creative Decision-Making​

Quick interrupts: When you catch yourself in a familiar pattern, try these: change levels immediately (if you're standing, sit; if you're low, jump up), switch which body part is leading the movement, reverse the direction you were going, cut the movement in half and start something completely different, or slow down dramatically or speed up dramatically. The interrupt doesn't have to be dramatic. Sometimes just shifting your weight to the other foot is enough to crack open new possibilities.

"What if" questions: Train your mind to constantly generate "what if" questions while you're dancing: "What if this movement was underwater?" "What if I was made of honey?" "What if I was trying to push through thick fog?" "What if I was being pulled by invisible strings?" "What if this movement had to travel through my whole body before reaching my limbs?" These questions give your mind something creative to do instead of just defaulting to familiar choices.

Limitations as liberation: Give yourself a specific limitation that makes your usual patterns impossible: "I can only move in straight lines for the next minute," "I can't lift my feet off the floor," "I have to keep one hand touching my heart," "I can only move one body part at a time," or "Everything has to be in slow motion." Constraints force you out of your habitual pathways and into creative problem-solving.

The Deeper Invitation​

All of these exercises and principles point toward something deeper than technique. They point toward a way of moving - and ultimately, a way of being - that's based on presence, authenticity, and responsiveness rather than control and predetermined outcomes.

The invitation is to let your movement practice be a place where you experiment with new ways of being present, new ways of expressing truth, new ways of trusting your own intelligence and intuition.

Because in the end, that's what authentic movement is really about. It's not about looking good or impressing anyone. It's about becoming so comfortable with your own aliveness, so skilled at expressing your own truth, that your very presence becomes a gift to the world.

And that, I think, is what it means to be a virtuoso of the present moment. And developing this freedom - this capacity for creative responsiveness - this is what transforms dance from a display of predetermined skills into a genuine conversation with life itself.