Contemporary technique tips: Let it go

In the third instalment of our series on contemporary technique, Nina Levy talks to Alice Lee Holland about how to improve your floor work.

For classically-trained dancers, getting down and dirty (sometimes literally!) on the floor can be a challenge. After all, classical ballet is about defying rather than embracing gravity. But floor work is standard not just in contemporary dance but often in contemporary ballet as well.
So what can you do if you’re struggling to make friends with the floor? Nina Levy asked Alice Lee Holland, the 2018 artistic associate for Chunky Move. Holland is a director, choreographer and dance animateur who has worked with hundreds of young Australian dancers in Safety Release Technique, most notably in Perth as artistic director of Steps Youth Dance Company (now Co3) and lecturer in dance at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.

Know the floor
In order to develop a skill, it’s important to understand exactly what that skill is and what it involves. So what are we talking about when we refer to floor work? . . .

This is a sneak peek of the full article in the April May issue of Dance Australia. Read it, touch it, keep it! And all for a mere $8.50. Buy the new issue at your favourite magazine retailer or purchase an online copy via the Dance Australia app or subscribe here.