Documents 

This article proposes a methodology for training partnering in aerial dance that I developed while restaging a trapeze duet with four undergraduate students in a semester-long performance course. Due to safety considerations inherent in the aerial arts, including risk of falling, beginning instruction typically focuses on individual skill acquisition and solo performance. Training for partnering, defined as two dancers sharing one apparatus, involves re-calibrating foundational aerial skills while sharing space and weight with another person. It also involves a shift in perspective from focusing solely on one’s own personal safety to attending to the well-being of another. To facilitate this transition, I implemented a training programme focused on soft skill development alongside physical skill acquisition. Drawing on my embodied lineage of modern dance and improvisation, I adapted ground-based dance exercises that highlight cognitive and interpersonal skills for a novel context in the air. I found this methodology effective in helping novice duo performers safely and successfully achieve aerial partnering choreography.

To advance understanding of the mechanisms allowing for team coordination (TC) in complex motor actions, we conducted a qualitative study with eight elite hand-to-hand circus acrobats. Data collection consisted of field observations, an open-ended interview with the participants’ head coach, and focus group interviews with all acrobats. Data analysis yielded three higher order themes: TC, collective efficacy (CE), and TC-CE linkage. Teammates’ shared and complementary mental models, as well as implicit and explicit communication dynamics, emerged as formative sub-themes of TC; self-efficacy and other’s-efficacy emerged as reflective sub-themes of CE. Our findings also suggest that TC is likely inter-related to CE in a systemic fashion. Practitioners should encourage the development of both shared and complementary models of thinking, while promoting verbal and non-verbal communication skills. Finally, increasing teammates’ confidence in themselves and in their teammates can help in the development of CE as well as the enhancement of TC.