Corporeality in Partner Dance: Rediscovering the Body Through Forró
- Rafael Piccolotto de Lima
- May 26, 2020
- 7 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
In partner dancing, we often talk about technique, musicality, connection, and repertoire. But there is another layer that is much harder to define and explain: corporeality.
This article is a personal reflection about how certain encounters, artistic collaborations, and periods of individual practice transformed the way I understand body expression in forró and partner dance.
Corporeality - Of the nature of the physical body; bodily.
Today I share with you a recent experience of mine, a process in which I’m still very immersed. I am living a phase of new discoveries and explorations regarding my dance, part of a journey that started some time ago and intensified during the period of social distancing and online teaching.
Entering Someone Else’s Dance Universe
In 2019 I had the joy of hosting at my apartment and traveling with two of my very favorite forró dancers and instructors: Camila Alves and Milena Morais. We were on a United States and Canada tour for a little more than two months.
It was a period of great impact on both my dance and my life.
And this was not by chance.
I wanted to help the local forró scene evolve, but I also found myself in a privileged position to fulfill a personal wish: the wish to work closely with two artists that I deeply admire and to challenge the limits of my own dance.
Camila was here between August and September. Milena arrived in October.
I remember telling both of them something very similar:
“I want to enter your dance universe, learn a little bit of your way of dancing, and, in a way, be able to see through your eyes for a second.”
I also explained that one of the main reasons I invested so much effort into making this tour happen - and it truly was a lot of work - was precisely because I wanted to challenge myself dancing and teaching alongside them.
Since my late teenage years, I have understood the importance of surrounding myself with people I admire artistically. I believe this is one of the best ways to evolve intentionally and to create work we are genuinely proud of.
This story is another example of that process.
The Frustration of Not Knowing Exactly How to Improve
I asked both of them many times:
“What and how can I improve?”
“What could I do differently in my dance?”
But their answers were often elusive.
Sometimes they would ask for time to think. Sometimes they would unintentionally dodge the question. And yet, after every dance, every workshop, every demonstration we taught together, I felt deeply challenged.
Every performance and every shared dance created in me the desire to contribute more fully to that artistic partnership.
I admit that this was sometimes frustrating. I couldn’t clearly identify what exactly needed to change. My thoughts became as undefined as their answers. At every dance I experimented with something different, trying new possibilities without having a clear path in front of me.
And yet, that challenge was also deeply satisfying.
I could feel the transformative power of those moments.
I believe now that this uncertainty was part of the beauty of the process itself: the beauty of creative adaptation.
Partner dance allows us to create unique experiences as a result of two individuals finding a middle ground between their corporeality, musicality, and repertoire of movements.
If you want to explore more about how musicality and movement interact beyond choreography and memorized patterns, I wrote more about this here:
Corporeality and Creative Adaptation
Dancing with Camila and Milena made me feel, more than ever, the creative possibilities hidden inside partner dance.
Their bodies would suggest the things that their words would not tell me.
It was - and continues being - a process of rediscovery of my own body and movement possibilities within this dance form.
One particular night here at home, Milena and I decided to dance in the yoga room inside my building. It is usually empty late at night. That evening she finally made a more substantial comment about my dance. She told me something that felt abstract at the time, but gradually became clearer over the following months:
“Explore more your body in the dance.”
At that moment, I did not fully understand what she meant, much less envision a concrete path for transformation.
But we danced many songs together, and little by little she began suggesting small possibilities for me to explore. We experimented with those ideas together, and it was wonderful.
At the same time, I knew it would be a much longer journey.
Rediscovering the Body During Isolation
Months later, I started understanding those conversations differently.
My body continued processing and assimilating what I believe Milena wanted to communicate that night. Her body - and Camila’s as well - kept teaching me through memory, sensation, and movement possibilities.
This process became even more intense during the pandemic, beginning a few months later.
Since I stopped teaching my regular in-person classes, I started focusing heavily on online teaching and individual movement exploration. Most of what I practiced and taught during that period involved ways of expressing music through the body using the entire body - not only through figures or partner dynamics.
Corporeality and musicality.
If you’re interested in how practicing alone can transform partner dancing and body awareness, I explored this topic more deeply here:
During almost two decades of social dancing and several years teaching weekly classes in New York, much of my focus has been on flow, connection, a comfortable embrace, musicality, and partner interaction.
But after these experiences, the exploration of my whole body in the dance started becoming another central focus of my practice.
I started realizing that my body itself could become a much larger source of creativity, musicality, and expression inside the dance.
I began seeing new movement possibilities.
And interestingly, much of this exploration happened while dancing alone.
Almost three months of isolation passed, and I spent a huge amount of time practicing individually. It was both challenging and deeply satisfying in its own way.
But let me confess something here:
Even while immersed in these discoveries, I anxiously waited for the opportunity to rediscover what happens when this individual corporeality encounters another person again.
Because ultimately, that interaction remains one of the most beautiful aspects of social dancing.
Corporeality, Musicality, and Partner Dance
Over time, I’ve come to realize that corporeality, musicality, and connection are not separate elements inside partner dance.
They constantly influence each other.
The more possibilities we develop inside our own bodies, the more possibilities we bring into the interaction with another person. And the more musical and physically aware we become individually, the richer and more adaptable the dance relationship can become.
This also changed the way I think about creativity in forró.
Instead of seeing creativity only as inventing movements or accumulating repertoire, I began seeing it as the ability to reorganize movement, musicality, touch, rhythm, timing, and bodily expression in real time.
If you want to explore more about how this affects connection and interaction inside social dancing, I also wrote about this here:
And perhaps this is part of why no two dances ever feel exactly the same.
Each body carries different histories, possibilities, tensions, sensitivities, and musical responses into the interaction.
And somewhere between those differences, something unique can emerge.
Corporeality.
Mine, yours, and perhaps our together.
Epilogue
Once I finished writing this blog post (dated May 2020), I sent it to Camila and Milena, since they are the protagonists of this story.
Result?
I received a list of critiques and commentaries. Haha.
Jokes apart, both of them made important comments and suggestions throughout our tours together. That particular night of explorations with Milena expanded my horizons regarding forró dance and made me rethink my dancing as a whole.
Camila, on the other hand, constantly challenged my posture and we had long conversations about stepping patterns in relation to the zabumba beats. The themes we prepared together for classes and workshops also had a profound influence on how I think about teaching dance today.
Their comments to students during events and workshops also became opportunities for me to reflect on my own movement and teaching process.
I do not believe there is only one correct way of dancing or moving.
Each dance is unique, and each partner brings different elements into the experience. Over the years I have heard many different perspectives, sometimes even contradictory ones.
And honestly, I’m glad it is that way.
Let’s continue our bodily explorations.
If you want to explore more about rhythm, musicality, body awareness, and individual practice inside forró, these articles may also interest you:
Luckily, I was able to record many videos during those trips, classes, and events. If you are curious, there are playlists on my YouTube channel with videos organized from those experiences.
Over the years, many of these reflections gradually became part of the way I teach musicality, body awareness, improvisation, and partner dance through Forró New York classes and online courses.
If you want to join me in this journey of exploring corporeality, musicality, and body expression in forró, you can learn more here:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rafael Piccolotto de Lima is the Founder and Educational Director of Forró New York, as well as a Latin Grammy-nominated composer, arranger, and music director.
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