Silas Farley and Eric Delgado explained how harnessing the power of opposition keeps movement from collapsing. The technique uses opposing forces in the body, such as pulling the head up while grounding the feet, to achieve stability, mobility, and artistry across ballet, jazz, and hip-hop.
Ballet Partnering and Center Dynamics in Movement
A tricky partnered promenade in George Balanchine’s Firebird demonstrates how opposition prevents movement from collapsing. Silas Farley, Southern Methodist University’s Armstrong Artist in Residence in Ballet and a former New York City Ballet dancer, noted that the male lead must counterbalance the ballerina while inscribing a huge circle around her. Farley recalled rehearsing the step with partner Sara Mearns, who advised him not to muscle through the gestures.
Opposition requires more than two bodies or body parts moving in opposite directions. From architectural balletic choreography to precise jazz kick-lines and fluid hip-hop isolations, harnessing opposition aids stability, mobility, and artistry onstage. In a pirouette, a dancer lengthens through the top of the head while grounding down through the supporting foot. In a jump, a dancer pushes into the floor to propel upwards.
Eric Delgado, a New York City–based choreographer and teacher, prefers the term “push through” rather than “push against” the floor to describe how dancers achieve an airy quality on top of stable legs. In his street style, Delgado might have dancers step lightning-fast in one direction while their bodies roll like liquid on another plane. Delgado cited Australian dancer Caetlyn Watson as an example of someone who finds fluidity and lift through groundedness.
“Her plié is so, so deep,” Delgado said of Watson. “Her knees are always bent and her hips are so low to the ground, even when it feels like she’s like elongating or standing up straight.”
Training Grounded Expansion Without Heels
Danelle Morgan, a Radio City Rockette dancer, dance captain, and assistant choreographer, prepares participants in the Rockettes Preparatory program by having them rehearse without their heels if they fail to use the floor for lift. Rehearsing flat helps dancers actively find expansion so they can still articulate and find grounding in a heel.
Farley uses the idea of a cruciform, or cross, to illustrate that opposition begins in the body’s center. When standing in fifth position en face with arms in second position, the head pulls through the ceiling, the legs pull into the ground, and the arms reach away from the center.
“This gives the whole body energy and life and creates an incredible dynamism, even when the body isn’t moving,” Farley said. “There’s that sense of radiance in all directions.”
Farley added that opposition must return to the intersection in the center so the dancer is not pulled apart in a dismembered way. Delgado suggested thinking of the hip-hop torso as a single piece of paper with shoulders and hips as the corners, addressing the shoulder, elbow, forearm, and wrist from the center out. Morgan also noted that when arms go up, shoulder blades should press down to activate the back.
| Choreographer / Expert | Discipline / Background | Key Opposition Technique |
|---|---|---|
| Silas Farley | Ballet (SMU / NYCB) | Cruciform center balance and tension-release modulation |
| Eric Delgado | Street Style / Hip-Hop | Pushing through the floor and corner-initiated torso isolations |
| Danelle Morgan | Radio City Rockettes | Heel-free floor articulation and scapular downward pressure |
| Anke Hauerstein | Gyrotonic / Gyrokinesis / Graham Technique | Pelvic “seed center” compression for spinal decompression |
Spiraling Outward from the Pelvic Seed Center
Anke Hauerstein, a Gyrotonic and Gyrokinesis expert and master trainer who trained in Martha Graham’s opposition between contraction and release, adopted Gyrotonic and Gyrokinesis founder Juliu Horvath’s principle of the “seed center” in the pelvis. Hauerstein explained that narrowing or compressing the pelvis creates internal expansion and spinal decompression. The seed center imagery features roots growing into the earth and branches reaching up, distributing forces from the pelvis through the spine to the crown of the head.
Balanchine’s partnering and the teachings of Peter Boal, Pacific Northwest Ballet artistic director and Farley’s former teacher, showed that the center must be strong without being rigid. Farley contrasted “blockers,” who harbor too much tension and cannot bend or access their plié, with “leakers,” whose energy is too diffuse to create stability.
“The idea of suspension or syncopation—it’s gathering all of your energy so it can burst forth with a particular emphasis in the music,” Farley said. Applying these techniques translates opposition from a technical exercise into an expressive dance.
