Oberlin Online News Sheri Cohen shows one of the students how to roll over another. The contact between partners develops into a dance with two people sharing a point of contact and pouring their weight into it. For others, it's a process for finding new choreographic ideas. Some people perform it, others do it as a practise or discipline.
Some people look at it and see gymnastics, or wrestling, or swing dance.
Dancers are as likely to be on the floor as standing, and sometimes they're flying on someone else's shoulders. Participants in the Oberlin Winter Term class met twice a day for two weeks to explore the basic principals of falling, recovering, and pouring weight. Two students fall to the floor. Cohen and a student work on another student's recovery from a fall.