Codified Exercises
Five codified exercises from the guide — the fixed, transmitted sequence of counts as written, set beside a diasporic reframing, each with a video slot so the codification can be seen as well as read.
The order below is the shape of a Cunningham-based class as taught in the CBLM materials. Everything in this module sits inside it: the codified exercises are fixed, the sequence they live in is what makes them legible as a class rather than a set of drills.
- Warming up — bounces, pulses, deep stretches
- Pliés — on 8, and on 2
- Exercises for the back and shoulders — on 8, on 6, arms overhead
- Tendus, beats and lunges — on 8 and on 6
- Rond de jambe on 8
- Locomotion and coordination — travelling, turns, spirals
- Triplets with locomotion
Companies and schools carrying this class structure include Rambert Dance Company and Rambert School, alongside the Merce Cunningham Trust’s own teaching programme — a reminder that the codification travels institutionally, and that whoever holds the institution holds the version.
Cunningham-Based Technique Learning Materials (CBLM), course Sway“I use ballet terminology, which is taboo in some branches of the Cunningham family.”Roberts, “Living Inside the Instrument” (2010)
“I bring in skeletal work from Alexander Technique and Pilates, to counteract some of the harsh effects of Merce’s technique.”
Roberts disagrees with much of this project’s argument about authority, and then describes a class in which the codification is already being altered: outside vocabulary imported, outside somatic practices brought in to soften what the form does to bodies over time. He is candid that this is contested inside the lineage.
Take the admission seriously and the question changes. It is no longer whether the exercises should be adapted — they are adapted, everywhere, including by teachers who trained in the company. The question is which adaptations get to be called maintenance and which get called deviation, and who decides. The variations recorded in this module are made in that same spirit, and stated openly rather than absorbed silently into “the way the class is taught.”
Daniel Roberts, interviewed by Edith Boxberger, “Living Inside the Instrument,” in Tanztechniken 2010 (IDA — Institute of Dance Arts, Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität Linz)1. Bounces ›
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Begin in parallel position with a neutral spine, arms down. The musical phrases vary in length: 16, 2 (transition), 16, 16, 4 (transitions), 16, 4 (transition) and repeat.
“Engage the muscles of the abdomen to support the spine and then curve the upper back forward into space keeping the pelvis in a neutral position, stacked over the legs and feet. The arms round slightly with the weight of the hands reaching toward the floor. The shoulders stay wide and open as the back curves forward.”Cunningham Technique Guide, §6.1.1
16 pulses forward, gently stretching and lengthening the spine while supporting the abdomen at the front of the body. Roll up (2 counts) to neutral, then 4 demi-pliés in parallel; repeat the sequence tilting right for 16, roll up and switch arms, repeat tilting left, then step out to 2nd and repeat the curve, pliés and twist-and-curve on both diagonals.
“To stretch the spine, moving it in a variety of ways while maintaining the neutrality of the pelvis and legs… to warm up the entire body at the onset of class.”
Distinct movements of the torso apart from the legs; a vertical pelvis stacked over the feet; energy rooted through pelvis and legs into the floor to free the torso above; knees over 2nd toe in plié.
Hands on the hips to feel unwanted lower-body changes; a slightly wider parallel for stability; give only half the phrase and build over multiple classes; or keep only the curved positions, introducing tilt and twist-and-curve as dancers progress.
Sequential vs. polycentric. Bounces isolate one section of the spine while the rest holds still — sequential differentiation. Gottschild’s polycentrism describes diasporic vernacular forms where multiple centers (hips, shoulders, spine, head) stay independently active at the same time, in conversation rather than in sequence. Same anatomical target — the mobile, articulate spine — organized by two different logics of simultaneity. A useful compare/contrast for students who arrive with training in polycentric forms and have been told their instinct is “extra.”
Gottschild (1996)The wide-parallel simplification is also worth naming out loud: widening the base to protect the neutral pelvis is a pedagogical accommodation, not a correction. The dancer arriving with a grounded, weight-shifting base isn’t doing it wrong — they’re answering a different question about where the torso’s freedom comes from.
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The Alston/Price reading of the bounces keeps the architecture of the guide — neutral pelvis, wide shoulders, energy rooted through the legs — but changes the quality of the pulse. Instead of sixteen evenly measured bounces, the phrase is felt as a breath cycle: the first few pulses are given away into the floor, the middle of the phrase gathers, and the last pulses are already lifting toward the roll-up. The spine is asked to rebound rather than to be pressed, so the movement is elastic on the way out and buoyant on the way back.
In the tilt and twist-and-curve repeats, the variation allows the supporting side to soften and the weight to travel slightly across the base, so the torso swings through the shape rather than arriving at it. The demi-pliés between phrases become part of the rebound — a small drop that feeds the next set of pulses instead of a reset.
Teaching note: run the phrase twice — once as written, once Alston/Price-wise — and ask dancers where the pulse originates. It is a direct way into the polycentric question raised in the reframe panel without abandoning the codified frame.
Alston / Price lineage — Cunningham technique in British contemporary training2. Deep Stretches ›
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Begin in 2nd position, arms side. Counts: 6 phrases of 8 followed by two phrases of 6.
“deep/grand plié in 2nd while changing the pelvis and uncurling the spine into a flatback with the head reaching forward and arms opening to the side… In general, it is not necessary that the flatback be parallel to the floor. Finding the flatback position, even if it is on a diagonal, is the goal. Over time, it may be possible to lower the spine, but each individual dancer’s proportions must be considered.”Cunningham Technique Guide, §6.1.2
Set 1: curve, deep plié into flatback, rise, lift to neutral (repeat). Set 2: twist-and-curve to diagonal, plié, flatback on the diagonal, rise, twist to opposite side. Set 3: 4th position, back curve with arms overhead, uncurl to flatback, brush the back leg. Set 4: 6-count curve / flatback / lift with arms overhead.
Introduces the flatback and its maintenance in deep hip flexion, bent or straight legs. A deep stretch of the hip and a strengthening exercise for hamstrings and deep rotators.
Finding a flatback when extending from a curve; energy forward out the top of the head so weight doesn’t push back into the heels; in 4th, take a large stance and keep hips square.
Hands on hips, fold at the hips into a flatback (allowed on a diagonal), plié, straighten, return to neutral — 2 counts per phase, repeatable in 1st and 2nd. Add curve-to-flatback over time.
What is a stretch for? Deep pliés paired with articulate torso work were, in the same historical moment, being built into a very different synthesis by Katherine Dunham — whose technique explicitly fused ballet and modern vocabulary with Haitian, Cuban, and West African forms rather than treating that fusion as friction to be smoothed. Where this guide treats the deep stretch mainly as preparatory (hip and hamstring work, in service of later phrasework), Dunham technique treats deep plié and torso articulation as expressive content in themselves.
Das, Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora (2017)The guide’s own concession — “each individual dancer’s proportions must be considered” — opens a door: the flatback is not a fixed geometric object, it’s a negotiated shape. Worth teaching that negotiation as the exercise’s content, not its accommodation.
3. Pliés — on 8, and on 2 ›
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“This exercise involves the use of both a curve, twist of the back done facing the front, and to each forward-facing diagonal. This exercise has more of a flow than the ‘plié exercise on 8’.” Demi-pliés and a full plié are taken in each position, with the torso curving and twisting on the descent and returning through vertical on the rise.
The same material compressed: one plié per two counts, so the back-work has to happen inside the descent rather than after it. Legs turned out; pelvis kept vertical; knees tracking over the second toe.
CBLM Sway, “Pliés”Descent as a value. The plié in this technique is a route to verticality — you go down in order to be accurately up. Across diasporic vernacular forms, the bent-knee, lowered relationship to the ground is not preparatory but expressive: the get-down is the place where the dance lives. Teaching both readings in the same exercise lets students feel that the shape is shared and the value assigned to it is not.
Gottschild (1996); Daniel (2005)The “on 2” version rewards dancers who already phrase weight quickly. Name that as an asset rather than treating the slower 8 as the true version and the 2 as the test.
7. Exercise on 6 ›
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Begin in parallel position with a neutral spine, arms to the side. Four sets of 6-count phrases, each side.
1: plié and twist right, lifting both arms side. 2: curve the back, keeping shoulders parallel to the floor. 3: center back, keeping the curve. 4: change pelvis, uncurl to flatback, keeping plié. 5: straighten legs, back rises maintaining flatback. 6: change pelvis, lift to neutral. Repeat left.
1–2 as Set 1. 3: uncurl to flatback with twist right, continue through the neck, eyes up to right hand. 4: untwist and curve to the front. 5: straighten, arch upper back, chest to ceiling. 6: center to neutral.
1–2 as Set 1. 3: uncurl to a hinge back, twisting right; eyes down to right hand. 4: untwist maintaining the hinge (also taught as an arch), focus up on the diagonal. 5: repeat twist right. 6: straighten, spine to neutral.
1: curve upper back. 2: plié. 3: uncurl into a hinge. 4: add an arch. 5: straighten, maintaining the arch. 6: bring the back upright.
Moves the back continually through multiple positions while keeping the hips neutral and the knees over the feet in plié. Twist facilitates spinal flexibility without distorting the hips, knees, or feet; “stretch and rotate the back from where it joins the pelvis, as deeply as possible.”
Separate the plié from the twist on count 1 before combining them. Keep the arms bent with fingertips on the shoulders so the movement generates from deep in the torso, not from the arms. Teach one set at a time.
Cunningham Technique Guide, §6.1.7
“One new thing” is calibrated. This exercise builds complexity by adding one back position at a time onto a held twist — sequential, additive, and the guide is explicit that pacing it slowly is a pedagogical value. Ananya Chatterjea’s work is useful here: what counts as “one new thing” or as manageable complexity is calibrated to a particular training history. A dancer arriving from a technique built on simultaneous multi-center coordination may not experience the same moment as complex at all — and a student for whom sequential isolation is the unfamiliar skill may need the opposite pacing.
Chatterjea, Butting Out (2004)The fingertips-on-shoulders simplification is a beautiful pedagogical device — and worth naming what it assumes: that arm activity would otherwise “leak” energy the torso should be generating. Which torso, generating what, for which aesthetic outcome? Worth asking, rather than absorbing.
8. Arm Overhead — Single Arm Exercise on 8 ›
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Begin in parallel position with the right arm rounded overhead. 16 counts each side, often repeated.
1: large curve forward, head and arm reaching forward; palm turns to the floor or stays rounded. ½: return upright, arm rounded overhead. 2: large tilt right, arm overhead. ½: return upright, lower right arm, lift left straight side. 3: shift ribcage left, shoulders parallel to the floor. ½: center ribs. a: lower left arm. 4: lower back curve in plié, left arm reaches forward palm up, upper back arched. ½: return to neutral, circle left arm back to overhead.
5–8: repeat on the left. Then circle the spine with arm overhead — forward, tilt right, arch, tilt left — without disturbing the pelvis stacked over the legs. Continue the circle, switch arms, repeat on the opposite side. Lift to center. Repeat entire sequence on the left; often repeated again on both sides.
“The first curve in the exercise has often been referred to as a ‘whip’. It is a more forceful action, creating a curve from even lower in the spine, in a sharper fashion.”Cunningham Technique Guide, §6.1.8
Rib-cage isolation while shoulders stay parallel; length on both sides of the torso; during the lower-back curve the arm bends slightly palm-up as a reaction to the back, arm at shoulder level, gaze up on the diagonal. “There should be no extra flourishes of the arms or hands.”
The tilt and shift can be given with a step to parallel 2nd plié for stability. Common variations: first three back movements done with parallel lunges (front, side, side); small steps forward/side/back/side during the back circles; turned-out position with or without the lunges; a stretch on the last four counts — fold at the hips with hands on the floor, plié, straighten, roll up.
The “whip” is already doing the work. The guide’s own word — “whip” — names a sudden, percussive attack inside an otherwise sustained phrase. That’s close to what Gottschild calls high-affect juxtaposition: sharp contrast in dynamic quality, placed right next to its opposite, without a smoothing transition. It’s a small but real point of contact between the guide’s own vocabulary and an Africanist aesthetic vocabulary usually treated as external to Cunningham technique. Worth naming out loud — the “whip” is already doing Africanist-adjacent work in the room, whether or not the guide frames it that way.
Gottschild (1996)Which flourish counts? “No extra flourishes of the arms or hands” is a defensible aesthetic rule — and a value judgment about which embellishments are “extra.” For a student trained in a form where hand articulation is syntax, not decoration, the rule reads as a specific choice rather than a universal cleanup. Teach it as a choice.
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Richard Alston’s handling of the single-arm exercise on 8 keeps the Cunningham architecture — pelvis stacked, shoulders parallel, arm rounded overhead — but loosens the attack. The curve, tilt, rib-shift and lower-back curve are phrased as one continuous travelling breath rather than four discrete arrivals: the arm leads and the spine follows it late, so the shape is read on the way through the count rather than on the count. Where the guide asks for a “whip” into the first curve, the Alston reading lets the impulse start in the back and arrive in the hand, and often adds a small step or weight shift under the tilt so the exercise travels off the spot.
Teaching note: run it twice — once to the guide’s counts, once Alston-wise — and ask what changes in the room. The difference is not choreographic detail but a different theory of where a movement begins, which is exactly the question the reframe panel is asking of the codification itself.
Alston lineage — Cunningham technique in British contemporary training9. Exercise on 8 ›
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Begin in parallel position with both arms rounded overhead. 8 counts each side, often repeated.
1: large arch, arms extend diagonally side, palms out. ½: circle arms back and down, lift spine to neutral. 2: arrive swiftly in flatback, plié, arms diagonal side, palms down. 3: lift spine upward into a curve, head and arms soften. ½: keep plié, lift head/spine/pelvis to upright neutral, arms open side. 4: lower-back curve, arms side. 5: maintaining the lower-back curve, twist torso right through the neck; right arm folds rounded in front of the chest. 6: straighten legs, untwist, spine to neutral, lower right arm, lift left rounded overhead through the front. 7: relevé and twist left, lower left arm, right arm rounded overhead through the front. 8: keeping the twist, add an arch, head reaching back in space. ½: lower heels, untwist keeping the arch, lift left arm overhead. Repeat left, then both sides again.
“This exercise incorporates complex movements of the back… there is continued strengthening, stretching and mobilizing of the spine while always working with a steady neutral base in the legs and feet.”Cunningham Technique Guide, §6.1.9
Pelvis stacked on legs and feet during the opening arch, with shoulders reaching behind that base. Depth of plié does not shift between flatback and coming upright — keep energy forward through the top of the head. Plié pliant, front of ankles relaxed, feet fully on the floor. In the final arch, the head goes back in space, not out on the diagonal.
Beginners: explore the flatback in parallel plié, find a curve, return to flatback, come upright with or without the arch, arms on hips / fingertips on shoulders / stretched to the diagonal. Variations: repeat the arch and flatback on 1–2; repeat the curve on 3; three quick twists in the lower-back curve instead of one; or simply rise on 7–8, eliminating the final twist and arch.
Cool base, hot surface. The design here is a contained, unhurried base carrying turbulent, complex activity above it — twist inside a curve, arch inside a twist. Robert Farris Thompson’s “aesthetic of the cool” describes exactly this structure across a wide range of West African and diasporic performance traditions: a composed, steady surface holding intense or contradictory activity underneath, where the coolness of the base is what makes the complexity legible rather than chaotic. A genuine point of resonance, not just contrast — useful to offer students as a place where the two vocabularies are describing the same design principle from different histories.
Thompson, African Art in Motion (1974)“Familiar and comfortable.” The guide advises adding variations only when dancers are “familiar and comfortable” with the original. Chatterjea again: what counts as familiar is a function of the room’s training histories. “Comfortable” can quietly mean “comfortable to the teacher’s trained eye.”
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The Alston/Price reading of the exercise on 8 holds every shape the guide names — arch, flatback, curve, lower-back curve, twist, relevé, final arch — but re-phrases the counts as one continuous spiral rather than eight arrivals. The half-counts are treated as travel, not as pauses: the arms circle back and down while the spine is already climbing, so flatback and curve read as two points inside a single sweep of the back.
The twist begins in the pelvis and lower back and arrives last in the head, which keeps the neck long and stops the twist from becoming a look. In the relevé, weight rides slightly forward over the balls of the feet so the final arch is a suspension rather than a drop back, and the untwist on the half-count is allowed to travel — a small shift of the base under an otherwise stationary exercise.
Teaching note: take the phrase at half tempo first so dancers can feel the spiral, then restore the counts. Ask what the exercise teaches when it is legato rather than articulated — that difference is the “cool base, hot surface” question the reframe panel raises, put into the body.
Alston / Price lineage — Cunningham technique in British contemporary training10. Tendu / Beats / Lunges — on 8, and on 6 ›
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“This exercise involves a tendu/beat to each of the cardinal directions (unlike ballet), while curving and tilting the spine to the front, side, and back in coordination with the feet. This exercise is done turned out.”
“This exercise involves a tendu/beat to the front, side, and back, while curving and shifting weight to the front, side, and back. This exercise is done turned out.”
CBLM Sway, “Tendu / Beats / Lunges”Cardinal directions, not ballet’s front. The insistence that the leg works to every cardinal point — and that the spine curves and tilts with it — quietly undoes the single-front, audience-facing body ballet assumes. That decentring of front is one of the places where Cunningham’s spatial logic and diasporic circle-based spatial practice can be put in conversation instead of opposition.
Gottschild (1996); DeFrantz (2004)11. Rond de jambe on 8 ›
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“This exercise uses the back while curving and shifting weight to the front, side, and back. This exercise is done turned out.” The circling leg is continuous while the torso takes discrete curves and weight shifts against it.
CBLM Sway, “Rond de jambe on ‘8’”Continuous leg against articulated torso is functionally a two-centre problem — the exact coordination polycentric training already builds. Students who can hold two rhythms at once are advantaged here; say so, rather than letting the skill pass as generic “musicality.”
12. Locomotion, coordination & triplets ›
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The travelling section of class: triplets across the floor, turns, and lunges into spirals. Counts stay strict while the body leaves its fixed spot — the codification is tested against travel, direction change, and momentum.
CBLM Sway, “Locomotion and Coordination” / “Triplet with Locomotion”Twist vs. spiral. The lunge-and-spiral material is where the distinction matters most: a twist holds the pelvis and turns the ribs against it; a spiral lets the whole column travel. Diasporic training tends to arrive already spiralling. Rather than correcting toward twist, teach the difference as two available choices and ask students to name which one they are doing.
Macmillan’s variations ›
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Three works that carry Cunningham-derived line into McMillan’s research on race, religion, and queer memory. Use them as study material for how codified technique can be reframed without being abandoned: the same line, held under a different devotional and political pressure.
- In the Upper Room — a reading of verticality and ascent through the body, placed next to Cunningham’s up/down contrasts.
- Have a Little Talk With Jesus — gospel phrasing as rhythmic material; the body’s address to something outside the room.
- Precious Memories — the archive made personal; memory and inheritance worked through the same spine the codification trains.
Each video slot above is for your own teaching documentation: link a performance, rehearsal, or class capture so the variation can be seen as well as named.
McMillan, “Unauthorised: Making and Teaching in / through Diasporic Cunningham Technique” (2024)Which exercise from the guide would you add as a sixth case study, and why?
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