MDPE.11:4.5.1 - Choosing an optional articulation during a phrase

In this constructed performance case, a pair has prepared a repeating small-step phrase followed by a change of direction. Its agreed material fixes the transfer timing and direction change but leaves a free-leg tap optional. Both participants can already perform the simpler phrase. During one repetition, the initiating performer adds the tap before that foot accepts weight. The partner starts the direction change at the tap and then hesitates because the transfer is not ready. The performer feels the unexpectedly early response through their connection. That response warrants adjusting the phrase; it does not reveal, by itself, everything the partner perceived.

On the next repetition, while the performance continues, the performer omits the optional tap. The foot continues its sliding preparation, the body completes the transfer at the agreed point, and movement carries on into the direction change. The performer changes articulation within the prepared material; neither the transfer timing nor the next direction is newly composed. In the stipulated result, the partner continues without the earlier hesitation. After the phrase, the partner reports having taken the earlier tap-related contact change as weight arrival, whereas the second repetition made the arrival clear. The source analogy helped identify a variable to change: remove the competing accent while preserving the continuing movement and usable transfer.

The direct result is the phrase this pair actually enacts in the constructed occurrence, including that adjustment and continuation. The performer keeps the simpler version for the next repetition. Recovering an audible ornament becomes a later candidate-comparison question under MDPE.9, not an obligation to solve it during this performance. The partner’s report and the observed response support that local choice; they do not demonstrate a general effect for other partners or establish one mandatory Balboa teaching sequence. Audio can locate the tap, video can show floor contact and movement, and a contact or force trace can indicate pressure changes. Those observations cannot replace the partner’s report about the perceived event, nor does that report locate a physical force maximum.