The Micro Genesis of Interpersonal Synergy Insights From Improvised Dance Duets

Ecological Psychology
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The Micro-Genesis of Interpersonal Synergy.

Insights from Improvised Dance Duets
Michael Kimmel
To cite this article: Michael Kimmel (2021) The Micro-Genesis of Interpersonal Synergy.
Insights from Improvised Dance Duets, Ecological Psychology, 33:2, 106-145, DOI:
10.1080/10407413.2021.1908142
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10407413.2021.1908142
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ECOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
2021, VOL. 33, NO. 2, 106–145
https://doi.org/10.1080/10407413.2021.1908142
REPORT
The Micro-Genesis of Interpersonal Synergy. Insights from

Improvised Dance Duets
Michael Kimmel
Cognitive Science Hub, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
ABSTRACT
This article introduces a micro-phenomenological method for inter-
personal synergy research, which operates on a sub-second time-
scale or slightly higher. This is illustrated by two short sequences of
joint creativity from Contact Improvisation (CI), a dance where duets
produce spontaneous interaction patterns in constant flow and with
deep connection of their bodies – their synergies stretch across
body boundaries. My aim was to systematically take stock of compo-
nents of these synergies, to describe sharing patterns, and to recon-
struct how joint functionalities such as acrobatic lifts may
spontaneously emerge. One focus concerns synergy dynamics, from
micro-scale processes of interactive synergy build-up to transitions
and larger “flows” in which one synergy evolves into another. A
complementary focus concerns how a duet structurally organizes its
“collective physics” (weight sharing, skeletal alignment, inter-body
muscle chains, etc.) and adjusts them for regulation purposes. The
proposed method strikes a balance between subjective meanings
and biomechanic descriptiveness, thus providing applied benefits
(e.g., for trainers), scholarly benefits (e.g., for modeling improvised
synergies), and benefits for interdisciplinary discourse.
Introduction
Applying the notion of synergy to interaction means investigating how multiple individ-
uals can coordinate “as if they were one.” Almost everybody recognizes a good interper-
sonal synergy when they experience it, from doing kitchen work or handicrafts
together, via conversations, play, and sex, to sports, dance, and professional environ-
ments. Being a good team, a theater ensemble with stage presence, and a successful cou-
ple in childrearing may relate to the notion of interpersonal synergy. The concept raises
fascinating questions about collective coordination feats both in terms of their roots in
embodied communication and their underlying forms, biomechanics, and skills.
Aims
The scientific study of interpersonal synergy has advanced steadily since the 1990s.
Much of its progress owes to sports science approaches and quantitative tools developed
CONTACT Michael Kimmel michael.kimmel@univie.ac.at Cognitive Science Hub, University of Vienna,

Universit€atsstrasse 7, Vienna, 1010 Austria.
ß 2021 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited.
ECOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY 107
in this context. The present contribution hands scholars (as well as trainers and practi-
tioners) a complementary kind of tool, based on qualitative micro-analysis of inter-
action; it offers conceptual refinements for synergy science based on empirical
investigations of the experience and skills of experts.
The present empirical illustrations concentrate on interpersonal synergy practices of
expert dancers from the “inside,” starting from their subjective meanings, technical
knowledge, and coordinative skills in a skin-to-skin interaction setting. I will present a
fine-grained analysis of two short dance sequences, which exemplarily stand for many
dozens of analyzed similar events and which showcase what a process-sensitive qualita-
tive analysis is capable of: This will combine a structural focus describing inter-body
structures in their “collective physics” (i.e., shared functional physiology) with a
dynamic focus on synergy assembly and how it is mediated by embodied communica-
tion. In the examples to be looked at, interpersonal synergies are not planned or
agreed-upon routine patterns. They emerge spontaneously as two persons communicate
within a shared physical medium.
My inquiry begins with concepts, definitions, and a literature overview, then moves
into a methodology section that prepares for the two case vignettes from improvised
dance, and concludes with a discussion of dimensions of interpersonal synergy and
future research questions.
Definitions and concepts

Synergy means “working together” in Greek. The concept expresses how elements are
coordinated and mutually adjusted to achieve a particular collective behavior, that is,
“functional groupings of structural elements (e.g., nerves, muscles, joints) that are tem-
porarily constrained to act as a single coherent unit” (Kelso, 2009, p. 1537). The concept
of synergy is defined functionally. It is well known that, for example, to extend the arm
in reaching for an object one need not necessarily recruit fixed set of muscles with fixed
placements at the same joint. The same set of components may be used to form differ-
ent synergies (Latash et al., 2008). Inversely, different components can support the same
task (degeneracy) (Harrison & Stergiou, 2015). It is argued that synergy-based coordin-
ation mechanisms can effectively stabilize perturbations and enable non-stereotypical
adaptations to task variations (Latash, 2008; Latash & Zatsiorsky, 2016). These mecha-
nisms provide both flexibility and task stability (Latash, 2012, 2019)1 and explain dexter-
ity in terms of context-sensitive component couplings (Turvey, 2007).
Creating a synergy involves a task-constrained interdependent control of parts within
wholes. Therefore, its descriptive inquiry will include (a) a lower-level set of elements
(specific muscles, joints, fascia, etc.), (b) sharing patterns (limb synchronizations, muscle
chain activations, etc.), and (c) a collective performance variable such as uprightness
in walking.
1
Stability owes to elements co-adapting to stabilize the macro-scopic task, e.g., when one component is blocked,
fatigued, or injured the ensemble rapidly compensates for this (Saltzman & Munhall, 1992) or further components are
incorporated “on demand.” As to flexibility, every task allows a certain range of variance in orchestrating the available
degrees of freedom (Latash & Zatsiorsky, 2016). Flexibility is inherent in how skilled individuals organize their behavior,
since certain dimensions inherently require tighter control than others (Scholz & Scho€ner, 1999) or when needed,
stability-inducing variables can be lowered so that they do not obstruct desired change (surveyed in Latash, 2019).
108 M. KIMMEL
Applied to social interaction contexts, the concept of synergy refers to how two or
more agents temporarily organize themselves for an ensemble task. In this process, ele-
ments from across individuals create a dynamical system by virtue of selective coupling
and synchronization. Ara ujo and Davids (2016, p. 1) define interpersonal synergies as a
“collective property of a task-specific organization of individuals, such that the degrees
of freedom of each are coupled, enabling [them] to co-regulate each other”, thus point-
ing to a system of mutual interdependencies. Four aspects need to be emphasized:
First, the concept implies that individuals create some collective biomechanic func-
tionality through interdependent behavioral organization. This functionality should be
multiplicative, rather than merely additive. It should also exclude externally triggered
synchronizations, such as those of a group of people suddenly running for shelter when
a thunderstorm starts (Searle, 1990), which lack any collective functionality.2
Secondly, the degrees of freedom of individuals are tightly (if selectively) coupled to
supply this function. The global organization should be mathematically low-dimensional
(Oullier & Kelso, 2009; Riley et al., 2011), so that it can be reasonably expressed in a
single coupling equation or otherwise described in ways analogous to the coordination
of elements within a body. Describing the global task norms and optimality conditions
is important for studying synergy, for example, when members of a soccer team interde-
pendently regulate relational states such as distance, angle, or speed difference.
A third hallmark is dynamic responsiveness during a task. Thus, individuals swiftly
adjust to others’ actions or external changes, often to preserve some ensemble function-
ality. This error compensation (Latash, 2008; Latash et al., 2008) often happens in sys-
temic ways, notably via adjustments that are distal from the site of the perturbation or
via global changes (Turvey, 2007).
Fourth and finally, particular patterns of linkage and sharing between components
underlie any macro-scopic synergy. The idea of sharing patterns (Latash, 2008) charac-
terizes the contribution of each component to the whole, thus giving qualitative expres-
sion to covariance or codependency relations that stretch across body boundaries.
Related, Ara ujo and Davids (2016, p. 7) speak of “different ways [elements] can
link together.”
To sum up, elements from across individuals are interdependently organized to estab-
lish a macro-system with a collective functionality. Note that synergies, thus defined,
need not be deliberate, especially not in the sense of advance planning or shared prior
goals. A multiplicative function can arise as intended by one person, by both persons
(via explicit or implicit agreement), arise as a spontaneous interest, be half accidental
(e.g., as outcome of some “save”), or it can even be completely unintended (e.g., when
people fall into lockstep) (Richardson et al., 2007). Just as individual bodies may experi-
ence undesirable “problem coalitions” (Kimmel et al., 2015; Kimmel & Irran, 2021);
similarly, paradoxical interpersonal synergies can arise, which contravene everybody’s
intentions such as accidental mirroring behavior, when two people try to walk past each
other in a narrow corridor (De Jaegher & Di Paolo, 2007).
Importantly, we must take care not to misunderstand joint biomechanics as necessar-
ily implying joint purpose. In non-collaborative interaction forms such as martial arts,
2
The shared functionality of an interpersonal synergy can however be indirectly mediated, for example, if several
players of one soccer team orient themselves relative to the opponent who holds the ball (Gesbert et al., 2017).
one person creates a synergy despite substantial efforts of an opponent to prevent it

(Kimmel & Rogler, 2019; Krabben et al., 2019). The specific forms of dynamic adjust-
ment differ too: Whereas in collaborative synergies individuals compensate for other’s
glitches (Riley et al., 2011) for the sake of the joint task, antagonistic synergy adjustment
does the opposite. It is about counteracting hindrances, neutralizing perturbations from
opponents, amplifying their mistakes, or deceiving them to impose one’s own preferred
synergy. Reciprocal compensation, as Riley and colleagues imply, thus constitutes too
narrow a criterion.
In the interpersonal realm, the medium of synergy creation is almost always informa-
tional, as when soccer team mates interact visually at a distance, and it is often also
physical, as in the mechanics of martial arts grappling. It is equally important to note
that any collective synergy is functionally continuous with lower-scale synergies of the
individual body. Individual coordination follows its own aims (such as staying upright),
yet also becomes the essential tool to manipulate collective synergies, an idea I shall
return to.
Previous research
Interpersonal synergies have been recognized as fundamental in social cognition begin-
ning with, in a broader sense, Merleau-Ponty (1968, p. 142). More recently ecological
psychology has reclaimed the notion (Marsh et al., 2009); researchers variously empha-
size its role for sensorimotor empathy (Chemero, 2016), conversational activity
(Cummins, 2013; Fusaroli et al., 2014; Marsh, 2015), artistic improvisation (Walton
et al., 2015), or the intercorporeal sense-making activities that underlie language (Di
Paolo et al., 2018). Extended cognition theory even speaks of synergies between bio-
logical and non-biological parts (Anderson et al., 2012).
A seminal early study of interpersonal synergy was an experiment of limb synchron-
ization (Schmidt et al. 1990). This led to similar applications to joint walking together,
rocking chairs together, finger tapping, carrying objects together, and joint rope turning
(Fine & Amazeen, 2014; Harrison & Richardson, 2009; Huys et al. 2018; Schmidt et al.,
2011; Sylos-Labini et al., 2018; van der Wel et al., 2011), which confirm synergistic prin-
ciples. For example, the coordination of two people carrying a foam block together or
just walking behind each other at a particular distance resembles the gait of a single
quadruped animal.
A number of studies have also addressed the important role of mechanical coupling
for regulating interpersonal synergies, which may add to perception-action coupling.
For example, concerning quadruped gaits in joint carrying tasks, Lanini et al. (2017)
reclaim a strong role for passive dynamic effects, even if certain coordinative aspects
likely require cognitive regulation strategies. Similarly, two rowers who are connected
by their boat are stabilized in their coordination, especially in antiphase coupling
(Cuijpers et al., 2019). Again related, mechanical coupling can (slightly) improve visual
control of postural sway, and provide mutual benefits even when your partner is less
stable that you, unless you are already extremely stable to begin with (Reynolds &
Osler, 2014). Further evidence indicates that a jointly handled tool can lead to effective
work-sharing strategies, in which each person specializes in one component of the
110 M. KIMMEL
synergy and which provide advantages over performing the task individually (Reed
et al 2006).3
A physical connection, quite irrespective of its mechanical coordination effects, can
also provide the benefit of haptic cues, which facilitate cognitive coordination by con-
veying subtle “information about movement goals rather than providing physical assis-
tance” (Sawers et al., 2017, p. 1). Skilled strategies may be employed to generate this
information. The study last mentioned speculates that participants with dance experi-
ence amplify the force exchange through arm stiffening, whereas van der Wel et al.
(2011) who studied two persons pulling a pole back and forth between two targets, each
controlling one rope, provide direct evidence that the participants strategically let their
forces overlap in time in order to maximize the haptic information.
Overall, the experimental world is beginning to move beyond the study of rhythmic
coupling dynamics as its central paradigm (for a discussion of the limits of this see
Sebanz & Knoblich, 2009). Experiments by de Poel (2016) support the view that only
relatively few between-person synergies show forms of isotropic coupling; most are
anisotropic and gravitate toward a leader-follower distribution or, in some cases, toward
antagonism, where the coupling has a repulsive or inhibitory influence.
Recently, more naturalistic studies have emerged, many of which track synergistic
behavior via time series signatures. Metrics have been developed for quantifying syner-
gies in natural dialog (Fusaroli et al., 2014; Schmidt & Fitzpatrick, 2016) and joint
improvisation (Walton et al., 2015). Aggregate measures for global synergy quantifica-
tion have also been proposed for dyads in rugby, studying the ball carrier and one sup-
port player to “identify the process in which system components vary to stabilize task
specific performance variables” (Passos et al., 2018). Further studies globally distinguish
types of team behaviors (Ara ujo & Davids, 2015), coupling modes (Bourbousson et al.,
2010), and degrees of behavioral fusion (Ara ujo & Davids, 2016).
A number of studies of dynamic pattern formation in competitive sports contexts have
focused on how collective variables, which are held to “sum up” a synergy, change over
time. Thus, in kendo, rugby, boxing, or basketball the collective state is expressible as coor-
dinated velocities, interpersonal geometries, ideal distances, phasing relations, and the like
(Bourbousson et al., 2010; Correia et al., 2016; Esteves et al., 2011; Hristovski et al., 2006;
Travassos et al., 2012; Yamamoto et al., 2016). A study of defensive actions in rugby indi-
cates that the synergy patterns created relative to opponents depend on prior states, notably
on prior interpersonal distance and speed difference (Passos et al., 2008). As regards syner-
gies within a team, Passos et al. (2011) studied how four rugby attackers maintain a dia-
mond-shaped formation and co-adapt their velocities, yet as they get closer to the defense
adopt evasive behaviors that slight change the synergy, as expressed by their
mean distance.
To address the micro-relations of synergies in teams, one study indexed preferred
communication channels in the network of players by comparing link strengths on a
pair-wise basis (Duarte et al., 2012). Furthermore, modes of local coupling to nearby
3
However, it cannot be generalized that joint performance gets superior results by virtue of visual or haptic coupling.
Quite on the contrary, it can even make individual synergies disappear (see Slomka et al., 2015). It is also not
necessarily the case that stable optimization criteria are available in coupled interaction, compared to what is possible
in individual motor synergies (Solnik et al., 2015).
players have been distinguished from coupling with the larger team configuration.
Players do not always attend to the whole team (Bourbousson et al., 2010) and local
information can be effective for coordinating, although guidance that comes from track-
ing the global team dynamics (holoptism) can play a role as well (Bourbousson &
Fortes-Bourbousson, 2016).
Torrents et al. (2010) applied observational coding to interaction units in Contact
Improvisation (CI) dance, distinguishing 49 basic elements such as support stability in
lifts or level changing, allowing them to chart the relative frequencies of different syner-
gies and components. They contrasted three couples and the influence of different
instructional constraints to describe which technical synergies are most common, as well
as describing the rate of exploratory behaviors (Torrents Martın et al., 2015). Even general
research on distributed cognition can be interpreted as researching synergies via activity
scores (Hutchins, 1995), which use synchronized video footage from multiple stations on
a naval vessel to represent coordinated (parallel or sequential) team operations on a plot.
Only most recently, subjectively oriented studies have begun to use stimulated recall
techniques investigate what individuals draw on for perceptual guidance when they cre-
ate interpersonal synergies. Gesbert et al. (2017) show for soccer that this depends on
the logic of the situation, which, for example, determines whether to focus on nearby
players or on more global information. The authors analyze the perceptions of individ-
ual players in a triad, from which collective modes of functioning can be inferred.
Feigean et al. (2018) differentiate informational resources and six associated attentional
modalities with respect to what is happening on the soccer pitch. My own team’s stud-
ies contrast micro-dynamics of improvised synergy (Kimmel et al., 2018) and describe
how two people may converge into creative synergies (Kimmel & Hristova, accepted).
We also analyzed non-collaborative synergies in the martial art Aikido, which can
involve “hijacking” another person’s dynamics (Kimmel & Rogler, 2018), which synergy
an attacker can be defeated by is sensitive to the emergent interaction and thus path-
dependent. Both initial conditions and later reactions of the opponent shape the pre-
ferred tool mix (Kimmel & Rogler, 2019).
Finally, research connecting phenomenological and observational data may have
some pertinence for synergy studies. To study coordination patterns in groups of four
people or more, particular interaction games have been devised (Himberg et al., 2018).
These strive to interrelate the subjective experience of group connectedness with the
observed levels of synchronization.
Method
To grasp interpersonal synergy as a phenomenon happening in and over time, a process
analysis with a high zoom-factor is helpful. This section presents a phenomenological
approach, which was customized to investigate micro-dynamics and structural aspects
of synergy.
Background and research protocol

Micro-genetic research tools aim to investigate how an interaction process unfolds
down to the sub-second scale. Broadly speaking, these tools come in two kinds:
112 M. KIMMEL
Observational methods of a micro-grainsize type have emerged in cognitive science

(Crandall et al., 2006; Fogel et al., 2006; Lavelli et al., 2006; Nomikou et al., 2016;
Steffensen, 2013; Trasmundi & Steffensen, 2016). Complementarily, phenomenologically
oriented methods – sometimes called first and second person methods – have been vari-
ously developed, ranging from the French cours d’action tradition (Gesbert et al., 2017;
Rochat et al., 2018), via related sports contexts (Bourbousson & Fortes-Bourbousson,
2016; Feigean et al., 2018; Gesbert et al., 2017; Kermarrec & Bossard, 2014; Macquet,
2009; Macquet & Fleurance, 2007; Macquet & Kragba, 2015; Nyberg, 2015; R’Kiouak
et al., 2018) to embodied-ecological cognition approaches to dance and martial arts
(Kimmel et al., 2018; Kimmel & Hristova, accepted; Kimmel & Rogler, 2019; Łucznik &
Loesche, 2017). Finally, other phenomenological studies of embodied skills bear brief
mention, which do not have a micro-scale focus (He & Ravn, 2017; Høffding &
Martiny, 2016; Legrand & Ravn, 2009; Ravn & Hansen, 2013).
This analysis is situated within a micro-phenomenological tradition and, more specif-
ically, a dialogic strand which employs a kind of Socratic dialog with informants (Bitbol
& Petitmengin, 2013; Petitmengin, 2006; Valenzuela-Moguillansky & Vasquez-Rosati,
2019). My aim is accessing subjective meanings in ways that stay reasonably close to the
needs of biomechanic modeling.
Three interviewers, one of whom is a long-time expert herself, met with two experi-
enced CI dancers in a workshop setting and asked them to improvise. Together with
the dancers we selected short events, typically of 3–12 seconds length, for a fine-grained
reconstruction. The reconstructive dialog involved multiple “sweeps” (cf. Crandall et al.,
2006; Klein, 2003) that build in intensity from a summary description to a detailed pro-
cess examination, subsequent probes, and hypothetical questioning: We started by ask-
ing the dancers to summarize the event. Then, we created an event timeline and asked
them to globally reference the phases to it, before parsing every phase into sub-
structures. Dancers A and B took turns in giving an account of each of the resulting
“thin slices,” often at the sub-second level, although they were free to comment on each
other any time. This led to a detailed reconstruction of the “who does what when.”
Starting from individual micro-actions shown on the timeline we subsequently worked
our way up to their reciprocal causalities as A and B respond to each other. Lastly, we
asked hypothetical questions about particular junctures of the interaction and alternative
choices that seemed less afforded or were left unexploited for other reasons.
Tools I: Show and tell

Interviews were supported by video-stimulated self-confrontation (cf. Axelsson &
Jansson, 2018; Lyle, 2003; O’Brien, 1993; Sinnott et al., 2017). This allows the partici-
pants to describe facets of their experience while reviewing their dance in slow motion.
It supports an immersive “re-experiencing” that firmly anchors the reports in the
observables. We took care to reference verbalizations and pointing from the informants
to the specific action that appears on the video at the same moment.
Informal forms of quasi-experimentation were added to this, which encouraged the
dancers to repeat movements and actively experiment with variations. They were asked
to explore changed task constraints (timing, initiative, attentional focus, geometry, etc.),
or we introduced specific challenges and perturbations. A “show-and-tell” approach

while exploring variations proved to be a highly powerful intuition pump. The encour-
aged variations make informants acutely aware of small-scale differences that equally
make a difference at the level of the collective dynamic. This clarifies general task con-
straints, dimensions of possible variation, functional alternatives, as well as contingency
reactions such as error compensation and re-routing, which are instructive to learn
about optimal task contexts and the specific points at which a change begins to deteri-
orate the synergy. Since synergistic error compensation and the task-specific variability
range (Latash, 2008; cf. Riley et al., 2011) are central theory topics, this method is a cru-
cial tool.
Tools II: Facilitative interviewing

To optimally assist the experts in reflecting on “what happens when,” we applied a dia-
logic technique known as Explication Interviewing. This method was developed to make
pre-reflective embodied cognition accessible, for example, intuitions and structures
“hidden in the body” (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1999). Explication techniques can notably
make non-observables accessible, such as imagery, intentions and preferences, anticipa-
tion, attention, emotion, pain, proprioception, subtle percepts as well as subtle actions
such as muscle tone changes or breathing, all of which fall through the grid of observa-
tional methods.
Interviewers use facilitative questions in the fashion of a Socratic maieutic dialog,
with the double aim of (a) stabilizing informants’ awareness and arresting attention on
“thin slices” of experience and (b) of encouraging a bodily aware, yet reflexive evocative
state (Depraz et al., 2003; Petitmengin, 2006; Stern, 2004). The dialog stays as closely as
possible with the specific action and perception; it continuously keeps the informants
grounded in the physical reality of the unique moment in focus. To achieve this object-
ive, the interviewers must politely, but firmly discourage associations, explanations, gen-
eral knowledge, or beliefs (Depraz et al., 2003; Froese et al., 2011; Høffding & Martiny,
2016; Petitmengin, 2006; Vermersch, 1994).
The interviewer’s presence (joint breathing, voice modulation, continuity, etc.) con-
tributes to the informant’s evocative state. Interviewers are trained to be sensitive to
hesitation, gaze, etc., to gauge how “connected” the respondent is. They learn to re-
stabilize attention when needed to counteract pitfalls of introspection (Bitbol &
Petitmengin, 2013) such as memory lapse, omission, confabulation, and ad hoc justifica-
tion (Vermersch, 1999). Visual anchoring of the descriptions in the video footage sup-
ports this further in our specific protocol.
To effectively explicate a specific experience sufficient time is needed to elevate to
awareness and verbalize its multiple facets. Therefore, interviewers typically come at the
event from various angles. They also employ iterative checks and frequently re-
paraphrase, which enriches the report of the experience progressively. It is important to
emphasize that the dialogic philosophy of Explication Interviewing includes its own val-
idation procedure through recursive probing until consensual saturation is reached.
In Explication Interviewing, it is important for questions to target the “how” or
“what” of the experience, never the “why.” Accordingly, open questions are preferred
114 M. KIMMEL
such as “what happened next?” “what else did you do?” “what did you perceive?” or
“how do you know you are ready to start/continue?” It is also recommended to use cer-
tain paradoxical probes to break impasses, such as “how do you know you
don’t know?”
Wholes, parts, and sharing

For the specific aims of this research, we additionally developed a set of probes that are
sensitive to our topic of synergy. In this regard, Ara
ujo and Davids (2016) propose that
performance parameters, elements, and sharing patterns need to be reconstructed.
Performance parameters refer to collective functionalities, which ensure task stability
(Bernstein, 1967). Any synergy can be summed up from the viewpoint of its task-
defining outcome, for example, when carrying a heavy object together to keep its
position level and up. A performance parameter has (dynamic) stability and typically
fluctuates less than the subordinate components (e.g., maintaining a stable body center
while the legs stay adjustable for this purpose). To address the performance parameters,
we asked the dancers about important invariants they need to consistently ensure for
the task, for example, the task-defining geometry in which a liftee is placed above a lift-
ing person. Since dancing involves powerful physical interconnections, we also asked
about the underlying “collective physics” of jointly created structures, such as geome-
tries of skeletal alignment in “stacks,” muscle chains, fulcrums and levers, force vectors,
or counterbalance configurations. Asking experts to describe how, for example, a ful-
crum, is created is frequently necessary to understand the collective task and how indi-
viduals work together in support of it.
The network of mutually adjustable elements that stabilize performance parameters
may be termed synergists. A central research aim was to systematically describe what
happens in different parts of the overall synergy. We took stock of elements and asked
about the function and variability of each. Interview probes included “please enumerate
all components whose absence would alter the overall pattern”, “what can go wrong
when doing this together?”, “if you reduce this parameter slowly, when does the action
opportunity disappear or another action become attractive?”, and “what is the smallest
possible variation that would change the outcome?” Furthermore, we inquired into the
specifics of what different body parts are doing and what their specific contribution is
in order to identify the larger functions they are involved in. Furthermore, we fre-
quently encouraged varying parameters such as timing, exact placement, force deploy-
ment, or who acts first. Using the quasi-experimental method sketched above, we
explored how parts adjust either to changes of external task constraints or small-scale
changes in the other person.
Finally, we aimed at identifying how components link up into collective functional-
ities. This has been called sharing patterns (Latash, 2008), which express the qualitative
way a collective function is established between elements through linking them physic-
ally or by sychronizing them. Accordingly, we investigated how connections are built
and kept in an optimal (or viable) state, for example, with respect to how one adjust
one’s behavior so it “hooks into” the inner structure of another person. In terms of gen-
eral habits, we asked about basic prerequisites so other components can successfully
link. At a micro-scale, we took interest in how simultaneous actions are mutually cali-
brated, for example, when the dance couple aligns the body axis of person A with the
axis of person B. A key aspect of this was to capture how smaller synergies form part of
larger ones, which elements behave relatively independently, which rapidly adjust to
variations elsewhere at a local scale, and which events may trigger a global pattern
adjustment (“when element X changes, which other elements need to change?”; “what
did you do to compensate for the change/variation?”).
Analytic reconstruction
The central challenge for this research is to integrate the analysis of synergies with an
interaction analysis – after all the synergies occur not only within, but also quite literally
through interaction. As we shall see, in improvisational domains the small-scale causal-
ities of interaction determine which synergy actually manifests in the end. Interaction
thus “carries” the emergence of a synergy.
To capture how this happens, we identified the individual regulation objectives from
both agent perspectives at a given moment, especially the actions undertaken with
respect to the other person (manipulation, enablement, invitation, dynamic complemen-
tation, nudging, constraining, redirecting, provoking, etc.). Complementarily, the inquiry
targeted perceived affordances, notably micro-triggers and “go” signals for starting or
continuing a process, information indicating that adaptation is called for, information
indicating serendipitous “doables,” information indicating readiness in the partner, and
perceived action constraints that define the “affordance landscape” as a whole (cf.
Rietveld & Kiverstein, 2014). Beyond the immediate affordances of the next moment,
experts can frequently even verbalize subjective horizons of synergy creation – for
example, synergies that move into reach if a small enabling action is added or if a spe-
cific response is provided by the other person.
On this basis, we reconstructed the embodied “give-and-take” between agents A and
B in a bottom-up fashion. Patterns of reciprocal causation lay in focus, notably sequen-
tial or interlacing co-actions whereby A and B generate affordances for each other. This
threw into relief the transactional dynamic of cross-scaffolding between agents, which
can involve a range of different ways of influencing the other person, a process which
may carry the build-up of increasingly complex synergies, as we shall later see.
Note that this kind of inquiry is a far cry from a reductive methodological individual-
ism. Although it uses actions and perceptions of individuals A and B to bootstrap the
interaction analysis, the perspective is inherently relational and focuses on how individ-
ual actions regulate the collective structure and dynamics. Relational percepts of the
participants are probed (e.g., ideal geometries relative to a partner, interpersonal distan-
ces, angles, or weight distribution) and the inquiry is firmly grounded in a joint mater-
ial reality. More importantly, the resulting transactional process analysis reconstructs an
unfolding process of “give-and-take” and effectively unpacks the circular causality
between micro- and macro-scales (cf. Sawyer, 2003). Thus, it throws into relief how
interlacing regulatory micro-moves give rise to collective dynamics, as well as how this,
in return, feeds back on the participants by providing constraints and affordances:
Actions of person A at tn merge with co-actions of person B and feed into the collective
116 M. KIMMEL
dynamic, where they produce emergent effects at tn11. In sum, a micro-phenomeno-

logical approach can provide a dialectic mediation between individual and collective lev-
els of analysis – not wholly unlike quantitative approaches that predicate ecological
regulation laws followed by individuals onto a model of collective dynamics, which
emerge from following these laws (Fogel, 2006; Marsh et al., 2006; Warren, 2006).
The analysis is necessarily synthetic since an interview is sampled from two perspec-
tives and has considerable extension. Even a half-second’s worth of interaction has far
more aspects than can be simultaneously described; we thus review the event recur-
sively. Verbalizations emerge by and by over an hour or more. Integrating these (and
the visual data) constitutes a skill in its own right and, for full disclosure, it should be
said that the researchers’ background in somatics, movement observation skills, and
embodied empathy are essential for “connecting the dots.”
Micro-analysis I
To illustrate the procedure and its payoffs I will now analyze “in vivo” two spontaneous
dance synergies with respect to their assembly process. Each example will highlight dis-
tinct theoretical implications, which are subsequently discussed and which are represen-
tative of dozens of other events analyzed in the same way.
Contact improvisation
The examples come from Contact Improvisation (CI), a form of contemporary dance
developed in the 1970s. CI has a strong commitment to experimentation and kinesthetic
sharing, in which creative potentials are explored without designated leaders or fol-
lowers. It is usually practiced on the so-called jams in duets or larger formations, usu-
ally without music. Bodies are in contact and “a spontaneous mutual investigation of
the energy and inertia paths [is] created when two people engage actively and dance
freely” (Torrents et al., 2016, p. 94). The dance system allows enormous freedom. Both
individuals operate within the bounds of collective meaning, respect, and safety, but
also act autonomously to put their own stamp on things. Playful exploration dominates
and “novel places” are sought while exploring weight sharing, kinesthesia, touch, and
momentum. Interaction patterns range from complex acrobatics (lifts, backflips, sup-
ported handstands, rolling across one another, leaning, cantilevers, “sloughing off” the
partner, etc.) to moving around in space (e.g., slow walking in circles), still moments of
interiority (e.g., sensitive joint breathing or exploring slight leaning), and some out-of-
contact moments as well.
In CI, many synergies are of a physical and indeed intimately intercorporeal nature.
The dancers’ sensoria literally interpenetrate each other; a person can “sense into” the
partner beyond the point of contact. Dancers can also guide action impulses there.
Physical push-pull causation connects the bodies. Collective architectures arise through
weight sharing, kinetic chains, support geometries, inter-body skeletal and muscle struc-
tures, fascial connections and tensegrity of human tissue (Silva et al., 2010), as well as
lever physics. Moreover, moments of intense sharing may give rise to a special phenom-
enology of oneness and of extended body boundaries; experiences of agency can be
decentralized as if shaped by a “third mind” (Kimmel et al., 2018). All this rather
sharply contrasts with domains where synergies are orchestrated without touch, for
example, when we fall into lockstep when walking side by side, or which involve greater
distances, for example, when soccer players form an attack configuration. I would argue
that a “skin-to-skin” interaction setting such as CI is ideal to showcase mutual dynamic
entanglement (Froese & Fuchs, 2012).
Despite there being recognizable families of techniques such as lifts or weight sharing,
CI dancing offers a multiplicity of affordances at every moment and an enjoyment of
“not knowing” what comes next. CI improvisers continuously respond, adapt, and
(mostly) respect whatever emerges to keep the dance alive. However, they also explore
possibilities, experiment, leave the beaten path, exploit serendipity, and take each other
by surprise. This is reflected in quotes such as “We don’t have goals. Whatever happens
is right” or “We love little glitches because they take us off.” Dancers, figuratively speak-
ing, say “yes, and” or “no but” to their partner while maintaining continuity and work-
ing with existing dynamics. While a certain cooperativity default dominates in CI, such
that partners provide assistance in risky moments, dancers also emphasize self-responsi-
bility. Moments of challenging, teasing, or – occasionally – tricking one another are
possible. Individuals are free to shape and modulate each other’s actions while in pro-
gress, that is, amplify, “hijack,” or “turn around” partner actions in real time (cf.
Kimmel & Rogler, 2018). All this contributes to unplanned creative patterns that emerge
between the individuals (“It wasn’t a concept to go up, it’s a result of the actions”).
Novel interactions emerge from the myriad small-scale self-organizing dynamics that
can occur when two partly autonomous agents engage in participatory sense-making
(De Jaegher & Di Paolo, 2007). The intense sensory sharing, physical entanglement, and
real-time mutual responsiveness create many surprising interaction moments. Hence,
synergies are often unique as well as spontaneous. As we shall see, they can be mediated
by the interaction itself – or to speak with Sawyer and DeZutter (2009), they exhibit
“distributed creativity” – rather than being the outcome of prior design of
any individual.
Global event description

Our first example is a shoulder lift, which occurred within an improvisation of several
minutes. Its spontaneous, slightly surprising (to one dancer at least), and biomechanic-
ally demanding, yet also organic nature make it a good example for our purposes. The
sequence has an overall duration of eight seconds, plus four seconds of pre-event. I will
now describe the synergy assembly as step-wise processes of cross-scaffolding between
the dancers, where each moment is continuous with the preceding state of the couple.
As our event sets in, the two dancers are engaged in playfully exploring a synergy of a
biomechanically undemanding sort. They are physically connected, yet move independ-
ently around each other. This lasts for about four seconds. The female dancer (F) is on
her feet and the male dancer (M) kneels in a quadruped stance. As this goes on, F catches
up and falls back again briefly, but her hand keeps touching his back. (The hand moves
down from the shoulder, then up again.) The axis of joint rotation between the dancers
runs through this contact point, with F moving on a larger clockwise circle and M
118 M. KIMMEL
Figure 1. Lift: (a) pre-event of circling, (b) readiness: pushing into the kneeling dancer’s back creates
a stable support & force balance, (c) initiation of lift, (d) execution: balancing on shoulders, beginning
of downward slide. Source: Authors.
rotating in the center. Then, M suddenly decides to stop and takes F by surprise; she
keeps moving for about another quarter circle until she stops as well. This produces a
double outcome: An almost frontally aligned configuration arises and F’s momentum
pushes her weight into M’s back. Sensing this, M stands up and begins to lift F on his
shoulders. The initiative is his, as he opportunistically uses her momentum. This seemed
a spontaneous, yet evident option. F reports “It was surprising. But [exploiting the oppos-
ite forces] was also obvious.” Looking in more detail, we can distinguish four phases (see
Figure 1):
Pre-event (images 1–4): During the rotation, the two bodies move a bit closer.
M stops rotating, she briefly continues about a quarter turn. F’s central body line
meets him almost frontally; she stops just left to his head.
Transition toward readiness (images 5–6): F is sharing more weight now. M
gets ready for receiving yet further weight by tucking his toes under and readies
himself for the possibility of counter-pushing. F’s hand wanders from the shoul-
der interface to the mid back; her body weight is now more off her feet and
both hands are now touching his back. M’s knees leave the ground.
Lift initiation (images 7–9): M gets up from the knees and begins a lift, using
the existing momentum in addition to muscle force. F’s legs fully leave the
ground; her elbows stabilize her weight on M’s back, with fingers spread out.
Lift execution (images 10–15): As the lift unfolds, adjustments are made. F is
placed over M’s back on her belly, while he rotates. M becomes erect after F’s
legs have left the ground. With a see-saw movement F balances her body on
him; she embraces his torso with her head down; later in the lift she slides down
very slowly. F now spreads her arms out as M bends forward a bit, which gives
her more planar support and less need to hold on.
From pre-event to readiness

Let us now zoom in on what the dancers report for each phase: Through M’s sudden
stopping of the rotation, F’s continued movement decouples their speed synchroniza-
tion. Since they were, all along, in contact and shared minimal weight this makes F “fall
into his body” with her center of gravity (“I felt gaining speed”). F notices this and gives
up this weight more to M, thus actively yielding to a tendency that initially caught her
by surprise. F also notes that during the “falling towards [M] the push made my center
go into his shoulder.” They both realize a particular trigger affordance at this point. M
notices that he is receiving more weight, which “triggered me to stand up.” Noticing a
slight sense of F falling out and coming back in contributes here. As M gets up, he con-
verts the force he has received by “giving it back into the lift.” The conserved momen-
tum from stopping adds to his muscle power and facilitates standing up; possibly elastic
rebound effects contribute here. M points out that the configurational change was a
trigger moment (“oh, that’s something”) as F’s energy went from a lateral, via a diag-
onal to a frontal vector relation. The new inter-body geometry and their weight sharing
create a single logic here, which the dancers perceive as what we may refer to as a
springboard into a more complex acrobatic synergy.
Thus, for the lift to arise, precursor synergies are needed. Both dancers spatially align
their centers of gravity; and they direct energy toward the partner’s center. F speaks
of “bones getting aligned” between them and her “center being caught by him.” The last
expression suggests that M contributes slightly more to creating this configuration, if
only for the basic reason that he wants to effectively channel F’s weight into the ground
through his arms and legs. Overall however, both dancers contribute to an organized
(lower-dimensional) system of shared weight and alignment. They jointly converge on
sending their energy into precisely opposed vectors. Thus, at each moment M, the dan-
cer in the lower position responds to precisely the weight he receives from F on top
(“It’s just the fact of giving up the weight [that he] is giving [ … ] back into the lift”).
To take stock of the individual contributions to this very first initiation of a lifting
action we asked each dancer what they thought their task was at each moment:
F, even prior to the critical moment, was “orchestrating for the necessity of hav-
ing my center close to him,” thus reducing interpersonal distance in a way that
makes lifting an option.
120 M. KIMMEL
F adjusts into a stable contact through both arms and pulls her elbows back,
which allows her to stabilize herself and put more weight on M’s back. (She
reacts to the challenging direction change, which had resulted from M’s sudden
stopping and might have thrown her off balance.)
Falling toward M in this highly organized way allows F to create an arc between
the point where they touch and her feet.
F also mentions creating vertical thighs and arms as well as a long spine.
Overall, F’s emphasis lies on creating a stable internal configuration in her body,
while connecting with M in a way that directs her weight through both arms and brings
her close enough to shift more weight from her legs to his shoulders. F’s own inner
organization now increasingly extends into a collective architecture with her partner’s
aligned organization and thus establishes a highly functional sharing pattern.
M emphasizes an inner organization that is habitual to him and already in place

while F still circles around him: He is providing a stable quadruped stance and
aligning his skeletal structure so his shoulders are placed precisely over the
wrists and the spread out fingers. He connects with the ground and directs his
weight through his structure. This CI habit provides a synergy kernel that M can
then immediately build on without further preparation as the lift begins. It
allows M to pick up F’s weight and channel it into the floor.
M tucks his toes under directly after he has stopped rotating and as more weight
is coming to be shared. The toes are now ready to direct his lower-body force up
through F’s hands, into her center of gravity. Note that he has no full intention
of getting up and lifting at this moment yet, but the tucking under provides the
condition of possibility, thus adding another synergy kernel to build on.
A moment later, an important inter-body synergy adds to M’s internal synergies.
Just as F extends forth into M, M reciprocally extends forth into F’s body by fit-
ting his inner alignment with the between-person geometry into an interper-
sonally aligned architecture.
M’s inner alignment and connection to the ground thus amplify the geometric align-
ment with F’s force vectors. This is what allows M to direct energy upward and “give
back” F’s incoming momentum into the lift and, as he gets up, to effortlessly sustain
F’s weight.
We can make two observations here. First, the collective alignment is created by and
useful to both dancers. In a manner of speaking, two stable and well-aligned frames
within each body are superimposed on each other. Second, we inquired into the percep-
tual triggers through which the subsequent lift gets built. This is a process of give-and-
take: M initiates the lift precisely when F fully comes with her weight on his back. His
“go” signal is sufficient “lightness” (i.e., perceived liftability) based on F’s forward-
directed body center and minimal weight on her toes, her vector alignment with him,
as well as her inner alignment (on perceived heaviness also see Waddell et al., 2016).
The next moment, F is ready to pour her weight forward fully, based on perceiving M’s
inner skeletal alignment and the recognition that it can therefore take up her body in a
stable fashion. That is, without M’s stable support yielding her weight full-range would
not feel safe to F.
From lift initiation to execution

Let us now take stock of the synergy components of the subsequent phase, in which M
begins to rise and F’s legs fully leave the ground:
As before, M emphasizes that, to lift a partner effortlessly, “it doesn’t need

strength; it needs an understanding of the architecture,” a good inner skeletal
organization where force goes into the bones.
M contributes a connective arc from the ground, via his body, to F’s body. As
one central aspect of this he describes the need to connect body center to body
center, which directs his lift energy into F’s center of gravity in a way that is sta-
bilizing. Acting on someone’s center of gravity lessens the need to stabilize the
lift with muscle force.
M keeps his back relatively planar, as a twist would make F slide off the side.
M keeps his legs relaxed and knees not locked to minimize muscle force needed
to get up.
M provides preparatory synergies by further aligning his body center with his
legs, dropping the tailbone and moving into her body center to pick her
weight up. This further reduces muscle power needed.
A related principle for executing “an almost weightless” lift is that as M’s center
moves toward his legs, he lifts his pelvis a bit, but then goes down “so we are
going towards the floor and away from the floor at the same time.”
Once M becomes erect, he stands up with forward orientation to lift F and to
keep her hanging head clear of any danger of crashing into the ground.
Once F lifts off fully her full weight is placed on M’s back via her hands, which
hold on.
Next, as F is pulled up by M’s becoming erect, she drops her torso and head
downwards, both falling into a perpendicular line (this begins slightly before he
reaches full extension).
In the final phase, M rises to full length and F arrives on his shoulders. Now they
must negotiate balance to achieve collective support stability:
For M, a critical element in this is a flexibly adaptive stance while moving

around. He constantly micro-adjusts his stance to stay aligned enough so that his
skeleton effectively carries F’s weight. This is especially evident in a brief moment
of negotiation of stable balance as they arrive on top and as M loads F’s belly on
his back. To micro-adjust the placement, M wiggles his shoulders and legs.
As the lift continues, M creates momentum through continuity of movement,
viz. through some circling around in space on his feet.
F seems to hover quite unhurriedly, before sliding down. Letting the sliding
movement flow is something both dancers enjoy at this moment. For F, it helps
“keeping it light” and to avoid “weight stuck at the top.”
122 M. KIMMEL
In the last phase, M ensure support stability with a slight reconfiguration; he

bends forward to only about 45 degrees and keeps his back roughly planar in
the lateral dimension, albeit with some rotation of the spine to accommodate F
as she slides, who, as a result, feels that her “center is secured [ … ] I don’t need
the arm.”
F adds to the balancing the moment the lift begins. Surprised by the lift, she
“almost unconsciously” initiates a leg scissors as she arrives on M’s shoulder.
The left leg goes up; the right leg is stretched away at a right angle. As F teeters
in a seesaw, she uses the left leg to regulate her balance.4
F also moves this leg into the line of gravitational pull, which helps to com-
pensate for the momentum resulting from his energetic arrival in fully
upright position.
F mentions that a central task is to supply enough tone and inner structure to
be liftable (“not a sack of potatoes”). As subordinate synergy components the
legs fall back and are kept “empty”; she lifts the head and keeps it motile, also
contributing to her orientation.
F activates further auxiliary synergists to stabilize herself in inverse position. At first
F hugs M, so her arms generate friction on his back. Once she slowly slides down
his back bends a bit more forward and the need for holding ceases. F now uses the
arms for a different function: She throws her arms outwards into a full leg and
arm spread – a canonical CI technique for stabilizing and balancing the body.
Thus, every phase of the lift involves its own components and sharing patterns, which
explains why the qualitative analysis is a lengthy endeavor, once we go into detail.
Further evidence indicates that elements are subtly calibrated with respect to one
another, such as F’s leg extension, the position of F’s belly on M’s back, and M’s stance,
uprightness, and even rotation in space. A system of global adjustment between individ-
ual degrees of freedom is confirmed by the fact that dancers know exactly how to react
to perturbations and contingencies. M emphasizes that his job as the lifting dancer is
one of constant adaptation and of remaining “movable according to the weight that’s
supported.” We asked how he might have compensated if he had not been aligned to
provide perfect support for F. He says that “as soon as something is off, you [ … ] get
under it [with an added step], you push a little bit harder here, you turn your head,
[ … ] giving more space through extending.” Timing also matters, for example if F
were off balance a quicker or more forward motion by M’s torso could compensate
for this. Finally, if M bends his back more this can make up for F sliding off. In fact, if
he prevents F’s head from dropping fully the compensatory leg see-saw that she did
may become superfluous. All this validates the claim that collective parameters are regu-
lated through interdependent adjustments (see Solnik et al., 2015; Solnik et al., 2016).
The case study also illustrates the benefits of a stratified analysis of interpersonal syn-
ergy. We identified the lift’s wider functions and specific micro-actions undertaken to
supply these. On the top sit macro-functions such as inner stability, vector alignment,
4
It seems that M, as he rises to full length, contributes by giving F’s leg a brief impulse, adding to her tilt over his
shoulder and bringing her head down rapidly. F’s hanging legs signal to M that he can now manipulate her
weight himself.
or balancing weight on top during a lift, that is, the dyad’s overall success conditions.
Subordinate to this, each dancer supplies a set of individual synergies such as bone
alignment, such as contributing with a stable inner frame to support the weight of a
partner. Yet smaller individual synergies group around this, such as using a leg or the
head for adapting balance or intensifying one’s torso bending/twisting for optimally
supporting the liftee when she slides downward. As expected, the lower levels frequently
allow for greater variation, for example, F’s holding grip and then extending all four
extremities were almost interchangeable means to ensure her balance on M’s back.
Some lessons
This micro-analysis illustrated how a sophisticated, yet unpremeditated synergy is cre-
ated through a “skin-to-skin” interaction process. It highlights several general issues:
The first question is by which “assembly logic” two persons converge on a complex
synergy. Apparently, sophisticated joint forms require a highly specific assembly pro-
cess.5 Our acrobatic lift emerges as two dancers mutually “home in” on a possible, and
to them attractive, resonance configuration. The full lift is only afforded once the two
dancers have convergently entered a basic resonant constellation of their individual
alignments, where a moderate amount of weight sharing indicates that they connect in
a stable fashion. The dancers perceive this as a triggering affordance to proceed to the
next, more risky stage at which F fully yields her weight and lifts off. To get the process
started to begin with, the dancers exploit an already present synergy kernel, a term that
I propose to characterize collective potentials in the offing (i.e., a particular type of
affordance suggestive of a more complex synergy). Such a kernel was present by virtue
of M’s habitual alignment of arms and legs; stable force lines running to the ground
were in place to be exploited without any preparation. Once M had also projected him-
self upward into F’s inner structure, F superimposed her internal alignment geometry
onto his alignment. The two internal architectures now structurally resonated with each
other; the macro-scopic result directed weight through M’s base-structure down to the
ground. This afforded a full transfer of F’s weight to M’s shoulders until she lifted off.
Resonance configurations like this are characterized by structural “freebies” that arise
once elements are configured in a specific way. They avoid exhaustion and are part of
good general dance technique.
A second, related question is how this synergy assembly can be spontaneous. How
can the interaction itself provide the medium of creation? Instead of actualizing an
agreed-upon sequence, existing dynamics and structures are taken up ad hoc. As the
dancers explore synergistic possibilities in their physical sharing, each micro-action by
one person provides micro-affordances for the other or what Sudnow (1978) terms a
“springboard” constellation. We can refer to the spontaneous synergy assembly as medi-
ated by mutual scaffolding: If the dancers reciprocally enable and complement each other
with micro-actions that respect collective resonance principles, this provides mutual fit
5
Given that encompassing synergies can be distributed in time like this, it would be too narrow to define synergy in
terms of time-locked activations and coherence producing synchronization phenomena, as Nowak et al. (2017) suggest.
This would reduce the inquiry to how elements establish coherence at a particular moment in time. Beyond this,
scholars should also investigate how temporally extended synergy effects cumulatively arise from the “trail” of
previous states.
124 M. KIMMEL
at each moment. The trickier question, however, is how the dancers create the specific
progression of affordances, on the basis of which they can complexify the physical
architecture from one second to the next in a meaningful fashion. This tends to happen
only when four factors coincide: (a) a high-quality embodied communication process,
in which partners recursively provide affordances for each other; (b) a joint interest in
exploring and expanding synergy kernels such that one person starts adding to the ker-
nel and the other joins in; (c) technical principles that privilege “organic” movement
directions; and (d) adherence to largely automated task-dynamic principles once a form
begins to take on shape, which rule out risky actions and constrain the interaction suffi-
ciently, for instance to ensure that a lift ends in a stable landing. We can thus conclude
that scaffolding between partners, the attractiveness of synergy complexification, bio-
mechanical ease, and technical rules work hand in hand as constraints. A shared direc-
tionality can hereby arise without prior planning, and even if both dancers stay open to
surprise, rerouting, or “bail outs.”
The third question is what sort of expertise all this requires. The dancers knew and
respected collective constraints that a general type of lift operates within (see Hristovski
et al., 2011), starting with its basic functionality, but also its risks, and esthetic “nice-to-
haves” such as the stated wish to maintain flow and create a feel of “lightness” through
continuous motion. Particularly, a keen understanding of structural principles emerges
from our interviews, which define the collective physics of a lift. Dancers equally under-
stand dynamic principles, as well as entry paths and precursor states that are needed. At
both levels, they know their own role as well as their partner’s responsibilities. Finally,
the dancers dispose of an adaptive toolbox of regulators, which they can selectively acti-
vate and mix at will. They know which specific tools to activate or down-regulate to
respond to contingencies, for example, when they want to compensate for something
the partner unexpectedly does.
Micro-analysis II
The second case-study focuses more on transitions between synergies of different kinds.
It presents an eight-second sequence from another dance couple, which allows us to
compare different points on the timeline with respect to how demanding and tight the
synergy is. Accordingly, I will propose several concepts, which researchers may find use-
ful in addressing taxonomical questions about synergy types.
Global event description

Figure 2 shows a spontaneous co-creation sequence with five phases. It begins with the
female dancer (¼ F) and a male dancer (¼ M) running around in space with loose con-
tact kept through F’s outstretched arm. The sequence of interest begins as they move
closer to each other.
1. Going into contact (images 1–3): A phase of apparent “playing catch” ends, M
stops, and F begins a reverse spiral to move closer until their torsos make contact.
2. Partial lift (images 4–6): The dancers create a fulcrum, axis positions, and joint
body geometry, a potential preparatory movement and synergy kernel for side-
Figure 2. Synergy flow with multiple phases: The boxes beneath the images show complementary
co-actions of the dancers; the color code indexes the kind of coupling at the respective moment.
Source: Authors.
lifting F. Instead, a low lift ensues with her legs still sliding on the floor, while
M spins 180 .
3. Slide-off (image 7): F slides down to the ground again.
4. Reconfiguring (image 8): At this transitional moment, both dancers reorganize
their spatial relationship and contact point after F lands and regains stability.
126 M. KIMMEL
F flexes her knees, points her head toward M and her lower hand finds his,
which he offers, while her hand remains on his elbow.
5. “Merry-go-round” (images 9–11): An elastic rotation around a joint axis ensues,
while the dancers remain connected through their arms and face each other; the
movement first sweeps F outwards and continues with her giving a strong
impetus to M that sends him backwards to the floor; he goes down on one knee
and then fully.
6. Separation (image 12): to “process” the jointly created energy the dancers first
separate one hand, then the other. M rolls over his back, while F goes into a
cartwheel-like handstand in synchrony.
Preparation and low lift

We are now ready to take a closer look at the synergy dynamics of each phase. In
the very first phase (images 1–3), F runs after M as if playing catch. Their only
objective at this point is to stay close enough to not lose contact through the out-
stretched arm. M runs backwards one step and F follows. Then, M stops on two legs,
now turning toward F who apparently wants to initiate fuller contact, which she does
by moving her right leg backwards and initiating a spiraling move around her own
axis. M waits a moment, with tiny backward steps to adjust. As F spirals, her torso is
bent sideways; she lifts her arm diagonally to make space for their flanks to touch; a
mid-body contact ensues.
In the next phase (images 4–6), an intense synergistic sharing pattern emerges. M
slightly moves under F and supplies an arm hook around her body to pull her closer
and into a low lift, while her feet slide on the ground. To do this, M utilizes the con-
nection of body centers and a fulcrum at the hips. By stepping sideways M rotates F
forward and then lands her as she slides off his hips. This lift remains partial since F
stays in a relatively low position and is merely taken into a rotation in which her legs
slide on the ground. Both dancers agree that they were preparing for the possibility of a
higher lift and as “it didn’t work out so we did this other version that was created spon-
taneously in the moment.” For both of them the hip fulcrum was a recognizable, indeed
canonical springboard constellation for a possible high lift. However, a creative variation
with unique properties followed instead: “We had a moment of rise that didn’t take the
pathway [shows up with her arm]. It could have taken going up all the way – on the
shoulder or really a lift because it fell, it dropped. But we took that drop then to [shows
a straight forward movement] [ … ] to make something that goes into space.” The likely
explanation for this is that the affordance for a higher lift remained absent due to F
arriving a bit too high in relation to M’s torso; another possibility is that the affordance
was there, but not ideal, and M did not want to invest the extra effort in a non-ideal
constellation. Yet another interpretation could be that the dancers simply decided to
reject the high-lift as being too much of a CI cliche. However, since they both agree
they reckoned with a full lift, the explanation is likely that the missing or low-quality
affordance inspired the creative variation.
As in our first case study, we can now systematically take stock of components, shar-
ing patterns, and their collective functionalities:
M prepares by moving his pelvis under F’s center of weight, a logical prerequisite
for (the option of) doing a lift. This establishes the requisite hip fulcrum and
ensures that F does not slide off. Micro-timing is equally crucial here. M explains
how being “on time” when merging centers of weight matters: “[You] get
beneath it when her center is on an upward trajectory so that you are again merg-
ing with the weight in this direction rather than the way it’s coming down.” The
skill is to smoothly pick up the momentum of falling weight: “I am leaning back
to bring the center onto my support at the same time continuing the momentum
that we have in that rotational vector.” Recognition of the tipping point/apex of
the natural ballistic arc is equally crucial: “It’s important to sense and feel that
arch of weight. And when the weight starts to come down, to allow it to come
down rather than muscularly holding it up.” Similar to case study 1, this quotation
exemplifies how skilled movers create a resonance pattern with the effects of grav-
ity, which in this case is a matter of proper timing. The dancers are able to modu-
late the ballistic dynamics that are already in progress so that beneficial self-
organizing properties can be “chartered.”
Both dancers contribute to a close center-to-center relation between their
bodies, with F’s right flank lying on M’s sternum area. This proximity of body
centers stabilizes their connection and hereby ensures a safe lift. F mentions that
part of this is “to orient the whole body slightly toward him, rather than staying
open or behind. Not just the arm but even the whole left side. So I am kind of
curving my spatial relation toward him, toward his mid-line.”
To ensure staying up for long enough, F hooks her right arm on M’s left shoul-
der: Once this prerequisite is in place, F pushes her torso upwards while con-
necting her open-hand arm with M’s center. M explains that this is not only
for F’s sake, but has a function for both of them: “So since she’s connecting
through the center through her arms, then I have access to the center through
the periphery” (i.e., M can feel and manipulate the center).
F adjusts muscle tone to be a stable “object” for lifting. The combination of the
latter two aspects facilitates the lifting for him (and, as she begins to fall again,
to handle the momentum).
F slightly makes herself more liftable by pushing up, just as M begins to lift her.
She also brings her body axis off-balance by tilting it and leaning diagonally into
M’s left arm; she hereby transfers weight away from her feet and to her partner.
F’s off-balance axis requires immediate reciprocation by M, who counterbalances
by leaning backwards in order to keep F’s center of weight close.
From this mutual coordination a dynamically stable collective weight system
emerges and enables M to transfer F’s off-balance momentum into the lift.
Another mutually coordinated relational parameter is the inter-body geometry
(almost parallel, just slightly tilted off the vertical axis); its preservation allows
for a fast and elegant later landing.
The combination of these many elements supervenes on previously established com-

munication channels with and a particular attentional orientation toward the part-
ner (see Kimmel, 2016, 2019). This prominently includes connecting with the partner’s
128 M. KIMMEL
body/weight center. M says: “I can see where her center is and I imagine where her cen-
ter is. But also through the periphery with the arms, I can feel into her structure
through the arms and skin.”
Finally, both dancers mention important prerequisites of self-management inside their
own bodies that positively impact the collective-level coordination. This includes relaxed
and responsive muscle tone management, connecting one’s body periphery to one’s
own center, and awareness of gravity with respect to the body axis moving in space.
For the liftee, F, relaxed muscle tone of the legs (so they can swing) and of the whole
body is important. This avoids drag during the lift. However, the legs must increase
their activity again with the right timing to provide a “landing gear.” This last observa-
tion shows that certain parameters are re-scaled even within the execution of a single
“thin slice” of our analysis.
Centrifugal energy and converting it

The rest of the sequence will be described slightly more concisely, as there was too little
interview time left for full analytic detail: There is a brief intermission that lands F on
her feet again and during which they reorganize the contact points. Then, a completely
new kind of synergy begins: In images 9–11, we see a wrestling-like (“play-fight”) coun-
ter-position in which both dancers hold onto each other (shoulder-to-hand and hand-
to-hand). At first F – now in almost a crouching position – is swept outward by the
joint momentum and the dancers move on a semicircle, with M almost at the center
and with F more at the periphery. The next moment forces are reversed as F pushes
forward vigorously and into M, making him go backward. The two dancer’s push-and-
pull connection is used for generating centrifugal rotation around a joint axis, much
like a merry-go-round, with a sharp (if elastic) reversion of the direction of force,
which happens midway in the rotation.
Image 12 shows the outcome. Both dancers convert their momentum into rotational
energy, which, as F emphasizes, is necessary to avoid crashing into the ground. M does
so by rolling over his back to the floor without yet losing contact. One of M’s hands
separates as soon as he needs it to arrive on the ground. F stays in her shoving motion
for a very short moment using the hand that still touches M, and then goes after him.
While F is still pushing into him, M ceases all counter-force. What happens then is
hard to tell from the video alone. Either F’s momentum continues, because resistance is
taken away, or M’s momentum actively pulls her in the direction of his falling. On the
first reading, there would be a sudden switch of the collective force-dynamic pattern
from resistance to non-resistance that creates a physically self-organizing pattern
between the two dancers.
To convert her momentum, F now uses her free hands for a cartwheel-like hand-
stand. The connection of the dance partners through the other hand is still intact at
first, but just before F’s hand touches the floor they break it. It is interesting to observe
that both dancers rotate in synchrony and along fully parallel axes (F’s handstand’s
axis naturally is slightly higher than that of M’s straddle role on the ground). This may
be an outcome of the synchronized energy boost to both bodies, but perhaps also a
partly orchestrated joint channeling of energy.
Synergy flows
As a whole, this event of about eight seconds displays quite distinct stages of collective
synergy. I propose to speak of a synergy flow when different synergies emerge out of
each other in continuity. Synergy flows provide us with a window on extended task
dynamics, when a continuous interaction transits from one collective parameter and
sharing pattern to the next. This applies both to multistage tasks such as a lift (prepar-
ation; lifting; landing) and in transitions such as between the lift and the “merry-go-
round” (see Saltzman & Munhall, 1992 who refer to changes in the general system
makeup as graph dynamics). On the one hand, the study of synergy flows highlights
continuities within discontinuity. Even when some aspects change rapidly, extant ele-
ments may be used and built on. On the other hand, moments of sharp transition can
inform us about how action continuity and rapport are maintained, even while the indi-
viduals re-negotiate the collective parameter. Synergy flows therefore offer a good way
to study how transitions are jointly managed. Finally, the study of synergy flows benefits
comparative sensibilities in a heuristic way, since different snapshots can vary quite a
bit. Let us conclude the case study by proposing some contrastive dimensions:
First, the synergy medium did evidently change over time, a fact which Figure 2 distin-
guishes with a color code in the subscripts to the images. The event starts with almost nil
mechanical coupling (images 1–3). F’s arm touches M in the function of a “feeler” mostly
(informational coupling), but hardly transfers momentum. Right afterward, this changes
into two strong anatomical co-dependencies (images 4–6; 9–10), separated by a brief tran-
sition during which the contact point is reorganized (images 7–8). Finally, as the dancers
separate, the centrifugal momentum they have created together is channeled independently
into a cartwheel and back roll. Hence, the process moves from (a) dominantly informa-
tional coupling to (b) a fully physical codependency as the fulcrum and arm hooks initiate
the lift, (c) back to a mainly informationally coupled transition phase, (d) to mechanical
push-pull in the merry-go-round, and (e) to complete separation, where it is debatable if
we can speak of real synergy anymore.
Next, we may speculate about how synergy strength evolves, that is, the dancers’
functional codependency vs. autonomous degrees of freedom. This is the highest in the
low lift in images 4–6; it intermittently shrinks at the moment of landing; as soon as
the “wrestling” pattern establishes a strong push-pull force and creates centrifugal accel-
eration synergy strength grows again. Thus, a highly demanding joint physical architec-
ture is needed to keep, both, the lift and the “merry-go-round” going, whereas in
between greater degrees of freedom arise. (More generally, ballistic situations and other
demanding lifts tend to require tight synergistic coupling, since they do not allow for
an endless number of safe continuations and since dancers must look after one
another here.)
Next, we can speak of synergy complexity, which refers to the number of compo-
nents the dancers have to supply and which may index the involved level of coordina-
tive skill. During the lift, numerous components were mentioned. In the phases before
this as well as in the transition after it the dancers mention fewer elements that chal-
lenge them. The complexity of the centrifugal synergy on the ground is harder to evalu-
ate, since we have no complete data, but seems fairly complex at least.
130 M. KIMMEL
We can speak of synergy sensitivity as the ability to compensate for missing compo-
nents without changing the overall dynamic; in other words how “forgiving” the task is
in face of imprecision. Although this index is analytically separate, it seems that it runs
in parallel to complexity here. Compared with the initial moments sensitivity grows
during the lift, that is, any synergist missing changes the dynamic, say imprecise geom-
etry or a missing fulcrum.
Note that despite all these changes over time continuity between synergies is high in
our example. There is no apparent rupture of contact. Even at the transition the dancers
keep negotiating their dynamics so effectively that the movement keeps flowing.
Possibly, this reflects a general CI trend for co-action patterns to be continuous,
although sharper transitions occasionally occur (Torrents et al., 2016; Torrents
et al., 2010).
In terms of synergy participation, F at first assumes more initiative when she goes
into contact, and then, the patterns are co-equally responsible for everything that hap-
pens. In terms of roles, both dancers give active assistance to one another and manage
a slightly risk-laden situation through precise mutual adjustment.
There are also some general synergy properties that remain invariant across the whole
event. The basic synergy constellation remains dominantly collaborative. No one tries
to manipulate, coerce, or even take over the partner’s body, although both dancers
“listen” to and incorporate feedback of the partner at each stage. The moment that
comes closest to manipulation is when F shoves M away so that he has no choice but
to roll. Also, the modal genesis of synergy remains the same throughout: The synergies
are spontaneously created and arise through the negotiation process, which is to be
expected in the CI domain, but may be less to be taken for granted in other domains.
To conclude, synergy flow properties can be analyzed along various axes; accordingly,
several synergy indices are proposed here for future research and show just how many
questions can be asked about the types of interpersonal synergy.
Theoretical perspectives
The aspects of interpersonal synergy that emerge from the case studies fall into two
complementary analytic foci: a structural and synergy-dynamic focus. I will now discuss
perspectives of both kinds, before asking how spontaneously improvised synergies of a
complex sort are possible.
Structural aspects of collective synergy

Structural synergy inquiry aims to understand inter-body structures with respect to their
organizational logic and underlying collective physics. It addresses how contributions to
a collective pattern fit together and which principles individuals follow to constrain and
adjust these. It can be a considerable asset for scholarship to tap into how experts sub-
jectively conceptualize collective physical principles and to ask about their technical
knowledge, for example, with respect to how the organization of one body can be effect-
ively extended into another body.
In terms of collective physics, case study 1 illustrated how an aligned geometry
between the two bodies gives rise to a stable lift architecture, while directing weight
through the skeleton into the ground. Other forms of possible architectures include
weight sharing, counterbalance, “stacked” bone alignment, connective muscle arcs, vec-
tor configurations, levers, as well as self-stabilizing tensegrity configurations, which
combine skeletal struts with the elastic pull of the fascia. In some cases, several of the
named principles may be combined. For example, Kimmel and Schneider (forthcoming)
illustrate how two acrobats complexify a lift architecture based on skeletal “stacking” by
adding an element of counterbalance once the stacked structure has been sufficiently
stabilized. The same paper, in the context of martial arts, analyzes how individuals clev-
erly manipulate a shared material connection through the arms to throw an opponent
off balance.
When we describe interpersonal synergies from the structural viewpoint, we may fre-
quently be able to contrast more invariant “core synergies” that have to be in place at all
costs with flexible “task peripheries.” A typical example is a requisite geometry between
the two torsos, but with variable foot positions. Future research should address what vari-
ability is admissible (compare “good” vs. “bad” variability in an uncontrolled manifold as
posited by Latash et al., 2007; Scholz & Sch€ oner, 1999), what the range of equifinal solu-
tions is, and when weak or partial sharing suffices (cf. Bourbousson et al., 2010).
Similarly, structural inquiry needs to investigate “nested synergetic couplings in systems
in which both intra- and interpersonal coordination occur simultaneously,” where the
challenge is to “coordinate their movements with other individuals or environmental stim-
uli without sacrificing the stability of their own intrapersonal coordination” (Coey et al.,
2011, p. 492). Intrapersonal coordination can be relatively stable even within an interper-
sonal synergy (cf. Sofianidis et al., 2015), but it is by no means evident that this is possible
for all tasks and at all skill levels. There exist more complex tasks in which connecting
makes certain individual synergies disappear, as a study on joint jumping would indicate
(Slomka et al., 2015). Thus, complex forms of inter-adaptation across the synergy hier-
archy pose many questions, with a wide range of possible associated regulation strategies.
An altogether neglected topic concerns how “structural intelligence” makes situated
synergies possible in the first place (see Pfeifer & Bongard, 2007). This refers to semi-
permanent basic configurations, whose structural features simplify and guide cognitive
regulation strategies. Notably domain-specifically habituated bodies frequently provide
core constituents for a wide range of synergies by virtue of proper internal alignment,
posture, balance, breath, or muscle tone. Without these habits a full synergy needs to be
laboriously built from scratch; with habits in place it can kick in without further prepar-
ation. For example, Kimmel and Schneider (forthcoming) argue that partner exercises
of the martial art Tai chi (the so-called push-hands) are based on habitually pre-organ-
ized uprightness, groundedness, and internal connection. On this basis, the lower-body
muscles can generate force to push the opponent through one’s whole body structure,
or the practitioners exploit a rebound effect based on this habitual inner organization,
which serves to channel the opponent’s push downwards against the ground. What
examples like these indicate is that the notion of habit needs to be given a reading as a
basic, albeit unspecific building block for variable synergies. More generally, in terms of
“structural intelligence,” clever body arrangements lend themselves to specific self-
organizing couplings with external features like gravity or floor resistance. This seems
analogous to the mechanical arrangement of the “Watt’s governor” that is utilized for
homeostatically regulating steam engines (Van Gelder, 1995).
132 M. KIMMEL
Yet another inquiry concerns the wide possible diversity of codependency relations
between individuals, such as mutual facilitation, imposing constraints on a partner, or
competitive counteraction. In terms of sharing patterns, we can contrast general kinds
of “division of labor” such as parallel vs. alternating actions (Bell & Kozlowski, 2002;
Reynolds & Salas, 2015), mirror-symmetric vs. complementary movements, element
aggregation vs. deep fusion (Ara ujo & Davids, 2016). Sharing patterns at a smaller scale
can involve body segments that are temporarily “frozen” to move together (coalitions in
Turvey et al., 1978), or inversely new behaviors may arise by decoupling previously inte-
grated body parts (Goldfield, 1995). Also, linkages can be initiated from different ends
in a chain (Kimmel et al., 2015).
Degrees of synergy can similarly be contrasted: Some may have very strict coupling
requirements, and others may be selective and allow subordinate individual autonomy
or even partial decoupling. A frequent phenomenon involves functionally co-specifying
sub-synergies that remain relatively isolated because they are independently controlled,
for example, when an acrobat begins a handstand on the partner by shifting only the
upper body weight on the hands while the lower body remains connected to the floor,
or when the lower body of a Tango dancer does independent footwork while the torso
remains stable and communicates with the partner.
Finally, the physicality of synergies is important to consider. Dancing at close quar-
ters involves shared materiality, in which sensorimotor interpenetration makes avail-
able tremendous information about the partner and which affords creating push-pull
effects with almost zero delay. As the present case studies suggest, shared materiality
is also an asset for creativity itself, which seemingly benefits from immediate, highly
responsive scaffolding effects and allows individual action impulses to blend in novel
ways. Furthermore, the structures that underlie physical sharing raise important ques-
tions about resonance techniques (see Raja, 2018; Ryan & Gallagher, 2020), which
both case studies have illustrated. Improvisers are known to use gravity, momentum,
bone alignment, elasticity of tissue, or breathing rhythms effectively so that they opti-
mally resonate with the environment or the partner’s body, thus exploiting self-organ-
izing properties of the physical coupling (Kimmel et al., 2018). This is somewhat
similar to how infants modulate the impedance of their legs so that spring properties
can arise when they interact with gravity and the floor (Goldfield et al., 1993; Holt
et al., 2006).
Synergy dynamics
Complementarily, a dynamic focus is important, which aims to understand synergy
build-up, evolution, and transitions. In the case of our micro-phenomenological
approach, this was based on reconstructing the ongoing embodied communication that
mediates the process.
At the micro-timescale, this focus sheds light on synergy assembly in terms of what
gets activated when, how earlier elements constrain later ones, what component takes
the lead, which degrees of freedom are narrowed down immediately, and which are
kept responsive. A micro-dynamic focus equally clarifies if synergies require specific
assembly progressions. Some synergies may auto-catalyze as soon as enough components
are present, while others require key components to be supplied first, which then
“attract” others. By a similar token, some assemblies may show instant fit, while others
require preparatory adjustments, gradual complexification, or step-wise “homing in,” for
example, by first freezing and then releasing certain degrees of freedom (Latash, 2010;
Renshaw et al., 2009).
The next higher timescale of several seconds moves synergy flows into analytic focus
and highlights how elements and sharing patterns co-evolve with the task. Even the
degree of coupling can change repeatedly. As the second case study showed, coordin-
ation can be tightly controlled for a specifically difficult lift situation, only to be relaxed
again once the feet are back on the ground.
Across all analytic timescales an important question to ask is how synergies co-
exist, incorporate each other, and how individual complexify or withdraw components
(Ara ujo & Davids, 2016; Turvey, 2007). They may tone down, suppress, or augment
components through further “players”; they may activate components “standing by” in
readiness; or they may modulate their phasing relations (cf. von Holst, 1939).
Sometimes a whole set of components changes at once, at other times components
are rescaled one after the other and make the overall pattern develop more
incrementally.
Another dynamics-related research question is how complex collective functions arise
when the effects of several well-sequenced synergies cumulate, as in our analyzed lift
example. A similar process logic applies to the martial art Aikido, where defeating an
attacker needs to be based on a process of evasion, taking up and then diverting the
attacker’s energy, throwing, up to a final fixation (Kimmel & Rogler 2019) . This cumu-
lative logic is required because the impending threat needs to be first defused before the
defender can progressively narrow the opponent’s degrees of freedom until full control
can be achieved.
Analyzing synergy assembly is well worthwhile in two different contexts. The first
of these concerns relatively pre-agreed interaction forms, as in partner acrobatics (see
Kimmel & Schneider, forthcoming), where experts build synergies of an extremely
precise sort, such as a handstand on the partners outstretched arms. Apparently, such
techniques are best realized as routines due to their exacting practice requirements.
Ongoing work by my team suggests that, to coordinate their interaction, acrobats
draw on (partly) shared event schemas and on cue signals developed through their
joint practice history. This is interesting in view of debates about preprocess coordin-
ation (Eccles & Tenenbaum 2004; Steiner et al., 2017) where prior shared knowledge
partly constrains synergy assembly in addition to real-time participatory practices
(Ara ujo et al., 2006; Seifert & Davids, 2017; Gesbert et al. 2017; cf. Knoblich et al.,
2011, p. 85ff.)
However, a dynamic analysis has equal merits regarding spontaneous synergy assembly,
as we see it in CI. A central benefit is that we can unpack processes of interaction-based
creativity step by step (Kimmel & Hristova, accepted). A fine-grained analysis can shed
light on how recursive interactions generate novel synergies and, in some cases, how cre-
ativity may no longer be attributable to any individual, but emerge from a distributed
process (Sawyer, 2003; Sawyer & DeZutter, 2009). In such cases, creativity genuinely arises
from multiplicative features of the interaction. A micro-analysis thus allows us to observe
134 M. KIMMEL
“in vivo” how novelty enters the world and how improvisers prepare the ground, create
openings, or impose constraints for creativity to arise in self-organized ways.6
Improvised coordination
Analyzing the micro-genesis of spontaneous synergy can clarify the relationship between
improvisation and coordination. As we have seen, in CI dancing no individual “directs”
the joint action, as would be the case in leader–follower dances. Nor do pre-given task
constraints direct self-organized coordination (as is the case in most experiments). Instead,
the task arises as coordination itself arises, namely through bidirectional embodied
negotiation.
Whereas many CI beginners start with standard techniques, especially when acrobat-
ics are involved, and coordinate through meshplan-like conceptualizations of “who does
what when” (Pacherie, 2006),7 CI dancers at the expert level are emphatically disinter-
ested in “ready-made” forms. They take pride in negotiating synergies each moment at
a time and deem openness to surprise a virtue. The information exchange with the part-
ner is accordingly fine-grained and actions responsive; expert dancers train to not pre-
maturely commit the sensorimotor system. They “stay in the present moment” and
accord supreme importance to “not anticipating.” Or, if they do so at some higher level,
they try to leave their motor intentionality untainted by this (see Pacherie, 2006 for this
differentiation of levels, which maps nicely on phenomenological distinctions drawn by
experts). Whenever they notice having unduly “primed” their sensorimotor system they
take themselves to task for this. This is imperative to keep at bay the constant risk of
mismatching actions, disruptive surprises, and co-actions of a partner that physically
interfere with one’s own ongoing activities.
The explanation of how minute coordination is possible under these circumstances
clearly must be based on guidance from real-time affordances (Marsh, Richardson,
et al., 2009; Marsh et al., 2006), which is squarely confirmed by what experienced
dancers report. To operate with improvisational flexibility in a dynamic-relational field
and to produce new collective behaviors presupposes (a) specific cognitive and sensori-
motor skills, (b) a convergence of constraints that assures collective meaning, and (c)
the ability to operate at multiple ecological scales. I will now discuss these three synergy
prerequisites in turn.
Unsurprisingly, acquiring malleable tools for the real-time assembly of movement is
an essential training aim in CI. To begin with, a backdrop of reactivity, readiness, and
high-quality communication must be in place, together with perceptual skills for reading
never-experienced contexts in terms of their affordance-specifying invariants. Next, a
6
For example, our CI informants emphasize how they strive to keep the dynamic “lively” and at the brink of multiple
possibilities (i.e., metastable as Hristovski et al., 2009 and Pinder et al., 2012 would term it) and sometimes report
seeking out spaces of the interaction matrix together where surprises – and perhaps unique synergies – become more
likely (Kimmel et al., 2018).
7
Meshplans, however, are inflexible, which frequently makes dances of novices seem too calculated and stereotypical in
the eyes of experts. Meshplans also require hoping that the partner has the same sequence in mind, unless the couple
has communicated about this explicitly. Actualizing pre-planned sequences is thus not only uncreative, it also has
practical disadvantages if the need arises to adapt the coordinative pattern or to reroute on-the-fly. Although experts
may sometimes use standard techniques in a flexibilized fashion (e.g., as adaptation of a prototype or hybrid form), if
they do so, they remain poised for shunting between different pathways of the dance matrix.
sizable, dimensionally differentiated repertoire of regulatory tools is needed, together

with the ability to activate “on-demand,” selectively mix, and recombine this set of
dynamic primitives (Hogan & Sternad, 2012). When novel mixes of dynamic primitives
are created, this requires an anticipatory feel for summary effects (Kimmel, 2019), or
else the ability to rapidly accommodate surprises.
Expressed theoretically, CI dancers become adepts of soft assembly at an interpersonal
level. The notion of soft assembly (Kello & Van Orden, 2009; Kugler & Turvey, 1987)
refers to elements of a generative system that are organized for a task in a temporary
and context-sensitive way – the opposite of deploying routines based on “hardwired”
schemas.8 The conceptual emphasis lies on (a) flexible compositional synthesis, (b) plas-
ticity of the system, and (c) dynamic incorporation of external resources (Schiavio &
Kimmel, 2021). In CI experts, these criteria are clearly confirmed by the selective activa-
tion and finely adapted combination of dynamic primitives with all but minimal antici-
pation, the frequent occurrence of unique and novel forms, as well as the dancers’ skills
for exploiting environmental or interpersonal resonance.
Evidently, the ability to selectively activate and mix dynamic primitives in small
increments satisfactorily explains the flexibility and productivity of individual impro-
visers. However, how these basic abilities might extend beyond the skin and contribute
to a meaningful co-assembly between two agents is less evident. Our micro-genetic
approach provided answers here: To co-assemble meaningful collective behaviors, each
individual must (a) orient toward what the collective dynamic affords at each moment,
(b) dynamically complement the partner’s concurrent actions, (c) and do so without
anticipating or making actions chunky. This complementation can be playful and
exploratory to some extent, but will often gravitate toward collective resonance patterns
and optimal biomechanic ease. It can even involve co-assemblies that complexify the
coordination and thus create remarkable path-dependent effects such as lifts. In effect,
these improvised co-assemblies can only become meaningful thanks to a convergence of
constraints. Joint improvisers continuously operate in a “force-field” of interpersonal
affordances, a tendency to seek biomechanic resonance, adherence to technical and
safety principles, as well as short-lived task dynamic constraints such as the need to
regain safe grounding after a lift or jump.9 Only with this set of constraints will a pro-
cess of dynamic complementation effectively converge on interpersonally meaning-
ful synergies.
A final complexity, which makes improvising together considerably more difficult
than solo improvisation, is that interpersonal soft assembly inherently operates at mul-
tiple ecological scales and creates nested synergies (cf. Coey et al., 2011): The challenge
is to regulate individual functions such as balance and grounding, while adding to col-
lective ones such as partner support. Either a compromise is sought that keeps individ-
ual-level adaptations small enough not to negatively impact the collective coordination
8
Soft assembly is no simple “either-or,” though. Even when a routine synergy is created, precise timing and movement
details tend to be softly assembled, since these aspects elude precise pre-planning. In addition, it is conceivable that
externally very similar forms are softly assembled by one person and created in schema-based ways by another.
9
Two domain-specific constraints add to this in CI: (a) the tendency to provide enabling or only moderately challenging
complementation and (b) the frequent presence of shared exploration interests or theme preferences that have
crystallized in the dance history (Kimmel et al., 2018).
136 M. KIMMEL
or a clever “simplex” solution is found that works at both levels, as a study on Tango
dancing suggests (Kimmel, 2016).
In sum, the micro-scale analysis of interpersonal soft assembly provides insights
about how two individuals may successfully converge into synergy and about the neces-
sary constraints and cognitive organization improvisers must master to operate without
planning ahead, yet also operate meaningfully in a dynamic, relational field. These
insights help us to extend the theoretical scope of ecological psychology toward impro-
visational interaction of a sophisticated sort.
Conclusion
To vary an old adage, few things are as practical as a good method. The micro-phenom-
enological reconstruction of interaction-based synergies provides a versatile tool, with
applications ranging from interaction routines to joint improvisation. A thoroughly
qualitative process analysis of high zoom factor takes patience, yet makes up for it with
high descriptive and theoretical payoffs.
The proposed protocol works its way up from individual experiences to a reconstruc-
tion of interdependencies and multiplicative effects. A fine-grained action score is cre-
ated, a “who does what when”, to capture the assembly and evolution of an
intercorporeal synergy “in vivo.” The protocol targets perceptual triggers and action
regulation tools from both perspectives in order to take stock of required components,
explain how they connect, and how a collective functionality emerges from this. The
result is a time-sensitive reconstruction of situated synergy emergence, which taps into
the experts’ rich knowledge of principles of collective physics.
Based on a quite free form of improvisational partner dance, our two case studies
“unpacked” how biomechanically demanding, yet spontaneous synergies emerge by vir-
tue of ongoing embodied communication. Accordingly, the physical and informational
processes of scaffolding between two dancers were analyzed, for instance with respect to
how so-called synergy build-up kernels are picked up on to complexify the interaction or
regarding how one partner provides springboards for the other. It was demonstrated
that unique and improvised synergies can emerge through a combination of exploration
interests, resonance-seeking behavior, adherence to technical principles, and mutual
scaffolding.
In this way, we unpacked the circular causality between the micro-level of individual
action and the macro-level of collective emergence. Readers will have appreciated that
bootstrapping the collective analysis from subjective meanings is neither a form of
methodological individualism, nor does it imply lack of rigor. Instead, a “view from
within” (Varela & Shear, 1999) allows addressing neglected questions effectively, notably
concerning micro-scale processes of synergy build-up, evolution, and transition, the
analysis of collective physics, and the question how experts regulate the collective level
through their own body (i.e., scale interdependencies).
Overall, the proposed research format strikes a suitable balance between three import-
ant aims: (a) faithfulness to subjective sense-making, (b) a fine-grained analysis, and (c)
descriptiveness regarding non-observables such as proprioception, internal or otherwise
hidden micro-actions, imagery, anticipation, trigger percepts, exploration interests, or

perceived constraints.
On the applied side, the method offers a didactic tool for teaching interaction skills.
An inventory of synergy components and sharing patterns is precisely what trainers go
through with novices, who may directly benefit from a detailed “process audit” of syn-
ergy processes. Similarly, the systematic self-reflection of practitioners stands to benefit.
On the scholarly side, this approach complements aggregate measures, which frequently
cloak micro-aspects of synergy evolution as well as underlying skills. The method may
contribute to popularizing qualitative modeling more, perhaps following other fields of
expertise research (e.g., Klein, 2008) and cognitive science (Steffensen, 2013), but it can
also contribute to brokering with quantitative research. To speak with Gallagher (2003),
it is possible to “frontload” micro-phenomenology into quantitative designs; further-
more, there is now a rich tradition of approaches that mix and cross-validate the two
types of methods (Bitbol & Petitmengin, 2017; Froese et al., 2011; Kimmel & Preuschl,
2015;). I close with the hope that the proposed tools will doubly facilitate cross-talk: on
the one hand between scholars, practitioners, and trainers, as well as, on the other
hand, between skill theory, interaction research, ecological dynamics, sports psychology,
sports sociology, dance & somatics, arts-based research, and related fields.
Acknowledgments
The research design was created with the help of Kerstin Kussmaul and Dayana Hristova. The
former played a central role in interviewing and data analysis, while the latter helped with the
basic data compilation and the pre-analysis. I would also like to thank all informants who partici-
pated in the study and who let us use their images. Stefan Schneider, Robert Hristovski, Dayana
Hristova, and Ad Foolen provided valuable comments to previous versions of the text, as did two
anonymous reviewers. Priscilla Hill kindly helped with the proofs.
Funding
This research was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) grant P-27870.
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The Micro-Genesis of Interpersonal Synergy. Insights from

CONTACT Michael Kimmel michael.kimmel@univie.ac.at Cognitive Science Hub, University of Vienna,

Definitions and concepts

one person creates a synergy despite substantial efforts of an opponent to prevent it

Background and research protocol

Observational methods of a micro-grainsize type have emerged in cognitive science

Tools I: Show and tell

or we introduced specific challenges and perturbations. A “show-and-tell” approach

Tools II: Facilitative interviewing

Wholes, parts, and sharing

dynamic, where they produce emergent effects at tn11. In sum, a micro-phenomeno-

Global event description

From pre-event to readiness

M emphasizes an inner organization that is habitual to him and already in place

From lift initiation to execution

As before, M emphasizes that, to lift a partner effortlessly, “it doesn’t need

For M, a critical element in this is a flexibly adaptive stance while moving

In the last phase, M ensure support stability with a slight reconfiguration; he

Global event description

Preparation and low lift

The combination of these many elements supervenes on previously established com-

Centrifugal energy and converting it

Structural aspects of collective synergy

sizable, dimensionally differentiated repertoire of regulatory tools is needed, together

hidden micro-actions, imagery, anticipation, trigger percepts, exploration interests, or

Psychology, 5, 1424. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01424

lifting kinematics. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance,

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