The Cult of the Lateral T

I’m inside a rehearsal room and my choreographer pauses while trying to decide what to do next. I jokingly suggest a lateral T and am met with a resounding no from the choreographer and a chuckle from the other dancers. Despite its wonky shape and awkward angle, dancers love the lateral T, but not in the way you’d expect. Unlike triple pirouettes and large leaps, lateral Ts are rarely performed on stage. However, they’ve garnered a cult following of dancers desperate to put one in their piece. 

Jenny Oliver is a Boston-based modern dance teacher who works at the intersection of dance, education, creative practice, and collaboration. Oliver considers herself an embodied practitioner and she creates both concert pieces for proscenium stages and public art works. 

“In the most basic explanation, a lateral T is a shape made with our bodies,” Oliver said. 

In a lateral T, the dancer is standing on one leg, known as the supporting leg, while their other leg, their working leg, and torso tip over to become horizontal with the ground forming a T shape.

“It requires an understanding of opposition. Energetically, it’s moving in all directions,” Oliver said. “It’s moving on a lateral plane both left and right and it’s moving up and down since the dancer is pressing into the floor on their supporting leg while opening up through their pelvis to create the line.” 

The lateral T originates from Horton technique in modern dance. Horton technique utilizes opposition work meaning two ends of the body are stretching away from each other simultaneously. There is an energetic pull coming out of the top of the dancer’s head and from the bottom of their feet. Because of this opposition work, Horton technique is often known as “anatomically corrective.” Lester Horton’s student, Alvin Ailey, founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958 and the Ailey School which popularized the Horton technique. As noted on the Ailey School’s website, the Ailey School has trained 75% of the current dancers in Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

I probably learned the position in one of my modern dance classes in middle school. I vividly remember what it felt like to do a lateral T for the first time. The sensation of a stretch shot down the back of my standing leg as I struggled to keep my balance while I tried to move my torso to be parallel with the ground. I walked out of class with my friend giggling about how odd the shape looks and complaining about how hard it was.  

In the fall of 2022, Julia Slaughter, a fellow undergrad at Emerson College, and I took a Repertory Process and Performance class with Oliver. Throughout the course we would often be tasked with choreographing in small groups. 

“People in the class who had modern training would say things like ‘let’s throw in a lateral T here’ or ‘ending pose lateral T’ and I didn’t really know what they meant but I laughed anyway,” Slaughter said, who had trained in classical ballet before the class. In a class like Olivier’s, dancers will often do a lateral T early as they are warming up their bodies. The position strengthens the muscles of the supporting leg and core. There is a lengthening effect through the body as the dancer stretches from their fingers through their toes. Repeatedly executing a lateral T will condition and train the body to find the shape easily. Like any athlete, a dancer needs to train their body to be able to perform effectively. 

“I think it is a nice way to investigate and gather information about what is happening in the body.” Oliver said. “The body is slightly different every day so it’s a nice way to find out where you are that day.” 

In choreography, the lateral T has a multitude of purposes. When communicating a theme or idea through movement, Oliver often uses the lateral T as a transition.

“Because of the lateral space it takes up, I love to use it as a dynamic transition,” Oliver said. “The audience will recognize the T shape because they have a reference of two lines intersecting.”

When choreographing, Oliver uses the lateral T as a tool to communicate an idea. 

“I don’t necessarily highlight the T, it’s not the period of a sentence,” Oliver said. “It’s something I’m using along the way to help articulate space in an interesting way.” 

Lara Martin is a modern dance teacher and the co-owner of The Moving Company Dance Center in Baltimore. While Martin has not put a lateral T in any of her choreography, she appreciates seeing it on stage.

“Because dance is so much about the aesthetic, it’s wonderful to see the complete mastery of a skill,” Martin said.

Ultimately, a lateral T progresses into a lateral T turn.  It takes a significant amount of strength and skill  to not only execute the skill but to do it with ease. In a lateral T turn, the dancer is in the lateral T shape while turning around themselves like in a pirouette. The lateral T turn is featured in choreography more frequently than a stagnant lateral T is.

  “There is a certain artistry to the aesthetic in dance. It’s beautiful to see someone flawlessly execute a lateral T turn or any difficult skill on stage,” Martin said.

Because of the difficulty of the lateral T and the recognizable shape, the lateral T has developed a following within the dance world. The hashtag “modern dance” has 29.7k posts under it on TikTok. Many of these videos center around the lateral T alluding to the popularity of the movement within the dance world. In 2016, the Dance Consortium embarked on a lateral T campaign to celebrate the Ailey tour’s return to the United Kingdom. In the fall of 2013, Alvin Ailey challenged dancers to submit a photograph of themselves doing a lateral T in an unusual location and featured one of their students on their website. 

“Once you reach a certain level in modern dance you will know what a lateral T is,” Martin said. “I think that speaks volumes about this one movement, how it’s almost revered in the modern dance world as a pinnacle of technical achievement.” 

A community has emerged around the lateral T. Emerson College student Olivia Tosto learned about the lateral T from one of her choreographers who was taking a modern class. 

“The first time I tried it, everything cracked and it felt so good, I immediately fell in love with it.” Tosto said. “I taught it to my roommates who aren’t dancers and now we do it every day together. I love it so much.” 

“It has the same cult following a meme would have. It almost feels like a choreographic punchline,” Slaughter said. “In conversation it’s used the same way as a backflip almost, like someone would say ‘what if I did a backflip right now’ but it’s ‘what if I did a lateral T right now.”