CONTACT IMPROVISATION
five steps to join your first dance jam
Steve Paxton "invented" contact improvisation in 1972, giving a name to
movement ideas that he had been investigating with collegues and
students. While the experiment with the movement developed, participants
and viewers began to see the dancing as an expression of a way of life
with certain values. Many of the early participants, audience members,
and critics felt that the movement structure of contact improvisation
litterally embodied the social ideologies of the early 70's which
rejected traditional gender roles and social hierarchies. The group with
no director symbolized an egalitarian community in which everyone
cooperated and no one dominated.
Contact imoprovisation is most frequently performed as a duet, in
silence, with dancers supporting each other's weight while in motion.
Unlike wrestlers, who exert ther strength to control a partner, contact
improvisers use momentum to move in concert with a partner's weight,
rolling, suspending, lurching together. They often yield rather than
resist, using their arms to assist and support but seldom to manipulate.
The dancers in contact improvisation focus on the physical sensations of
touching, leaning, supporting, counterbalancing and falling with other
people, thus carrying on a physical dialogue.
- Cynthia J. Novack, Sharing the Dance - Contact Improvisation and
American Culture
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1 Making contact
Touch is essential to the dance, its lodestar; dancers share a constantly moving point of touch. A heel meets a shoulder, or belly with back, hip with hip - these and innummerable constantly changing combinations provide possible touch sites. No one site or combination is prioritized above another. There is no right or wrong site of contact, but dancers must establish a physical connection and stay in touch for the dance to proceed. The contact point roves the body's contours finding new combinations continuously.
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2 Listening to motion
The particulars of CI are determined moment to moment, partners allowing the smooth or bumpy course of the dance to emerge on the spot. Listening, a term regularly used i contact improvisation, is key to a mutially satisfying dance. In listening, partners pay attention to the ongoing fluctuations of their bodies. Both the gross motor awareness of kinesthesia and the less conscious sensory feedback mechanism of the proprioception form the basis of the physical dialogue which is so pivotal to creating the dance.
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3 Equal opportunity
CI welcomes all, regardless of any distinguishing quality. All that's needed is a willingness to take that initial step. Althouh a partnered dance, there is no leader and no follower. Instead partners dance on equal footing and can break from usual societal expectations, dismantling prevalent hierarchical disparities based on gender, sexual preference, race, class or ability. Wheelchair bound persons need not to be excluded from entering the realm of dance. A contacter need not to train daily for years to perfect movement before entering a jam. It is not uncommon for an experienced mover to partner with a beginner, CI welcoming refined skill alongside raw, unseasoned attempts.
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4 Support and trust
When contactors engage in dance, support and trust work hand in hand. CI partners by difinition readily extend trust first, building a foundation that simultaneously generates support. Contacters look to meet tge movement of each other, seeking genuine dance that acknowledges the partners particular movement. We find surfaces like a thigh, pelvis or a shoulder from which to pivot, sharing motion and balance. And we do so without knowing what movement will follow, led only by the shared contact point and mutual trust. Contacters are well aware of the responsibility that accompanies letting down our guard to open to the impromptu motion of the moment.
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5 Safety guidelines
From the moment dancers enter the jam space, safety becomes a primary concern. Beacause of the risks involved the community agrees to make the space safe for investigations into the damce both physically and emotionally. Before joining a jam, please read our guidelines.
- Cheryl Pallant, Contact Improvisation - An Introduction to a Vitalizing Dance Form