Contact improvisation
Contact improvisation is a form of improvised partner dancing that has been developing internationally since 1972. It involves the exploration of one's body in relationship to others by using the fundamentals of sharing weight, touch, and movement awareness. It has evolved into a broad global community of social dancing around "jams" characterized by their welcoming attitude towards newcomers to dance, as well as seasoned practitioners, and is often found overlapping with ecstatic dance communities.
| Also known as | CI, Contact, Contact Improv |
|---|---|
| Country of origin | United States |
| Creator | Steve Paxton |
| Famous practitioners | Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Lisa Nelson |
| Parenthood | modern dance, postmodern dance, martial arts (Aikido), somatic practices (Release Technique) |
| Descendant arts | Underscore (Nancy Stark Smith), Material for the Spine (Steve Paxton) |
American dancer and choreographer Steve Paxton originated contact improvisation, drawing from his past training in aikido, a martial art form, to explore and push boundaries with his colleagues and students to develop this new practice. Contact improvisation plays with the artistry of falling off balance, counterbalance, finding the shelves of the body, learning the mechanics of the body in order to handle someone else's weight or be lifted, breathing techniques, and can involve the art of getting to know your partner past the physical point through the physicality.
Steve Paxton, along with other pioneers Nancy Stark Smith, Danny Lepkoff, Lisa Nelson, Karen Nelson, Nita Little, Andrew Harwood, Peter Bingham, and Ray Chung, thus participated in creating an "art-sport," oscillating between different emphases depending on the moments and personalities who practice it:
- experimental dance (practice-based research organized in dance laboratories)
- theatrical form (improvised performances and lectures-demonstrations)
- educational tool (classical training for professional and non-professional dancers in improvisation and in partnering)
- social dancing (through informal gatherings known as "jams")
- awareness practice
Formally, contact improvisation is a movement improvisation that is explored with another being. According to one of its first practitioners, Nancy Stark Smith, it "resembles other familiar duet forms, such as the embrace, wrestling, surfing, martial arts, and the Jitterbug, encompassing a wide range of movement from stillness to highly athletic."
Various definitions establish in their own ways what was at stake in a contact improvisation duo. Steve Paxton proposed the following in 1979:
The exigencies of the form dictate a mode of movement which is relaxed, constantly aware and prepared, and onflowing. As a basic focus, the dancers remain in physical touch, mutually supportive and innovative, meditating upon the physical laws relating to their masses: gravity, momentum, inertia, and friction. They do not strive to achieve results, but rather, to meet the constantly changing physical reality with appropriate placement and energy.