Contact improvisation
Steve Paxton and Nancy Stark Smith, in a Contact Improvisation performance (1980). Photograph (c) by Stephen Petegorsky
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| Also known as | CI, Contact, Contact Improv |
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| Country of origin | United States |
| Creator | Steve Paxton |
| Famous practitioners | Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Lisa Nelson, Karen Nelson, Danny Lepkoff |
| Parenthood | modern dance, postmodern dance,martial arts (Aikido), somatic practices (Release Technique, Body-Mind Centering®, Feldenkrais Method) |
| Descendant arts | Underscore (Nancy Stark Smith), Material for the Spine (Steve Paxton), Playfight (Bruno Caverna) |
| Official website | contactquarterly.com |
Contact Improvisation is a form of improvised dancing developed internationally since 1972.
First conceived as a performance by American dancer and choreographer Steve Paxton, Contact Improvisation has evolved into an art-sport, oscillating between different statuses depending on the moments and personalities who practice it:
Formally, Contact Improvisation is a movement improvisation mainly explored in duets. According to one of its first practicioners, 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 have been attempted to establish 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. »
Contact Improvisation was developed in the United States in the 1970s by a group of dancers and athletes gathered for the first time under the impetus of choreographer and dancer Steve Paxton.
In January 1972, Steve Paxton was in residence at Oberlin College on a tour with Grand Union, a collective where he collaborated among others with Yvonne Rainer and Trisha Brown. For several weeks, he offered Oberlin students two sets of practices:
The meeting of these practices gives rise to Magnesium, a twenty-minute long piece where dancers perform on gym mats, jump and bump into each other, manipulate and cling to one another. "In this performance, dancers usually use their bodies as a whole, all parts are simultaneously unbalanced or thrown against another body or in the air." After about fifteen minutes, the dancers stop and start a "Small Dance" that concludes the performance.
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