Contact improvisation
Contact improvisation is a movement form initiated in 1972 by American choreographer Steve Paxton. Two dancers in physical contact explore shared weight, gravity, momentum and inertia. It grew out of the postmodern dance of Judson Dance Theater and the Grand Union, and was first shown to the public at the John Weber Gallery in New York in 1972, after work at Oberlin College.
No fixed music is required. The form is practised in classes and in jams, open sessions where people of different experience dance together, ranging from weekly local meetings to multi-day gatherings such as those at Earthdance in Plainfield, Massachusetts. The journal Contact Quarterly, which grew from a newsletter launched in 1975, documents the practice and is now published online.
Sources
- Contact improvisation - Wikipedia
- About Contact Improvisation - Contact Quarterly
- Contact Improvisation - Earthdance
- Contact Quarterly - home
Organisations connected with this dance
Listed as references; being listed is not an endorsement by or of the organisation.