In this article
- Your first class
- Origins and community
- Movement to notice
- Listen to the music
- Choosing a class
- Approaches and next steps
01
Your first class
Expect slow listening through weight, explicit consent, and the right to leave at any time. First contact need not be a lift; it may begin with a palm, back, or shared point of support.
A sharing circle and speaking help people relax before first contact.
Begin with a small task: place a palm against a partner's palm and notice how pressure changes as each of you takes one step. Agree on boundaries before sharing more weight. You may pause, change the task or leave the pair at any time.
02
Origins and community
The origin trail runs through Oberlin and New York’s Judson/experimental scene, then through an international network of jams and teaching communities.
Contact Improvisation is an improvisational physical dialogue based on touch, shared weight, gravity, balance and responsive listening.
A Theatre Academy Helsinki dance-history account traces Contact Improvisation to experiments by Steve Paxton and other dancers in the 1970s. Open practices and jams carried the form among communities.
Culture and community
Consent, boundaries, safety, and shared weight are foundations of this technique. Low Air class practice and CI history show a relational form in which care for touch and bodies is part of the technique.
Contact Improvisation lives in jams, classes, workshops, and festivals across many countries and continents.
At a jam, watch how people invite contact and how they end it. A dance may begin with a look or a small offer of weight. Clear agreement and attention to another person keep the improvisation open.
03
Movement to notice
Shared weight
Begin with light contact and clear consent. Either person can withdraw weight at any time.
Fall After Newton archival film excerpt
Contact Quarterly presents archival Contact Improvisation practice by Nancy Stark Smith and Steve Paxton.
Contact Quarterly · Videoda · 1987Open video ↗04
Listen to the music
Contact improvisation may use music or silence. Listen also to a partner’s weight, breath and pause.
05
Choosing a class
Questions to ask
- How do you teach light shared weight and the right to stop contact at any time?
- Will we improvise with music, silence or another task?
- Where can students practise safely after class and learn more about this style's music and community?
06
Approaches and next steps
In contemporary class, improvisation may be one task among many. Contact Improvisation builds the whole practice around touch, shared weight, gravity, and spontaneous decisions.
