I don’t have many records from my first days and years doing contact improvisation. I’m not sure why; maybe I just wasn’t that affected by starting the form? But, no, I think I was having lots of feelings and thoughts…
Category: analysis
Why is teaching contact improvisation so hard?
I’m usually pretty critical of contact improvisation teaching and teachers. That hasn’t really changed. But after a recent stretch of teaching, I’m more appreciative of this fact: even though I think CI teachers should be better preparing for their classes,…
NYC Contact Improvisation Practica returns — now with more practica (and less fun)
Something extraordinary happened when I taught at the Ontario Regional Contact Jam this past April. Charlie Halpern-Hamu, one of the organizers, gave me free rein to discourage people from taking my class. So I tried to make it scary. I…
Martin Keogh & Ray Chung, with commentary
Martin Keogh has posted a old performance of his with Ray Chung on his blog, from the Freiburg Festival about 14 years ago. You may have seen this one before (I have). But now he’s added a DVD commentary track,…
Three Fundamental Styles of Contact Improvisation
or, Why is it that sometimes I dance with someone who seems to be experienced — but I can’t figure out what the heck they’re doing? As much as we talk about relating to the earth, in a sense, we…
Characteristics of a Jam Crush
Collaboratively created by certain members of the July 4th Earthdance Jam on July 5th, 2014, edited by Amy W. and Richard A rarely-acknowledged but all-too-common phenomenon in the contact improvisation community is the Jam Crush. In the kitchen one night…
In and Out
The Earthdance New Year’s Jam starts today, one of the largest and longest contact jams in North America. It reminds me of the challenges of in and out in the contact improvisation community, particularly at multi-day jams.
Why do I sometimes come out of a contact class and feel like I don’t know what I’ve learned?
The West Coast Contact Improvisation Festival ran some 25+ years in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Festival would offer something like 25 different classes over five days around the Fourth of July holiday, along with a ton of jamming. When I…
You don’t have to stop moving in table top — be an underdancer
At some point in the way distant past, perhaps in the 1980s, the story goes that Nancy Stark Smith was teaching a workshop in the Bay Area. Maybe it was in San Francisco. I forget all the other details of…
The Circuit
Okay, as far as I know, I’m the only one who calls it “The Circuit.” But every year in the northeastern part of North America, many contact dancers from New England and Quebec follow a well-worn, well-established path through about…