Richard and Adrianne are starting contact improvisation jams in Queens! Our first jams will be Friday nights in Greenspace, on Friday, June 6, and June 13, 2025. These will run from 6pm to 8:45pm, and will be closed-container “focus jams,” modeled on the jams run for years by Barbara Berti in Berlin.
Greenspace is at 37-24 24th Street, Suite 211, Long Island City (Queens), NY 11101. Take the N, W, or 7 train to Queensboro or the F to 21st Queensbridge; more directions on the Greenspace website.
The basic format we’ll use is as follows:
- 6pm doors open, warm-up and stretching
- 6:30pm opening circle—introductions, guidelines, discuss focus
- 6:45pm open jamming with focus. Doors close, no entries after this point.
- (7:30pm optional mid-point check-in)
- 8:15pm closing circle and shares
- 8:45pm end
Each jam will have a “focus”—an idea that we are exploring or working with. Examples of potential focuses:
- dancing across size differences
- dancing with 3 or more people with weight-sharing and speed
- playing with extremes in tone
- “bad dancing”
- “playful fighting”
- momentum-less dancing
- noticing and breaking patterns
- flow and anti-flow
- dancing with your non-dominant side
- dancing slow and fast
- transitions between levels
- dancing with stress/dancing in distressing times
- dancing as politics
Richard and Adrianne will typically bring a focus to work on, but then we’ll talk about that idea together and refine or change it into something we want to explore as a group. Then we’ll dance! And then talk about it afterwards. It’s a bit like a lighter-weight Underscore, with a single seed, or a closed-container jam.
The jam will cost $10 at the door, or $8 (plus fees) if you RSVP in advance through TicketTailor. Please RSVP in advance if at all possible—it makes it much easier the night of the jam to handle payments and logistics, and also helps us predict how many people will be coming.