• Home
  • Jams
    • First Friday Jam: On Hiatus
    • Third Friday Jam: On Hiatus
    • 2017
      • Global Underscore Berkeley 2017
    • 2015
      • Jan 1: New Year’s Day Underscore 2015
    • 2014
      • Jan 1: New Year’s Day Underscore 2014
    • 2013
      • Jan 1: New Year’s Day Underscore 2013
      • Mar 22: “Dance Anywhere” CI Lunch Jam
      • Apr 20: The Underscore
      • Jun 23: Global Underscore 2013
      • Dec 28: Holiday CI Jam & Potluck
    • 2012
      • The Underscore, January 2012
      • Global Underscore 2012
      • Dec 29, 2012: Holiday Contact Improv Jam & Potluck Dinner
    • 2011
      • The Underscore, December 2011
      • Holiday Jam & Potluck
  • Workshops
    • 2017
      • July 15: CI Workshop with Sarah Gottlieb
    • 2016
      • Apr 22: Class & Jam with Sarah Gottlieb
    • 2015
      • July 11: CI Workshop with Ralf Jaroschinski
    • 2014
      • Dec 18-21: Workshop with Nancy Stark Smith and Mike Vargas
    • 2013
      • Jan 5, 2013: Falling into Flying Workshop
      • Jan 29: Harnessing Momentum Workshop
      • Mar 30: The Power of the Pelvis Workshop
      • Apr 23: Fluidity & Receptivity through the Joints Workshop
      • Apr 30: Limbs to Core in Spherical Space Workshop
      • Jul 20: Intro to Contact Improv Workshop
      • Aug 13: CI Trios Workshop
    • 2012
      • Nov 24, 2012: Lifting from the Ground Up
  • Resources
  • About
  • Facebook
  • Contact
      • Home
      • Jams
        • First Friday Jam: On Hiatus
        • Third Friday Jam: On Hiatus
        • 2017
          • Global Underscore Berkeley 2017
        • 2015
          • Jan 1: New Year’s Day Underscore 2015
        • 2014
          • Jan 1: New Year’s Day Underscore 2014
        • 2013
          • Jan 1: New Year’s Day Underscore 2013
          • Mar 22: “Dance Anywhere” CI Lunch Jam
          • Apr 20: The Underscore
          • Jun 23: Global Underscore 2013
          • Dec 28: Holiday CI Jam & Potluck
        • 2012
          • The Underscore, January 2012
          • Global Underscore 2012
          • Dec 29, 2012: Holiday Contact Improv Jam & Potluck Dinner
        • 2011
          • The Underscore, December 2011
          • Holiday Jam & Potluck
      • Workshops
        • 2017
          • July 15: CI Workshop with Sarah Gottlieb
        • 2016
          • Apr 22: Class & Jam with Sarah Gottlieb
        • 2015
          • July 11: CI Workshop with Ralf Jaroschinski
        • 2014
          • Dec 18-21: Workshop with Nancy Stark Smith and Mike Vargas
        • 2013
          • Jan 5, 2013: Falling into Flying Workshop
          • Jan 29: Harnessing Momentum Workshop
          • Mar 30: The Power of the Pelvis Workshop
          • Apr 23: Fluidity & Receptivity through the Joints Workshop
          • Apr 30: Limbs to Core in Spherical Space Workshop
          • Jul 20: Intro to Contact Improv Workshop
          • Aug 13: CI Trios Workshop
        • 2012
          • Nov 24, 2012: Lifting from the Ground Up
      • Resources
      • About
      • Facebook
      • Contact

      Difference, Composition, and Responsibility

      July 19, 2018

      Oct, 2010: Group ensemble improvisation at the Strawberry CI Jam in Steamboat Springs, CO

      At a recent Underscore that I facilitated, I shared the following quote from Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, a Zen Buddhist priest in Oakland, CA: “Awareness of oneness in life includes difference” (Manuel, 2015).  Manuel’s notion that “an idea of harmony with an understanding that difference exists within oneness” (Manuel, 2015) feels important to me, both on a sociocultural level as well as what I experience within my creative endeavors such as improvisational ensemble dancing.

      One of the most rewarding yet mysterious aspects of the practice of the Underscore, for me, is its ability to foster greater permeability between its participants so that ensemble dancing seems to happen more readily than during the dyad-heavy atmosphere within most contact improvisation jams.  At the same time, the ability for everyone to have their own dance (while in relationship to each other) still remains accessible.

      The word “composition” can have as its definition “a collection of a whole from parts.”  The composition of the word “composition” itself contains “com” which can mean “together” and “position” which may be defined as the verbs to put, to place, to settle, to situate, to dwell; oftentimes, “position” may also refer to a place occupied by a person or a thing.  These notions feel strongly present for me in my dancing, writing, and photography; for others, perhaps just as important their music, their visual arts, and their science.  Understanding that parts combine to create a whole feels central to many of the ways I navigate this world–perhaps, in part, from my Japanese upbringing being inclusive of collectivist cultural norms.

      In preparation for that particular Underscore that I facilitated, I pulled a couple of random aspects of composition from Mike Vargas’s essay, “86 Aspects of Composition” (Vargas, 2003).  (I didn’t have my 86 Aspects deck, so I used an online random number generator.)  One of the aspects I pulled was for Responsibility: “How do social and environmental conscience influence the process of the creator, the perceiver, and other elements of the composition?”

      I believe the permeability between “social and environmental conscience” and Contact Improvisation needs to increase in order for there to be responsibility.  The composition can not just include the dancers, the studio, and the space between, but also the assumptions within the culture, the pervasive power differentials amongst participants, and the understanding of transgressions–as well as those who have experienced marginalization, those who have been invisibilized, and those who have either been removed or have removed themselves from the room due to oppression, harassment, and abuse.

      Including these sociocultural perspectives feels critical for my dancing, as I strive daily to bring more of myself into everything that I do; doing otherwise seems to me like yet another way I bypass my discomforts and further marginalize my identities.  As I dance these days, I feel a greater sense of responsibility to expand my awareness and consciousness both outward beyond the walls of the studio and inward into my cells, cultures, and ancestry.  Without them, my compositional perspective feels skewed and incomplete.  My hope is that I will have opportunities to be more  inclusive of these wider perspectives within in my compositions in my dance and everywhere else in my life.

      References

      Manuel, Z. E. (2015). The way of tenderness: Awakening through race, sexuality, and gender. Simon and Schuster.

      Vargas, M. (2003). Looking at composition is like painting the Golden Gate Bridge: 86 aspects of composition. Contact Quarterly, 28(2), 28-34.

      Share

      Uncategorized

      Leave A Reply


      Leave a Reply Cancel reply

      Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

      • Newsletter Subscribe

      • Events

        • May 25, 2025 10:00am: Open Contact Lab at BCC
        • Jun 1, 2025 10:00am: Open Contact Lab at BCC
        • Jun 8, 2025 10:00am: Open Contact Lab at BCC
        • Jun 15, 2025 10:00am: Open Contact Lab at BCC
        • Jun 22, 2025 10:00am: Open Contact Lab at BCC
      • Recent Quick Posts

        Here’s a video of a ‪Contact Improvisation‬ performance called “Yield” which was performed by Vitali Kononov and Rosemary Hannon at the West Coast Contact Improvisation Festival in 2007: Yield at WCCIF 2007

        March 6, 2015

        Here’s a Contact Improvisation video of a duet beterr Steve Homsher and Catherine Lessard at CI36 at Juniata College in 2008: Duet from CI36

        February 26, 2015

        Here’s a ‪‎Contact Improv‬isation trailer for the upcoming documentary, “Contact Improvisation: An Intimate Dance”: Trailer for the Documentary, An Intimate Dance

        February 20, 2015

        Here’s a ‪Contact Improvisation video called “The Poetics of Touch: Nancy Stark Smith, a pathway into Contact Improvisation” (25 minutes) filmed in 2013 at Casina Settarte in Italy: The Poetics of Touch: Nancy Stark Smith, a pathway into Contact Improvisation

        February 12, 2015

        Here is a short Contact Improvisation video featuring Steve Paxton describing Contact Improvisation as Ray Chung and Kirstie Simson dance a duet as part of “The Improvisation Project” at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in 1998: The Improvisation Project, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival

        January 23, 2015
        Read More


      • Home
      • About
      • Resources
      • Calendar
      • Facebook
      • Contact
      © Copyright Sharing Weight, LLC. All Rights Reserved