Quick Post

“You have to relax to a certain degree to have the dance work well. You have to feel your weight, notice your sensation. You have to listen. You have to bring yourself to it. You can’t over-control, but you can’t be too passive either. Contact [Improv] encourages people to discover and invent; to cooperate, challenge, create within their limits. Did I mention generosity? There are a lot of people, myself included, who feel like it is peace work. But it can also be many different things, depending on what you emphasize in your practice.” — Nancy Stark Smith

To celebrate the 40th birthday of Contact Improvisation, dancer Alice Le Guiffant created this video for the 2012 Freiburg Festival with the aim of dancing with 40 people aged 0 to 40.  Contact Improvisation – 0 to 40

“The question is, are we training to get better at doing what our partner expects us to do or at being ready to be surprised and respond to something we didn’t expect? I would say the latter, but the former happens too.” — Nancy Stark Smith

Here’s a nice, 90-second Contact Improvisation video from Annalaura and Thomas in Cologne, Germany: Contact Improvisation

Here’s a 45 minute interview with Nancy Stark Smith in which she “explains with details the Underscore as framework for exploration and reserach for movement improvisational practices”: An emergent Underscore: a conversation with Nancy Stark-Smith