Here’s a nice article about experiences a new contact improv dancer had with Boulder teacher Alicia Grayson (who has been a teacher of mine since day one of my CI explorations): “Touching Strangers” If you haven’t had a class with Alicia yet, she is currently teaching a series on CI and the chakras. More info at www.tumblebones.com.
Quick Posts
“In the direction the arms are hanging, without changing that direction, do the smallest stretch you can still feel. Can it be smaller. Can you do less. The initiation of stretch, along the length of the bones, in the direction the force is already going. The small dance — you’re relaxing and it’s holding you up.” — Steve Paxton
Here’s a nice blog post by Mike Vargas on improvising music with improvisational dancers in which he presents many interesting questions for musicians and dancers who co-improvise. “Improvising Musicians and Improvising Dancers”
Here’s a nice video clip of Keith Hennessy and Laura Centorrino dancing in a low yet dynamic fashion: “Contact Improv, Hennesy & Centorrino”
“Contact Improvisation is a dance that invites our entire body and being to be present and available. To dance this form, we need to build a capacity for trust with ourselves and our partners. We nurture or harm that trust by our ability or inability to set and respect boundaries.” — M. Keogh (from 101 Ways to Say No to Contact Improvisation)
Here are some pictures from the recent Third Friday Jam: 2012-03 Third Friday Jam
“Touch and movement can be powerfully good medicine anywhere, I think, especially when they come with a willingness to listen to what lives/moves under the touch and to meet that life with a benevolent, creative, albeit not intentionally therapeutic intent. Dancing — embodying impulse and perception, curiosity, creativity — liberates.” — Nancy Stark Smith
Here’s a nice video of Steve & Angie and Tim & Chris at the Moab Jam in 2007: “Moab Jam, 2007”
“‘Replace ambition with curiosity’ is an invitation to relax, to use the energy that might otherwise be taken up in worrying about geting it right, to follow one’s curiosity and imagination in pursuing what it is that is actually arising. Discover it. Penetrate. Play. Dance. Invest in what’s there.” — Nancy Stark Smith