Contact Improvisation is an open ended exploration of the kinesthetic possibilities of bodies moving through contact.  Sometimes wild and athletic, sometimes quiet and meditative, it is a form open to all bodies, changing from moment to moment and dance to dance to flow with the physicalities of those meeting. sometimes quiet and meditative, sometimes wild and explosive, contact manifests in many different ways depending on physics and the intentions and curiosities of those participating.   Having a reference point in the post modern dance explorations of Steve Paxton and others in the early 70s, there is a base in an observation of the body's abilities to self organize functionally in precarious, off-balance situations set up by the collaboration and collision of two or more investigating partners. Part "non-martial" martial art, part acrobatic dance, part movement meditation, part collaborative bodywork practice, contact is a place where we can with a sense of playfulness and curiosity explore our bodies and interconnection.

Contact is the frame of investigation. Improvisation is the flow of response.

Originally instigated as a performance experiment, it has evolved and branched out in many directions.  Its investigations have become the underpinnings of many of the principles of contemporary theater dance, informing not only how to work with another body, but also informing the investigation of how we use our bodies more fluidly, gracefully, and efficiently, whether with a partner or not. In this context it also has become a major tool and reference point for dance theater, not only as a technique, but as a source of material for investigating relationship, for both improvised and set work, both physically and dramatically -- the metaphors for relationship emerging out of CI are endless.

Beyone the world of professional theater and dance, contact has spread across the world as a kind of folk-art, where people gather in "contact jams", ranging from 2 hour vening gatherings to week-long retreats, to explore CI as a kind of body-awareness practice or post-modern social dance. (goto Contact Jams for information on contact jams, their practice and etiquette, and other forms and frames of open movement jam and laboratory)

Descriptions of contact are sometimes quite vague.  This vagueness comes from a choice made early in its evolution to not copyright the term or restrict it to any one person's conceptions.  This lack of ownership of the term allowed it to expand and blossom in each person as their own personal investigation... it allowed contact to evolve in greater diversity than any one person's vision would have taken it. It has also taken contact sometimes into such different directions of explorations that some practitioners might not agree that they are still in the same practice.

For a description of the root techniques and practices of contact improvisation... something of a condensed version of some of the early classic explorations of contact improvisation, goto Fundamentals of Contact Improvisation.

Approaching Contact Improvisation as a profound opportunity for self-study -- physically, emotionally, and aesthetically --Body Research offer in their workshops many roads into the investigations of contact, looking at what is unique to each encounter and what is universal about bodies and physics. The aim is to cultivate greater ease, power, and pleasure in being in a body as well as greater presance in physical inquisitiveness and aesthetic exploration. For information on the specifics of Body Research's approach to Contact Improvisation, goto Body Research Contact

For other sources of information on contact improvisation, goto Resources

For more photos, goto Gallery