The Human Contact Project 2009

  • a project exploring the improvisational play of human contact, developing deeper sensitivities to physical detail and a sense of the poetic play of human contact
  • contact improvisation as a base, but moving beyond this into references from physical theater, release technique, and somatic psychotherapy
  • A series of interconnected weekend and week-long workshops in different cities
  • Retreat Lab and Jam weekends gathering attendees of different week-long workshops for integration and further investigation


The Material

The Human Contact Project explores a reframing of the art of contact improvisation… diving into subtle level awareness of the physics and neurology of two bodies in contact combined with an open sense of the poetics of human beings encountering each other.

A Release Approach to Contact Improvisation

We increase moment-to-moment functional awareness through tuning into proprioception - our physical experience of the body - allowing for greater ease, speed, and power. Through more sophisticated movement intelligence (as opposed to "muscling through") we find a more dynamic perception in time, informed by our accumulated skills but less hindered by attachment to physical habit. Through releasing patterns of hyper-control, we find dense, rich awareness of and participation in human interaction.

Physical Poetics

We look at our sense of meaning in movement… a sense of the poetics of interaction, whether in kinesthetics and physics or in the poetry of sensation, emotion, and experienced image. We play with holding onto themes and frames of reference in the dance in a sense of collaborative art-making that moves us literally and metaphorically. The art that emerges might be experienced visually in the space, but is rooted in the proprioceptive experience of Human Contact.

 

For more details, click on the links to …

Release-based Contact and The Passive Sequencing Work
Poetics of Contact

Exercises for the Human Contact Project

For more information on the project

 

Dates and locations (others TBA)