Tag: Contact Improv

Moving from Bystander to Action: Responding to Manipulative Behaviors

Ella has been doing Contact Improvisation for a few years. At a recent jam she had a dance with a more experienced and well known contact-improviser, Stan. In that dance, he manipulated her body into different shapes and lifts. She had danced with him before and the same thing had happened. She wanted to dance with him because he was fun to dance with, but she wished there could be a more equitable sharing of decision-making and lead/follow. She decided to have a chat with him and let him know...

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20 Years of Coming to Terms: Shifting from Disempowerment to Systemic Thinking

Twenty Years of Coming to Terms: Shifting from Disempowerment to Activism and Systemic Thinking

Twenty years ago, I attended my very first Contact Improvisation workshop. My teacher, Karl Frost, skillfully twirled and swooped me around his body, and I felt a sense of connection and freedom I did not know was possible. The sky opened and a choir of angels sang, and in that moment of life-changing epiphany, I decided to dedicate the rest of my life to Contact Improvisation. And that is exactly what I have done. But something else happened that day that will forever be intertwined with my Contact Improvisation epiphany. The other feeling was not an epiphany at all… it was the opposite. I participated in something that I didn’t want to do, but only figured it out partway through.

Myths to Break Down: Moving Toward Ethical Communication & Ethical Sexuality in Contact Improvisation

Here is an article by Sarah Gottlieb that was published on Contact Improvisation Blog (contactimprovblog.com) Myths to Break Down: Moving Toward Ethical Communication and Ethical Sexuality in Contact Improvisation #1: It makes people uncomfortable to talk about boundary setting and sexuality right before dancing together. There is an idea that talking about boundaries, sexuality, or... Continue Reading →

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A Compendium of CI Jam Guidelines from around the world

Thank you to Benjamin Pierce for creating a google doc where the Contact Dance Improvisation worldwide community can gather resources. A Compendium of CI Jam Guidelines from around the world This collection of links to guidelines and related resources for contact improvisation jams is “open for comments” -- i.e., you can edit directly, and your changes will... Continue Reading →

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“That lady”: A woman puts up a boundary in the contact improv world

It’s a typical Wednesday night in Toronto. In a third-floor ballroom, some forty people have come to dance together.  A bow lifts and settles on cello strings and one can see the bodies absorb the first awaited note. A couple in the corner are intertwined in a rolling dance in which it is hard to figure out whose body is whose. A high-flying trio graciously makes its way around them. The bodies in this space are engaged in a type of group sensory “listening” that uses all the senses to gauge space and direction of momentum. There are all types of dancers here, from those that dance professionally to those that do it for fun. The ages span nineteen-year-olds to seventy+, and include diverse body types. ....

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