Contact Improvisation

Contact Improvisation (short: CI ) is a contemporary dance style in which it is about the active discovery of all possible movements that can perform two or more human bodies.

Being and forms

Just as the avant-garde jazz musician of the twentieth century tried to explore the variety of sounds produced by their instruments, so go dancing in front of the Contact Improvisation. The practitioners are trying to explore all possibilities of movement and movements of the body in which they mutually give, for example, the weight on and roll over one another, climb and swing.

Sources and Performers

The beginnings of Contact Improvisation go back to various sources such as modern dance, various martial arts that Newton's laws of physics, observations on the human anatomy, children's and gymnastics. First, it has been applied actually conceived as a kind of exploration of movement and expression and of professional dancers and choreographers. Meanwhile, CI is an integral part of training for contemporary dancers and is considered by many choreographers, among other improvisational approaches and styles of dance as an equal means of choreographic material determination. In addition to the professional dance itself CI has also spread as a social dance form very rapidly. The " barrier to entry " is very low, mainly because only a playful, explorative spirit and a human body enough for it. There is now a highly crosslinked international community of dancers whose abilities vary greatly and dance training in the framework of jams in the dance physically meet in order to practice with relish and with curiosity CI and develop.

History

Contact Improvisation was invented or developed by a group of dancers in the early 1970s in New York, among them Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith and Daniel Lepkoff. Paxton, a former member of Merce Cunningham Ensemble and a member of the improvisational Grand Union Collective, organized the first performances and introduced developments. In the same year came the first jam sessions, short called Jam. From the beginning, Contact Improvisation was a social phenomenon that people met in gyms and parks to explore new dance forms in jam sessions and discover. The interest in this dance form grew dramatically: from 1974 appeared the international magazine Contact Quarterly, and many dance organizations concluded, contact improvisation into their work.