Contact Improvisation
“An improvised dance communication between two or more moving (or relatively still) bodies who are in (and sometimes out of) physical contact, where the “subject” of the conversation that these bodyminds are addressing is: how do the physical forces act on our physical bodies and their movement and how can my bodymind respond to and be in dialogue with these physical forces in concert with another bodymind doing the same? How can we learn about, challenge, and play with these conditions together as physical, mental, cultural beings, and thus manifest a unique and specific contact improvisation dance right now?”
– Nancy Stark Smith, 2018
Together with my colleague Alkis Barbas, I organise weekly open classes in Nijmegen and weekly classes with a closed group in Arnhem.
A contact improvisation jam is an event in which you can practice contact improvisation. Sometimes I organise jams in Arnhem, every month we organise jams in Nijmegen.
Sometimes I organise longer workshops do dive deeper into the form of contact improvisation.
Collaboration with Alkis Barbas
I started teaching contact improvisation together with Alkis Barbas. We started to company Shared Motion for our collaborative classes. Together with a big team of volunteers, we take care of the Contact Improvisation Community of Arnhem and Nijmegen.
Inspirations
Contact Improvisation is an open source technique, meaning that everyone is allowed to teach it, you don’t need a certificate in order to become a teacher. In order to exchange information between teachers, the Contact Quarterly was put into life. In this magazine, articles about Contact Improvisation are published in order to keep the discussion about this art form and technique alive.