WINTER/SPRING 2009 VOL. 34 NO. 1

Special Focus:
Contact Improvisation's 36th Anniversary

3          Editor Note Nancy Stark Smith
4          CQ Messsages
5          Contact Trust
8          Letters
10        Shelf Life publications received

11        STEVE PAXTON'S TALK AT CI36 [excerpts]
            the artist shares his ideas around the conception of
            Contact Improvisationand his current work, Material for the Spine,
            at Juniata College, Huntingdon, PA, on June 13, 2008
            by Steve Paxton

16       EVOLUTION, KI, AND THE AIKIDOKA'S AXIS
           Aikido thesis expanded for contactors
           by Marjean McKenna

21       BLAST FROM THE PAST
            CI goes to the UK in 1973
            by Paul Langland

22       CI36: Reports on Contact Improvisation's
            36th Birthday Celebration
            Contacting CI36, by Ulla Mäkinen
            A Grassroots Perspective on CI36, by Amanda Abrams
            Performing Improvisation, American Style, by Keith Hennessy

28       SATELLITES:
           CI36 Satellite Events photo gallery and reports
            Report from curators Eckhard Müller and Daniela Schwartz
            An Organizer's Journey through an Event: Budapest CI36 Satellite,
            ......by Eszter Gál
            Intercontinental Contact: A Post-CI36 Exchange at Earthdance,
            ......by Sue Lauther
            Explorations within the Small Dance, by Jörg Hassmann
            plus many photos and stories

33        A MAGICAL HOUSE
            excerpt from an essay, Performing Improvisation
            by Jörg Hassmann

34       TALKING @ CI36
           topics, descriptions, and tidbits from the talks at CI36,
           gathered from CI36 talk curators' notes

36       IN RESPONSE TO FREEDOM? POWER? HAPPINESS?
          THE NEURO-POLITICS OF CI

          notes on a post-talk discussion at CI36
          by Sara Alessi Zolbrod

43       CI & U
           birthday interviews at CI36
           by Bunhead

44       PARTNERING, PERMEABILITY, AND SENSATION
           integrating Contact Improvisation into technique class
           by Jordan Fuchs and Sarah Gamblin

48       ESSENTIALS. basic Contact Improv. principles & practices
           Dance with the Body You Have, by Martin Hughes

49       THE LESSON
           a poem, for Joshua Bisset
           by Jeffrey S. Parker

50       CI Newsletter Contact Improvisation news & notices

69       Dance Map classified ads of programs, services, etc.

70       LEAVING NO TRACE
           a carbon offset for CI36
           reports by Martin Keogh and Gabrielle Barnett

FRONT COVER:

Standing helix. Dancer: Charlie Morrissey. Image from the new DVD-ROM, Steve Paxton: Material for the Spine, a movement study, by Contredanse, www.contredanse.org, available through CQ. Images from the DVD were projected during Paxton's talk at CI36.
photo © Contredanse

 

see contributor notes

 

 


CONTRIBUTOR NOTES

AMANDA ABRAMS is a writer and dancer based in Washington, D.C. Originally from North Carolina, she moved to D.C. to pursue foreign affairs, which she recently gave up in an effort to become a freelance journalist. When she's not scrambling to get writing jobs, she's dancing as much as possible and is always, always, trying to figure out what it means to live improvisationally.

GABRIELLE BARNETT began working with place-based research, writing, and activism in the 1990s. Her movement training includes modern, west African, and Afro-Carribean dance, as well as Contact Improvisation. She earned her doctorate in Performance Studies from New York University, and has collaborated on many performance projects, ranging from children's theater to experimental performance art. She teaches at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, for both the Liberal Studies and Theatre and Dance programs.

MELINDA BUCKWALTER is a dancer/writer living in western Massachusetts, where she co-edits Contact Quarterly and works on projects for Earthdance. She recently finished writing a book on dance improvisation, coming soon. Mavis & Bunhead are her dancing alter egos.

JORDAN FUCHS is a choreographer, dancer, and improviser who has been practicing Contact Improvisation since 1989. Based in New York City for the last ten years, and before that in San Francisco in the early 1990s, he now teaches at Texas Woman's University. In addition to his work with longtime collaborators Toby Billowitz, Storme Sundberg, and Andy Russ, he has explored duet collaborations with K.J. Holmes and Sarah Gamblin.

ESZTER GÁL is a dancer, teacher, choreographer, and organizer working at the Hungarian Dance Academy. She regularly teaches and participates in international improvisation festivals in Europe, Russia, and the U.S. She has been the artistic director of Kontakt Budapest International Improvisation Festival since 2002.

SARAH GAMBLIN has been teaching at Texas Woman's University since 2002. She has been practicing Contact Improvisation since 1988 and performed with the companies of Bebe Miller and Bill Young through the 1990s. Lately she has been creating and performing improvised choreography projects with collaborators including Amii LeGendre, KT Niehoff, Ray Schwartz, and Jordan Fuchs, and happily co-establishing a tasty CI scene in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

JÖRG HASSMANN, based in Berlin. I recently realized that I am a professional contacter. Contact was my starting point to dance in 1992. Soon it led me to creating dance and theater pieces, while studying biology and religion, which supported my analytic thinking and questioning for meaning/depth. In 2000 I committed full-time to dance, and CI became—in jamming, labbing, teaching, and performing— the heart of it.

KEITH HENNESSY has been dancing, teaching, performing, praising, and complaining about Contact Improvisation since 1979. He directs Circo Zero Performance and teaches internationally. Improvisation is his home base for experiments in activism, ritual, art, and criticism. Currently working on a PhD in Performance Studies at UC Davis, Hennessy wants any and all stories about CI in the Bay Area before 1985. www.circozero.org.

MARTIN HUGHES is based in Melbourne, Australia, where he has worked since the early 1990s developing the Contact Improvisation community with the invaluable help of others. He has taught and performed Contact in Australia, New Zealand, Korea, and most recently in the U.S. at CI36 and Earthdance.

For 28 years, MARTIN KEOGH has researched Contact Improvisation through dancing, teaching, and writing. Keogh has taught in 22 countries and has been named a Fulbright Senior Specialist for his contribution to CI. He is currently working on the Living Now Project, an anthology about mending the place of humankind in the natural world. He lives with his family in southeastern Massachusetts. www.martinkeogh.com.

PAUL LANGLAND is a dancer and choreographer, and has been a contact improviser since 1972. He has performed with many artists and companies since then, including Channel Z, and was an original member of the Meredith Monk Vocal Ensemble. He is currently an Associate Arts Professor at NYU's Experimental Theater Wing.

SUE LAUTHER has an MFA from the University of Illinois and teaches and practices Contact Improvisation in Troy, New York, where she teaches dance at the Emma Willard School. Sue has taught internationally as well and enjoys the metaphors Contact inspires: support, self-sufficiency, interconnectedness, riding through the unexpected, and much more!

ULLA MÄKINEN is a Finnish dancer and dance teacher currently living in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, studying for an MA in Contemporary Dance Pedagogy. She focuses on CI and improvisation in her work and loves to travel, perform, and teach in different countries and communities, as well as organize events such as the Finnish CI festival, www.contacfestival.fi, and Barcelona International Dance Exchange, www.bide.be.

MARJEAN MCKENNA is a teacher of the Alexander Technique, whose work has been influenced by graduate studies in embryology, traditional Chinese medicine, and the work of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. She has been studying aikido, Contact Improvisation, tai chi, and the Alexander Technique since 1976. Other movement investigations include skiing, aerial dance, tango, and walking. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.

ECKHARD MÜLLER, based in Strasbourg, France, has been deeply involved in sharing and exploring Contact Improvisation since 1988, as a practitioner, performer, and teacher, touring all over Europe and South America. He is co-founder and organizer of the annual Contactfestival Freiburg in Germany, which will celebrate its tenth birthday in 2009, and he is a supporter of worldwide development and networking for the form.

JEFFREY S. PARKER works as a psychiatric rehabilitation counselor for Threshold Services in Silver Spring, Maryland. He recently earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Seattle Pacific University.

STEVE PAXTON is an inveterate contactor who is interested in improvisation.

DANIELA SCHWARTZ is an Argentine artist, dancer, and teacher based in France, and is a tireless traveler. When she is at home, she collaborates with Cie Dégadezo, and when not, she tours with Eckhard Müller around Europe and South America. Years of jewelry making; object, textile, and fashion studies; and video and installation creation inform her physical practice, investigation, and teaching.

ROBERT TURNER lives, for the moment, in Toronto, where he dances, deejays, choreographs, and, in general, continues to research and experiment in the concerns of his recently completed PhD thesis in political science: the relationship between political power, habit, and risk in human movement and contact.

SARA ALESSI ZOLBROD authors the blog jammingonculture.blogspot.com. She is a choreographer, performer, and massage therapist. She contributed to the anthology Dance, Human Rights, and Social Justice: Dignity in Motion. She has worked for DanceAbility International since 2000.

ADDITIONAL ISSUE CONTRIBUTORS:
Peter Aerni, Claudio Al Jahara, Anton Argirov, Robert Anderson, Maria Antonova, Susan Arnsten-Russell, Gaston Bayle, Joshua Bisset, Jeff Bliss, Hilary Bryan, Melinda Buckwalter, Polina Bykhovskaya, Steve Christiansen, Naomi Claire, Contredanse, Diana Cordeiro, Jocasta Crofts, Jess Curtis, Jym Daly, Earthdance, Jenny Epstein, Amber Espar, Ben Featherpeach, Maaya Fukumoto, Ava Su Ganwei, Sven Hagolani, K'lo Harris, Lila Hurwitz, Edgar Jansen, Carey Jeffries, Gabriela Jüttner, Aune Kallinen, Alexei Kapterev, Oksana Kashkovskaya, Erica Kaufman, KNI, Marina Konovalova, Katja Kulenkampff, Emmanuelle Latour, Ken Manheimer, Diane McCorkle, James Moore, Fernando Neder, Christopher Neville, Ilya Noé, Uldis Ohaks, Cheryl Pallant, Sabine Parzer, Cathy Pollock, Daniela Ponieman, Michal Ratajski, Jan Ratecki, Lucien Renjilian-Burgy, Róbert Révész, Phillip Ringel, Save-the-Redwoods League, Steven Schreiber, Nancy Stark Smith, Barbara Stahlberger, Carol Swann, Hiroko Takahashi, Tamin Totzke, Cristina Turdo, Isabelle Uski, Valparaiso Chile CI36 Group, Ronja Verkasalo, Konstantin Voschanov, Nathan Wagoner, Andrew Wass, Mandoline Whittlesey, Jamus Wood, Ali Woolwich, Sarah Young, Paula Zacharias, Hernán Zelaya, Mark Moti Zemelman, Vladimir Zhulanov, Alexey Zyryanovff

 

SUMMER/FALL 2008 VOL. 33 NO. 2

Special Focus:

ACTIVISM & COMMUNITY

2          Editor Notes Nancy Stark Smith, Melinda Buckwalter
4          CQ Messsages
5          Contact Trust
8          Letters
11        Shelf Life publications received

13        THE FACTS AND FIXIONS OF B-LONGING
             in search of a community [excerpts]
             by Delphine Hesters

20        HONORING YVONNE RAINER'S INFLUENCE ON
             21st CENTURY ART AND SOCIETY

             by Mary Overlie

22        RETURNING TO EMPTY
             protecting open space for making in community
             writings by Gordon Thorne
             introduction by Andrea Olsen

25        BEGINNING THE INVESTIGATION
             a Critical Correspondence blog
             regarding Faustin Linyekula's Festival of Lies
             by Clarinda Mac Low

26        SNAPSHOTS FROM THE CONTEMPORARY
            CHINESE PERFORMANCE SCENE
             research travel in Beijing, Ji'nan, and Shanghai
             text and photos by Erikk McKenzie

28        THE EMBODIED ACTIVIST
             where permaculture meets the arts
             by Nala Walla

32        DANCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS
             tracking dance in the work of Amnesty International
             and Human Rights Watch
             by Naomi Jackson

42       itch
            a Los Angeles dance journal
            edited by Meg Wolfe and Taisha Paggett
            excerpted writings by Simone Forti, Amy "Catfox" Campion,
            and Sarah Leddy

40       DANCE NEW ENGLAND AS A COMMUNITY
            by Paul Freundlich

43        STILL MOVING Contact Improv. shoptalk
             Contact Improvisation and Its Influence on
             Contemporary Dance Practice; Excerpts from
             the Tanzfabrik Panel Discussion
             organized by Jess Curtis and Karen Schaffman
             with Sara Shelton Mann, Stephanie Maher, Friederike Plafke
             Peter Pleyer, and Meg Stuart
50        Paxton's Fireside Chat:
             excerpts from Steve Paxton's
             Fireside Chat at CI@25; June 4, 1997
52        The Dancing Ground:
             Contact Improvisation Portraits
             text by Martin Keogh
             photos by Thomas Häntzschel

55        Essentials basic Contact Improv. principles & practices
             Molding/Draping by Chris Aiken

56        CI Newsletter Contact Improvisation news & notices

84        Dance Map classified ads of programs, services, etc.

86        GO
             city, self, and other
             by Olive Bieringa

FRONT COVER:

Faustin Linyekula's Festival of Lies
at the BRIC, Brooklyn, NY, November 2007, produced by Dance Theater Workshop. [from left] Papy Ebotani, Faustin Linyekla, Djodjo Kazaki. Linyekula's dance company is based in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. www.kabako.org.
photo by Julieta Cervantes.

underlay drawing © Map-drawing of the "Brussels dance community" by Claire O'Neil, for the B-Chronicles' interview project. www.b-kronieken.be.

 

see contributor notes



CONTRIBUTOR NOTES

CHRIS AIKEN is an international teacher and performer of dance improvisation and contact improvisation. His work has evolved over 25 years through ongoing investigations of performance, composition, movement technique, and design, significantly influenced by his research into aesthetics, somatics, and perception. He has received numerous awards, including commissions from the National Performers Network and the Walker Art Center, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Jerome Foundation. He teaches at Ursinus College, in Pennsylvania.

OLIVE BIERINGAcodirects the BodyCartography Project with Otto Ramstad, which, for the past ten years, has been investigating the physical resonance of space through dance, film, and installation work internationally. Current projects include a new site work at the Crewe Train Station for Cheshire Dance, UK; the SEEDS Festival at Earthdance; and Half Life, a new performance work from the heart of the nuclear Pacific. Olive is a certified practitioner of Body-Mind Centering®. www.bodycartography.org.

THOMAS HÄNTZSCHEL is a freelance photographer for newspapers and magazines. He lives and works with Russian performer Marina Konovalova in north Germany. Inspired by contacters Benno Voorham and Eszter Gál, he started a photo project in 1997 about CI in Western and Eastern Europe. He hopes his photographs show the special qualities of improvised dance. An exhibition in Tallinn, Estonia, during ECITE 2005 was the initial point for a collaboration of text and photo with Martin Keogh.

DELPHINE HESTERS studied sociology and cultural management, researching contemporary dancers in Brussels for her master's thesis. As a research fellow of FWO (Research Foundation) Flanders, she is currently preparing a Ph.D. on the second generation of Moroccan immigrants in Brussels. She was part of Sarma's B-Chronicles think tank, creating the game PROJECT with Dimitry Masyn and assisting with interview research.

itch
AMY "CATFOX" CAMPION is dedicated to breaking through cultural and artistic boundaries by sharing ideas and experiences through multimedia hip hop dance/theater with her company, Antics Performance. www.AnticsPerformance.com.
SIMONE FORTI has had a seminal influence on the dance field. Her books include Handbook in Motion (1974); Oh, Tongue (2003); and Unbuttoned Sleeves (2006). She currently lives in Los Angeles.
SARAH LEDDY (CLMA) is a dancer, choreographer, writer, actor, and educator based in Los Angeles. She recently cowrote and performed in the dance theater piece Fear of Drowning / Fear of Flying, directed by Liz Hoefner. Her work has been performed in L.A., San Francisco, New York, and Greece.
TAISHA PAGGETT is a Los Angeles-based dance artist and co-instigator of the dance journal project itch. Her work and collaborations have been presented by venues in California, NYC, and Utrecht, the Netherlands. www.taishapaggett.net.
Independent agitator MEG WOLFE is co-editor of itch journal, founder and curator of the Anatomy Riot performance series, and organizer of the L.A. DANCEbank classes. As a choreographer/performer, her work has been presented in NYC and on the West Coast. www.myspace.com/dancemegwolfe.

NAOMI JACKSON is an associate professor in the Herberger College Department of Dance at Arizona State University. Publications include Converging Movements: Modern Dance and Jewish Culture at the 92nd Street Y (Wesleyan University Press, 2000) and the edited anthology Right to Dance: Dancing for Rights (Banff Centre Press, 2004).

For nearly thirty years, MARTIN KEOGH has researched contact improvisation through dancing, teaching, and writing. Keogh has taught in 22 countries and has been named a Fulbright Senior Specialist for his contribution to CI. He is currently working on the Living Now Project, an anthology about mending the place of humankind in the natural world. He lives with his family in southeastern Massachusetts. www.martinkeogh.com.

CLARINDA MAC LOW'S solo work and collaborative group extravaganzas have appeared in NYC at P.S. 122, St. Mark's Church, Movement Research, the Kitchen, and elsewhere in the world. Current work includes TRYST, with Alejandra Martorell and Paul Benney; DAGGER, a solo video and performance project based on Macbeth; and Salvage/Salvation, an ongoing collaborative project that explores the implications of reuse, discard, decay, and abundance.

MAVIS & BUNHEAD are dancers and roommates who enjoy colliding and combining their experience from the diverse worlds of postmodern dance and ballet in unusual works of activist dance-making. myspace.com/mavisandbunhead.

ERIKK MCKENZIE is a Norwegian musician and performance artist who is graduating from the School for New Dance Development, Amsterdam. The films he created with Li Ning can be seen during Julidans in Amsterdam, 2008. www.myspace.com/erikkmckenzie.

ANDREA OLSEN directs the dance program at Middlebury College; she is author of Bodystories and Body and Earth-books rooted in the Northampton, MA, community.

MARY OVERLIE, performer, choreographer, teacher, and theater collaborator, has been developing her Six Viewpoints since 1978. A founding member of New York City's Danspace at St. Mark's Church, Movement Research, and the Experimental Theater Wing at NYU, as well as the Pro Series for the TanzWochen festival in Vienna, Overlie has written about her work in the book Training the American Actor (2006), edited by Arthur Bartow.

STEVE PAXTON is an inveterate contactor who is interested in improvisation.

Tanzfabrik Panel
JESS CURTIS is a choreographer, director, and performer, and was a member of Sara Shelton Mann's Contraband. His company, Gravity, is based in San Francisco and Berlin. He teaches CI, composition, and release-based technique, currently at the Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz in Berlin and at UC Berkeley.
STEPHANIE MAHER is a choreographer, improviser, and teacher who trained in multidisciplinary forms for ten years in San Francisco, CA, living for the last ten years in Berlin. She started the 848 Contact jam in San Francisco, and the K77 jam and K77 studios in Berlin, and continues with the Ponderosa Tanz/Land Festival in Stolzenhagen, Germany.
SARA SHELTON MANN trained in NYC and then moved to Canada, where she was introduced to CI by Andrew Harwood and Peter Bingham. Sara formed Contraband in 1979, an interdisciplinary performance company in which Contact was the driving force. She lives in San Francisco, where she creates projects with collaborators, writes, and has a healing practice.
FRIEDERIKE PLAFKI now in Berlin, started as a freelance dancer in Leipzig, Germany, with choreographer Heike Hennig, and has been doing CI for sixteen years.
PETER PLEYERhas been a practitioner of CI since 1990. He is a graduate of EDDC in Arnhem, the Netherlands; a mover and shaker in Berlin; a member of "Veronika Blumstein" (Poland); and, since 2007, artistic director of TanzTage, Berlin.
KAREN SCHAFFMAN graduated from EDDC in Arnhem, the Netherlands, and University of California Riverside's Doctoral Program, her dissertation based on CI and performance. She is a professor at Cal State, San Marcos, and collaborates with San Diego locals, Downstream Media (San Diego), and Veronika Blumstein (Poland).
MEG STUART dancer/choreographer, took her first CI class at fifteen in Boston and studied further in NYC in the late 1980s with Randy Warshaw, Nina Martin, and Steve Paxton, among others. Along with her Brussels-based company, Damaged Goods, she collaborates with artists such as Bruce Mau, Ann Hamilton, Benoît Lachambre, and Hahn Rowe. Her latest improvisation project, Auf den Tisch! (2005), invites actors, dancers, and thinkers to improvise together while talking about improvisation.

PAUL FREUNDLICH is the founder and president emeritus of Co-op America, was editor of Communities magazine, and has been active in the movement toward corporate accountability and environmental responsibility. Publications include a novel, Deus ex Machina; essays and anecdotes, Secrets of the Universe Revealed; and 25+ documentary films and videos. He started Dance New England almost thirty years ago and is still dancing.

GORDON THORNE is a visual artist living and working in Northampton, MA. He is the founder and director of A.P.E.; the Open Field Foundation; and Window, LLC.

NALA WALLA is a transdisciplinary artist, teacher, and activist living at the BCollective: an off-grid arts and ecology project on a tiny island near Port Townsend, WA. Her work as a homesteader overlaps with her activities facilitating Bodyversity workshops and performing dance, theater, and music everywhere from organic farms to preschools.

ADDITIONAL ISSUE CONTRIBUTORS:
Peter Aerni, Marjorie Agosin, Keeth Apgar, Bill Arnold, John Barrett, Stacy Barton, Heidi Beier, The Brad Blog, David Brown, Karmit Burian, Julieta Cervantes, Christopher Chu, Ray Chung, Naomi Claire, Albert Cook, Ann Cooper Albright, Anne-Marie Culhane, Adrienne Dailey, Pen Dale, Dance New England, Dance Theater Workshop, Tine Declerck, Ilse Den Hond/Rosas, Green Deng, Katherine Dohan, Andrés Duque, Katy Dymoke, Mika Ebbesen, EINCE Festival, Laura Einsel, Johan Elbers, Liz Erber, Noa Eshkol/EWMN, Karim Ezzat, Benjamin Featherpeach, Hillary Anna Flecha, Eszter Gál, Alicia Grayson, Thomas Greil, Andreas Hechler, Dieter Heitkamp, Tinu Hettich, Amos Hetz, Gai Hetzroni, Michael Higgins, itch, Karen and Allen Kaeja, Tanya Kane-Parry, Miriam Keye, Marina Konovalova, Anouk Llaurens, Alejandro Martorell, Marjean McKenna, Mary-Clare McKenna, Thomas Moese, Ester Momblant Ribas, Mikki del Monico, Ann & Angus Monk, Fernando Neder, Amy Oelsner, Claire O'Neil, Anita Ostreich, Norbert Pape, Jeroen Pede, Diana Raspoet/Damaged Goods, Róbert Révész, Otto Ramstad, David Ray, Saliq Savage, Melissa Rolnick, Karen Schaffman, Christian Schneider, John Seyfried, Joel Smith, Lindsey Rosen, Sean Smuda, Herman Sorgeloos, Gretchen Spiro, Jillian Sweeney/DTW, Robert Turner, Natalie Uhlmann, Charlotte Vandevyver, Chris Van der Burght, Myriam Van Imschoot/SARMA, Anne Love Woodhull, Benjy Young, Coleman Zeigen.

WINTER/SPRING 2008 VOL. 33 NO. 1

Special Focus:

FEEDBACK & ARTICULATION

2          Editor Notes Nancy Stark Smith, Melinda Buckwalter
4          CQ Messsages
5          Contact Trust
8          Letters
11        Shelf Life publications received

13        EVALUATING CHOREOGRAPHY
            "Make a dance, kiddies, and we'll talk about it."
            by Robert Ellis Dunn

16        LIZ LERMAN'S CRITICAL RESPONSE PROCESS
            the core steps, by Liz Lerman and John Borstel,
            and an interview with Liz Lerman by Nancy Stark Smith
           
25        DANCING AT THE PRESENT TIME... WITH HISTORY
            two friends survive the heat and the studio
            by Meryl Green

28        IDEA: INTERNATIONAL DANCE EXCHANGE
            ALLIANCE
            audience and artist as partners in the creative
            moment
            by Christie Svane

31        CONTEMPLATIVE FEEDBACK
            cultivating a process for critique of creative work
            developed by Naropa University,
            submitted by Barbara Dilley

32        FIELDWORK
            interview with Steve Gross and Diane Vivona
            by Pele Bauch
           
38        CRITICAL CORRESPONDENCE
            articulating dance online                     
            Tere O'Connor interviews Yasuko Yokoshi

42        AGAINST "ON"
            a dance writer weighs in on words
            by Candace Feck
           
44        DANCE CONVERSATIONS @ THE FLEA
            developing dialogues in dance
            by Nina Winthrop

46        WHO NEEDS THIS MANY CHICKENS?
            Melissa Borgmann and Alston in dialogue

48        KIDS MAKING DANCES
            interview with Patricia Reedy by Lailye Weidman

86        DRAWINGS AND DANCES
            by Dana Reitz

53        Essentials basic Contact Improv. principles & practices
            An Ordinary Movement by Daniel Lepkoff

54        Still Moving
Contact Improv. shoptalk
            Freeing the Contact Mind by Neige Christenson
                         
            57        Notes from the Omni Ground by Rick Brostoff

58        CI Newsletter Contact Improvisation news & notices
65        Contacts List an international referral system for CI

84        Dance Map classified ads of programs, services, etc.


 

FRONT COVER:

Joe Poulson in Faux Pas, choreographed by Melinda Ring, Dance Conversations @ The Flea, NYC, December 13, 2005.

video still © Howard Silver underlay drawing © Charlotte von Glasersfeld

 

see contributor notes



CONTRIBUTOR NOTES

PELE BAUCH is a choreographer and arts manager. She joined The Field staff in 2004 after working in development at the Joyce Theater and Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. All of her choreography has been developed via Fieldwork and subsequently selected for presentation at New York City theaters. Pele recently received a BAX10 Passing It On Award.

MELISSA BORGMANN, cofounder of the Juno Collective with Dudley Voigt, is a writer, teacher, and facilitator who has taught learners of all ages. Her work has taken her around the United States and South Africa. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

JOHN BORSTEL is Humanities Director for Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. He has conducted facilitation and training in Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process throughout the U.S. His writing has appeared in Generations, Dialogue in Artistic Practice: Case Studies from Animating Democracy, and Parterre Box, the Queer Opera Zine.

RICK BROSTOFF has been a part of the contact improvisation community in New England for many years and has performed with Helix Rising and Playing Field. A chapbook of his poems inspired by CI and authentic movement, Momentum, is due out in November from La Vita Poetica Press (Atlanta, GA).

NEIGE CHRISTENSON has been an avid Contact Improviser since 1981, when her theater professor, John Hellweg, introduced her to the form. She has a BA in Theater from Smith College, an MA in Expressive Arts Therapy from Lesley University, and is a grateful graduate of the School for The Work of Byron Katie. Now she's an improvisational mother, dancer, performer, teacher, therapist, and inquirer. She lives with her family in Boston, MA.

BARBARA DILLEY danced with Merce Cunningham, studied new thoughts with John Cage, and entered new dimensions with the Grand Union. She continues to investigate bodymind through meditation and improvisation, and teaches at the Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Currently she is working on a project called deSOlAte/deLIGhT to create a culture that makes performance art.

ROBERT ELLIS DUNN (1928-1996), musician and protégé of John Cage, was a founding member of the Judson Dance Theater and mentor and coach of several generations of choreographers, dancers, and teachers. He finished the Laban training at the Dance Notation Bureau in 1972, which informed his subsequent teaching of movement observation, choreography, and improvisation.

CANDACE FECK is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Dance at the Ohio State University, where she teaches courses in dance history, criticism, and theory. A lifelong lover of both dance and writing, Candace is interested in the many ways these two practices intersect.

Since arriving from Bennington College in 1961, MERYL GREEN has been dancing, teaching, and choreographing in the greater New York metropolitan area. She has taught at studios, schools, and community centers, including Marymount School in Manhattan and Greenwich Academy in Connecticut. She is presently artistic director of MAC, a multigenerational dance improvisation group in Greenwich, CT, which has been in existence for twenty years.

STEVE GROSS has been involved with The Field since its inception as a service organization in 1987, often as director, and was dance curator at The Kitchen from 1990 to 1992. He has taught fundraising and arts administration courses at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and The Juilliard School. A choreographer, performance artist, writer, and video maker, Steve is also a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice; he works with artists individually and in groups.

DANIEL LEPKOFF is a dance maker who approaches movement as a finely tuned physical dialogue with the environment. His work explores the form and composition of this interaction. Daniel writes: "In a friendly e-mail exchange, considering our expansive view of movement, I asked Steve Paxton what could possibly be an example of something that is 'not physical.' He e-mailed back: 'writing e-mail.' Reading over my contribution in this CQ, I see I am pushing for a way out of this supposed dilemma. If you would like to join me in 'not being physical,' send your e-mail to: dnlep@earthlink.net."

LIZ LERMAN is a choreographer, performer, speaker, educator, consultant, and Founding Artistic Director of the Maryland-based Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, which just celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. Her numerous awards include a 2002 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Current Dance Exchange performance projects include Ferocious Beauty: Genome, Small Dances About Big Ideas, and 613 Radical Acts of Prayer.

TERE O'CONNOR has been making dances since 1982. He's created over thirty works for his company, which performs throughout the U.S., Europe, South America, and Canada. O'Connor is a professor in the dance department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he teaches one semester and devotes the rest of his time to research with his company, based in NYC.

PATRICIA REEDY is the director of Teaching & Learning at Luna Kids Dance in Berkeley, California. She teaches inquiry-based classes and seminars for teachers, artists, children, and families through the California Institute of Dance Learning. www.lunakidsdance.org

DANA REITZ is a choreographer, dancer, and visual artist who has developed and produced projects since 1973. Her projects include Necessary Weather, with lighting designer Jennifer Tipton and dancer Sara Rudner; Unspoken Territory, a solo for Mikhail Baryshnikov; and her latest work, Sea Walk. Reitz has toured extensively as a performer and teacher worldwide. The recipient of two "Bessie" awards, she is currently on the faculty of Bennington College.

CHRISTINA SVANE has been tracking a flock of migrating questions since she started dancing with Ann Woodhead in San Francisco in the 1960s: "Where does the dancing take us?" "How do we know what we've invoked if we don't tell each other?" While helping create Movement Research, teaching at SNDO in Amsterdam, creating IDEA and the moving-sounding-writing ritual, The Crystal, she keeps asking.

DIANE VIVONA has worked professionally as a dancer, teacher, choreographer, and arts administrator in New York, Los Angeles, and London. She is currently studying visual arts and the contemporary art market through the master's program at Christies' Education, London.

LAILYE WEIDMAN is a dance artist, teacher, and writer in Los Angeles, where she collaborates with the traffic, wind, and the moving ground. Currently she is working on her BA in the World Arts and Cultures program at UCLA.

In addition to curating Dance Conversations @ The Flea for the past three seasons, NINA WINTHROP choreographed Violet Fire-an opera by composer Jon Gibson and directed by Terry O'Reilly-which was presented at BAM's Next Wave Festival in October 2006. She formed Nina Winthrop and Dancers in 1991 and has presented her work throughout New York City and Los Angeles. She is on the Board of Directors of New Dance Alliance.

Born in Hiroshima, Japan, YASUKO YOKOSHI arrived in the United States in 1981 with a background in the martial art kendo and classical ballet. Yokoshi's works, which reflect her interests in combining disciplines and mediums, have been presented at festivals and theaters nationally and internationally. Yokoshi has received two New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Awards, one for her solo, Shuffle, in 2003, and the other for what we when we in 2006. Yokoshi serves as a curatorial adviser at The Kitchen.

ADDITIONAL ISSUE CONTRIBUTORS:
Kent Alexander, Susan Arnsten-Russell, John Barrett, Rob Bettmann, Nicole Bindler, Sondra Blanchard, Brando Brandes, Diane Butler, Nancy Campbell, Selene Carter, Ubaldo Cella, Nora Chipaumire, Michelle Coe, Jim Coleman, David Corbet, Paula Court, Fred Covarrubias, Barbara Cox, Critical Correspondence, Pen Dale, Ben Dallas, Dance Exchange, D. James Dee, Brittany Pettit Delany, Angela Delichatsios, Gretchen Dunn, Mĺns Erlandson, Anneliese Euler, Beth Fairservis, Molissa Fenley, Arthur Fink, Force Fong, Jordan Fuchs, Maaya Fukumoto, Ilana Gerjuoy, Ray Green, Matt Haber, Rosemary Hannon, Elazar Harel, Sue Huggins, In Dance, Mimi Johnson, Vika Kleiman, Magda Kleparska, Mark Kornblouth, John Kubat, Tina Kukovic, Katja Kulenkampff, Rythea Lee, Jacob Lepkoff, Alejandra Martorell, Mazie Marx, Michael Mazzola, Ryutaro Mishima, Marcin Mroz, Colleen Mylott, Johan Nilsson, Andrea Olsen, Judi Petkau, Mary Ramsay, Chris Randle, Alston, Melinda Ring, Rachel Roberts, Shakti Carolyn Sadeh, Paula Sager, Bala Sarasvati, Sarah Sass, Steven Schreiber, SheShooters, Howard Silver, Urs Stauffer, Pat Stone, Taimi Strehlow, Tim Summers, Hiroko Takahashi, Dudley Voigt, Charlotte von Glasersfeld, Johanna Walker, Jerry Weisberg, Kathy Wildberger, Mark Moti Zemelman

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SUMMER/FALL 2007 VOL. 32 NO. 2

Special Feature:

ALTERNATIVE FORMATS FOR SHOWING WORK

3          Editor Notes Nancy Stark Smith, Melinda Buckwalter (p. 32)
4          CQ Messages
5          Letters
9          Shelf Life publications received

10        ENSEMBLE THINKING:
            Compositional Strategies for Group Improvisation
            by Nina Martin

16        INTER-VIEWS with NINA MARTIN
            an interweaving of two interviews
            by Jennifer Keller; and by Melinda Buckwalter & Nancy Stark Smith,             for CQ
           
17        FINDING MY WAY IN MARFA
            a personal report on March to Marfa 2006
            by Heidi Henderson

23        EXCERPTS FROM LECTURE ON IMPROVISATION          
            at Dance Unlimited, in Arnhem, the Netherlands
            by Jan Ritsema

27        WHAT WE USE IN OUR TEACHING AND WHY:
            The Vienna Research Project
            by Gill Clarke and Eva Karczag

Special Feature: ALTERNATIVE FORMATS FOR SHOWING WORK

32        ALTERNATIVE FORMATS
            Feature Editor note
            by Melinda Buckwalter
           
33        COLLATERAL DAMAGE
            a stop-action animated dance                     
            by Andrew Wass

34        AUNTS: Interview with Jamm Leary
            from Movement Research’s Critical Correspondence
            by Levi Gonzalez
           
39        VERONIKA BLUMSTEIN:
            Platform for Performance of Alternate Histories and Identities
            by Karen Schaffman

42        THE A.W.A.R.D. SHOW!
            by Melinda Ring and Neta Pulvermacher

44        ARIEL’S FUNERAL
            by Lailye Weidman

45        LITTLE GLIMMERS
            dancing-with contexts
            by Margit Galanter
           
47        UNDER THE HOOD: Mind/Body/Car
            by Joanna Rotkin

48        DARK DINING PROJECTS:
            Sensory Feasts Served to Blindfolded Guests
            by Dana Salisbury
           
49        THE BULL YARD BASH:
            What Is Your Grandiose Vision for the Future of Dance?
            a panel discussion and performance party
            brought to you by AUNTS

102      HUH?
            a dance and visual art collaboration
            by Melinda Ring

54        Essentials basic Contact Improv. principles & practices
            Falling by Martin Keogh

55        Still Moving
Contact Improv. shoptalk
            ON CITE 06…
                         InCITEing Inquiry by Dan Bear Davis
            59        Teaching, Tantalizing, and Truly Listening
                        by Lauren Spivey
            61        Core Prop, Steve, and the Empty Middle
                        by Nancy Stark Smith

63        CI Newsletter
Contact Improvisation news & notices
72        Contacts List an international referral system for CI

98        Dance Map classified ads of programs, services, etc.
100       Back Issues index


 

FRONT COVER:

Regina Rocke, performer/choreographer, Fall 06 AUNTS show of the “aut 4 one” series at The Event Center;
Brooklyn, NY.

photo © Karen Chang

 

see contributor notes



CONTRIBUTOR NOTES

BULL YARD BASH PANELISTS:
Luciana Achugar is a Uruguayan choreographer based in Brooklyn, NY.
Neal Beasley, formerly of the Trisha Brown Dance Co., was awarded a 2007 DanceWeb scholarship to attend ImpulsTanz in Vienna.
DD Dorvillier has created experimental and multimedia performances in NYC since 1989, and codirects human future dance corps with director/ playwright Peter Jacobs.
Douglas Dunn formed Douglas Dunn and Dancers in 1978 and has recently begun Homestretch, including revivals, new work, a kids program, and salons, at his studio, DouglasDunnDance.com.
Charlotte Gibbons, along with composer Stephen Cooper and visual artist Geoffery Nosach, is a founding member of art team Eagle Ager, www.eagleager.com.
Miguel Gutierrez, based in Brooklyn, NY, directs Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People, www.miguelgutierrez.org.
Phyllis Lamhut is a choreographer of over 100 works and presently teaches choreography and improvisation at New York University Tisch School of the Arts.
Isabel Lewis, based in Brooklyn, NY, makes work with Erika Hand under the name The Labor Union, www.thelaborunion.com.
Jennifer Monson is a dancer, choreographer, improvisor, teacher, and artistic director of iLAND– Interdisciplinary Laboratory of Art, Nature, and Dance. www.ilandart.org.

MELINDA BUCKWALTER, dancing writing editing drawing teaching, improvisation anatomy bodywork cartoons CQ yoga, in Western Mass.

GILL CLARKE is an independent dance artist based in London, England. A founding member of Siobhan Davies Dance Co., she codirects Independent Dance, an artist-led organization supporting the ongoing development of dance artists.

DAN BEAR DAVIS currently lives in Santa Cruz, CA, where he teaches CI and codirects Shah and Blah Productions, a dance theater company that is currently working as artists-in-residence at The 418, www.the418.org.

MARGIT GALANTER lives in Troy, NY. She is grateful to her teachers and friends for providing both inspiration and approaches for investigating movement and all it imbues.

Originally from L.A., LEVI GONZALEZ, now in NYC, is a choreographer and performer, occasional teacher, waiter, and writer. He gets his inspiration from the endlessly challenging and innovative responses NYC artists and thinkers offer to our often dysfunctional contemporary culture.

HEIDI HENDERSON lives in Rhode Island with her lovely family, teaches improvisation among other things at Connecticut College, and makes work with her pickup company, elephant JANE dance.

EVA KARCZAG practices, teaches, and advocates explorative methods of dancemaking. Her work is informed by dance improvisation and mindful body practices. A former member of Trisha Brown Dance Co., she performs solo and collaborative work internationally.

JENNIFER KELLER trained with Nina Martin in the NY Dance Intensive and later performed with her in Locktime Performance in the 1990s. She currently teaches at Slippery Rock University and creates, commissions, and performs solo/duet work.

MARTIN KEOGH has taught and performed contact improvisation for over 26 years. For his contribution to the development of the form, he has been named a Fulbright Senior Specialist. He has taught in 21 countries and co-facilitated CI teachers’ conferences on four continents. www.martinkeogh.com.

JMY / JAMM / JBIRD / JEAN-MARIE LEARY, currently of Brooklyn, NY, was raised in S.F., CA, by a Buddhist monk and a former CIA member turned Buddhist turned interior designer. She continues to be influenced in all aspects of her life by the need to engineer earthquake-resistant infrastructures—buildings as well as water systems—models that are solid in their flexibility.

LAURENCE LUMINET—dancer, performer, CI teacher—is from Lyon, France, where she worked with choreographer Pierre Deloche. In Lyon she helped develop CI practice and teaches CI there in a theater school, Scène sur Saône. She lives in Nantes, deepening her performing work and learning Gestalt Therapy.

NINA MARTIN has been a dedicated force in the development of postmodern dance as a performer, choreographer, organization builder, and teacher. She worked in NYC for twenty years, teaching and performing contact improvisation and creating dance works for Nina Martin/Performance. Since 2001, she has been carving out a dance destination in Marfa, TX, and continues her collaboration with Lower Left, which she cofounded in 1995 in Southern CA. Over the last thirty years, she has developed several training systems: Ensemble Thinking, Articulating the Solo Body, and ReWire: Dancing States.

NETA PULVERMACHER, founder/curator of the A.W.A.R.D. Show!, was born and raised in Kibbutz Lehavot Habashan, Israel. A graduate of Juilliard, she founded the Neta Dance Co. in 1987, choreographing over 55 works for her own and numerous ballet and modern companies. Ms. Pulvermacher teaches at the University of Florida. Most recently, she was invited to the White House for the inauguration of the Global Cultural Initiative.

MELINDA RING, a NYC-based choreographer, collaborates regularly with visual artists, creating work for video, installation projects, and theater as well. Her work has been seen at such places as Dance Theater Workshop,  MASS MoCA, the
J. Paul Getty Center, and the Skirball Cultural Center (L.A.). She was a 2005–2006 Movement Research Artist in Residence.

JAN RITSEMA, of the Netherlands, is an independent theatre director, actor, and dancer. He makes his own performances and stages repertory mainly in Europe, in the field of experimental and political theatre. He is based at PerformingArtsForum—a residency he started, by and for artists; a free zone for self-organization and self-education near Reims in France. www.pa-f.net

JOANNA ROTKIN lives in a self-built straw-bale house in a Colorado mountain town. She choreographs and creates performance with her company, TinHouse Experimental Dance Theatre. She currently teaches improvisation and choreography at the University of Colorado.

DANA SALISBURY is a multidisciplinary artist, whose work spans dance, site-specific performance, and visual art. For the last several years, she has been exploring nonvisual perception and creating work for blindfolded audiences. She divides her time between Western MA and NYC. www.darkdiningprojects.com

KAREN SCHAFFMAN, Ph.D. in dance history and theory, UC Riverside, is a dancer, improviser, writer, and choreographer/director, as well as a professor at California State University, San Marcos. She cofounded Lower Left, a dance collaborative, and currently works with Downstream, a performance and technology collective, and SomeBodiesMovingCompany, based in San Diego, CA.

NANCY STARK SMITH has been doing contact improvisation since its inception in 1972 and travels extensively, teaching and performing CI and other improvised dance work. Cofounded, edits, and produces CQ.

LAUREN SPIVEY is a dancer, healer, and postpartum doula, recently relocated to Boulder, CO, from VA. She holds a BA in dance and interdisciplinary philosophy with creative writing from James Madison University, and currently studies at the Boulder College of Massage Therapy.

ANDREW WASS has been dancing since college, where he gave up the chem lab for the dance studio. “Content lies in the structure…” (Impro, by Keith Johnstone, p. 110) is a guiding principle in his work and investigations.

LAILYE WEIDMAN is a dance artist, teacher, and writer in San Francisco, where she collaborates with toddlers, wind, and the moving ground.

ADDITIONAL ISSUE CONTRIBUTORS:
Bill Arnold, Janet Barbato, John Barrett, Carolina Becker, Biba Bell, Ian Berry, Briana Blasko, Veronika Blumstein, Laetitia Bourget, Tara Brandel, Rebecca Brooks, Graham Brown, Karen Chang, Fred Covarrubias, Critical Correspondence, Patrick Crowley, deufert + plischke, Sybrig Dokter, James Dowling, Douglas Dunn, Gretchen Dunn, Earthdance, Johan Elbers, Claudio Etge, Sabine Parzer Fabie, Cynthia Farina, Beth Flatley, Larisa Fuchs, Laura Fuller, Galileo Multimedia, AvaSu GanWei, Alicia Grayson, Ziji Beth Goren, Thomas Häntzschel, Heidi Henderson, Spring Hofeldt, Patrick Johnson, Erica Kaufman, Luka Kito, Vika Kleiman, Kurt Koegel, Marina Konovalova, Fernanda Carvalho Leite, Daniel Lepkoff, Guto Macedo, Ulla Mäkinen, Rafael Moraes, Movement Research, Eckhard Müller, Patrick O’Rourke, Margaret Paek, Chris Patterson, Pipaluk, Annemarie Prairie, Arie Pulvermacher, Alejandro Rolandi, www.sarma.be, Paul Seaton, Steven Schreiber, SFADI, Germana Siciliani, Kirstie Simson, Peter Slade, Christina Smeja, Jason Akira Somma, Herman Sorgeloos, Helene Steen, Tim Summers, Erin Sylvester, Nienke Terpsma, Nathaniel Tileston, Robert Tobey, Mathias Vejerslev, John Wagers

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WINTER/SPRING 2007 VOL. 32 NO. 1
Special Focus: PLACE
2

FRONT COVER:

Isabelle Uski & Joe Stoller dancing in Roissard, in the Alps near Grenoble, France. February 2006

photo © Nadine Buchholz

 


see contributor notes


2          Editor Notes Melinda Buckwalter, Heidi Henderson, Nancy Stark             Smith, Andrea Olsen (p. 102)
4          CQ Messages
5          Contact Trust
8          Letters
10        Shelf Life
publications received

PLACE 2:

11        PERFORMING A SCHOOL: The Bocal Project
           Boris Charmatz in dialogue with Jeroen Peeters
15        Barbara Matijevic on Bocal with Pirkko Husemann
           

19       ALL AT ONCE:
          Dancing
The Ridge in New York City Parks
          by Hana van der Kolk
           

26       ON THE STREETS, IN THE FOREST:
           Community-based site work with Tamar Rogoff
           
based on an interview with Tamar Rogoff
           by Sharyn Korey
           

33       REPEATING DISTANCE
           by Lin Snelling
           

34       ARTIFACTS OF THE EPHEMERAL:
           a moving installation
          
 by Colleen Bartley
           

38       LOWER LEFT (not only) IN PLACE:
           The Satellite Project
           by Margaret Paek
           

40       THE EMERGENT IMPROVISATION PROJECT:
           Embodying Complexity
           by Susan Sgorbati


47        EXCHANGING STONE FOR COAL
            by Tamara Ashley and Simone Kenyon
           

48        "WELCOME TO CITY OF NICE PEOPLE"
            Cross-Cultural Dialogues on Authentic Movement
            in Thailand
            
by Susan Bauer

56        Essentials Basic CI Principles & Practices
            Place and Pour, by Nita Little
57        Still Moving Contact Improv. shoptalk & dialogue
            Reflections at the 25th Anniversary of the
            Breitenbush Jam:
Interview with A. Alessi, R. Chung, K.J. Holmes,             D. Lepkoff, K. Nelson, S. Paxton, S. Smith, and N. Stark Smith
            by Kristin Horrigan
64        CI Newsletter Contact Improvisation news & notices
73        Contacts an international referral system for Contact Improvisation
97        CQ Fine Print nuts & bolts
98        Dance Map classified ads of programs, services, etc.
100       Back Issues index


102      DANCING IN A NEW PLACE
           by Andrea Olsen,
CQ guest coeditor for the Place issues

 

SUMMER/FALL 2006 VOL. 31 NO. 2
Special Focus: PLACE

2          Editor Notes Nancy Stark Smith, Andrea Olsen
4          CQ Messages
5          Contact Trust
8          Letters
9          Shelf Life
publications received/book review
            Movement and Making Decisions: The Body-Mind Connection
            in the Workplace
by Carol-Lynne Moore
           
reviewed by Cate Deicher

PLACE:

11        PRESENCE: From Autism to the Discipline of Authentic
            Movement

           
an address by Janet Adler

18        Excursion: Alaska/Finland (water)
           
Standing Water/Tidal Solo, by Gabrielle Barnett
            BodySchool, by Malcolm Manning

19        THE PLACE OF SPACE
           
Interview with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen
            on the
Embryological Embodiment of Space
           
by Nancy Stark Smith and Andrea Olsen 

31        eXcursion: Uruguay (air)
           
Dancing under Different Constellations, by Martin Keogh

32        PHENOMENOLOGICAL SPACE:
            "I'm in the space and the space is in me"

           
Interview with Hubert Godard
            by Caryn McHose

39        exCursion: Wales (wood)
           
Locator, by Simon Whitehead

40        NIGHTMARE AND ROMANCE: Partnering Place
           
Interview with Sara Pearson and Patrik Widrig
           
by Heidi Henderson

45        excUrsion: NYC (metal)
           
Collapsible (boat), by Brendan McCall

46        HARVEST: One History of Contact Improvisation
           
a talk at the International Contact Festival Freiburg, Aug. 2005
           
by Nancy Stark Smith

55        excuRsion: Dartmoor/UK (earth)
           
Dance, place, and video, by Otto Ramstad

56        DANCING AND THE DISCURSIVE MIND:
           
70 Minutes of Contemplation on Company Käfig and
            Dance Criticism

           
for the ADF Institute for Dance Criticism, Summer 2005
           
by Theodore Bale

59        excurSion: Internet (ether)
          
Open Sourcing If/Then, by Richard Siegal

102      excursIOn: Martinique/Caribbean & Eritrea/Africa (fire)
           
Landing/Place and Journal Notes, by Bebe Miller


61        Essentials Basic CI Principles & Practices
           
Tones of Relaxation, by Karen Nelson
62        Still Moving Contact Improv. shoptalk & dialogue
           
The First Contact Camp at Burning Man, by Scott Rodwin
64        CI Newsletter Contact Improvisation news & notices
72        Contacts an international referral system for Contact Improvisation
97        CQ Fine Print nuts & bolts
98        Dance Map classified ads of programs, services, etc.
100      Back Issues index

CONTRIBUTOR NOTES

JANET ADLER continues her thirty-six years of inquiry into the teaching practice and evolution of the discipline of Authentic Movement from the new perspective of living on Galiano Island in British Columbia, Canada. She also works with hospice and is involved with defending the intuitive knowing and visions of First Nation people in relation to government and developers.

THEODORE BALE is dance critic and columnist at the Boston Herald. His writing appears regularly in Dance Magazine, the Cambridge Chronicle, and many weekly newspapers in Massachusetts. He was a 2005 fellow at the Institute for Dance Criticism, based at the American Dance Festival.

GABRIELLE BARNETT lives in the rain forest between the Chugach Mountains and the Turnagain Arm fiord. She teaches interdisciplinary humanities courses at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, and dances wherever she can.

At present, dancer/photographer BEN BROUWER is building a wooden boat on Lopez Island, WA, that will carry him and his tutu from the San Juan Islands to Alaska and back this summer. For images of this project, see www.boatproject.org.

For over forty years, BONNIE BAINBRIDGE COHEN has been an innovator and leader in working with movement, touch, and the body-mind relationship. Her work has influenced the fields of dance, yoga, bodywork, and many other body-mind disciplines. She has an extensive background in movement, including various dance styles, dance therapy, occupational therapy, bodywork, martial arts, voice, and yoga. She is the author of the book Sensing, Feeling, and Action. In 1973, she founded the School for Body-Mind Centering® (since 1977 in Amherst, Massachusetts), where students from over twenty-five countries have come to study.

CATE DEICHER designs and teaches Laban-based courses at Columbia College, Chicago; the Milwaukee Institute for Art and Design; and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is also a freelance writer, intermittent choreographer, and living-room dancer.

HUBERT GODARD is a dancer, Rolfer®, movement teacher, and researcher, who lives in France and teaches worldwide. Godard's teaching focuses on the ways orientation to space and weight predispose perception and movement. He describes this approach in his theory of Tonic Function. He served as the dean of the Department of Dance Movement Analysis at the University of Paris from 1993 to 1999, and continues to direct research on movement rehabilitation in Milan, Italy.

HEIDI HENDERSON lives in Rhode Island with her lovely family, teaches improvisation among other things at Connecticut College, and makes work with her pick-up company elephant JANE dance.

MARTIN KEOGH has taught and performed contact improvisation for over 26 years. For his contribution to the form, he is a Fulbright Senior Specialist and listed in Who's Who in the World. He has co-facilitated CI teacher's conferences on four continents and is the author of The Art of Waiting and As Much Time as It Takes. When not on tour, Martin writes, dances, and lives with his family in Easton, Massachusetts.

MALCOLM MANNING is a dancer, photographer, and a Feldenkrais® practitioner who recently moved from Finland to Bern, Switzerland.

BRENDAN McCALL is a movement artist who makes dances, directs plays, and writes stories. He has also been on the faculty of the Yale School of Drama since 2002. 

CARYN McHOSE has taught creative movement for over thirty-five years and is the coauthor (with Kevin Frank) of How Life Moves: Explorations in Meaning and Body Awareness (with foreword by Hubert Godard), published by North Atlantic Books in May 2006. McHose and Frank are the founders of Resources in Movement in Holderness, NH. www.resourcesinmovement.com.

BEBE MILLER is a choreographer and professor living in Columbus, Ohio, where she teaches for part of the year at Ohio State University. She formed the Bebe Miller Company twenty years ago to work with friends and artists who could inspire each other.

KAREN NELSON started dancing contact in 1977. "In the mid-eighties, studying video documents of early contact (Chute, Magnesium, Soft Pallet, Peripheral Vision) helped me recall the original principles of the work and clarify the spirit of my explorations."

ANDREA OLSEN is author of Body and Earth (2002) and Bodystories (1996 with Caryn McHose). She directs the dance program at Middlebury College in Vermont and teaches and performs internationally, including Pen Pynfarch, Wales, and Bern, Switzerland, this summer. Her home places —shared with husband Steve and their Brittany, Tobie—include Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maine.

SARA PEARSON and PATRIK WIDRIG are currently creating Katrina, Katrina: Love Letters to New Orleans, a dance/spoken word/video community performance project envisioned to tour throughout the U.S. to cities with significant populations of displaced New Orleanians. This summer, join them for a week of dancing in the water, in the woods, under the stars, at Bearnstow, Maine, August 20–26; www.bearnstow.org.

OTTO RAMSTAD uses public space and theater space as media with which to create art. He is codirector of the BodyCartography Project with Olive Bieringa, making live performance and video work throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Russia, Brazil, Japan, and New Zealand. He is a certified practitioner of Body-Mind Centering® and is deeply influenced by the physical practices of butoh, capoeira Angola, tai chi, contact improvisation, Tuning Scores, and skateboarding.

SCOTT RODWIN teaches contact improvisation, partner yoga, and martial arts in Boulder and Denver, Colorado. He is the author of A Wildly Incomplete Guide to Contact Improv. Visit him at www.stonedancestudio.com.

RICHARD SIEGAL is the founder of The Bakery (2002). He danced with William Forsythe's Ballett Frankfurt from 1997 through its final season in 2004. He lives in France and continues to teach, perform, and choreograph. www.thebakery.org

NANCY STARK SMITH danced in the first performances of contact improvisation in 1972 with Steve Paxton and others. Since that time, she has been central in contact's development as dancer, teacher, performer, organizer, and writer/ publisher. She travels worldwide teaching contact and other dance improvisation. In 1975, she cofounded Contact Quarterly dance journal, which she continues to coedit and produce.

Movement artist SIMON WHITEHEAD works from his base in rural West Wales. He has developed a body of work from the pedestrian. Encountering situations at walking pace, his works are place-sensitive and often involve a process of ritual reconstruction through the body, live performance, sound, and sensory media. This work often involves a process of collaboration with other artists, the public, animals, and places.

 

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SUMMER/FALL 2005 , VOL. 30 NO. 2

FRONT COVER:

Jennifer Monson performing Keeper at SFADI (Seattle Festival of Alternative Dance and Improvisation), August 2003.
Photo © Tim Summers

see contributor notes


2

CQ
Messages
3

Editor Note/ Nancy Stark Smith

4

Contact Trust

5
Letters
8
Transitions: Robin Feld
11

Shelf Life publications received


12

FOLLOWING JENNIFER FOLLOW THE BIRDS
interview with Jennifer Monson
on BIRD BRAIN DANCE—a navigational dance project
by Nancy Galeota-Wozny

25


DANCE EDUCATION IN THE INNER CITY

the lost voices of dance
by Susan Bendix


33


TWO STREAMS / MANY WAYS

interview with Barbara Dilley on her dance improvisation practices
by Nancy Stark Smith for CQ


46


PUTTING HUMANITY ON STAGE

interview with David Dorfman on his community dance projects
by Pat Debenham


57


STILL MOVING
—Contact Improv. shoptalk & dialogue
57 One two. One two. Testing. / Yiam Redd
60 CI, the Underscore, and Epilepsy / Gionatan Emiliano Surrenti

64
CI Newsletter Contact Improvisation news & notices
71
Contacts an international referral system for Contact Improvisation
92

Dance Map classified ads of programs, services, etc

94

Back Issues index

96
CQ Fine Print nuts and bolts

97

SHARED ECHOES

a bicommunal improvisational art event on the divided island of Cyprus
by Lisa Wells
CONTRIBUTOR NOTES Vol. 30 No. 2

SUSAN BENDIX has a BA and MFA in dance and choreography and has performed in the United States and Europe. She directs the dance program at Herrera School for the Fine Arts in Phoenix, AZ, and has done extensive movement work with inner-city and incarcerated youth. Susan works in community choreography and acts as a consultant to educators seeking to integrate dance into the academic curriculum.

PAT DEBENHAM is a professor of Modern Dance and Music Theater at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He is a Certified Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analyst and for fifteen years was codirector of Contemporary DanceWorks—a semiprofessional modern dance company in Utah. His work as a choreographer often rides the edge between humor and pathos. He and his dancing wife, Kathie, conduct community workshops entitled Move and Be Moved. Most recently, they joyously presented a concert entitled Debenham Dance, which included their three 20-something dancing daughters, their grandchildren, and their three son-in-laws, who range from accountants to computer geeks.

BARBARA DILLEY danced with Merce Cunningham, studied new thoughts with John Cage, and entered new dimensions with the Grand Union. She continues to investigate bodymind through meditation and improvisation and teaches at the Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.

>After performing with Kei Takei’s Moving Earth and Susan Marshall & Co., DAVID DORFMAN founded David Dorfman Dance in 1985. Noted for its exuberant style, the company has a history of collaboration with contemporary composers and visual artists, and its performances often feature live music. Community-based projects play an important role in the life of the company and have been presented widely. David Dorfman Dance has been honored with numerous New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Awards and has performed extensively throughout North and South America and Europe. Dorfman holds a BS degree in business administration from Washington University and an MFA degree in dance from Connecticut College, where he joined the faculty as Associate Professor in Dance in the fall of 2004.

NANCY GALEOTA-WOZNY is a Feldenkrais® practitioner and freelance dance writer. Her work has appeared in the Houston Chronicle, Dance Magazine, ArtsHouston, Total Body, Houston Woman, Somatics, and other publications. She is a 2004 recipient of the Gary Parks Memorial Scholarship Award for Emerging Dance Critics and finalist for the Sommerville Prize in Somatic Writing. She also edits Dancehunter, Houston’s only dance blog, at http://dancehunter.blogspot.com.

JENNIFER MONSON has been pursuing an original approach to experimental dance forms in New York City since 1983 when she graduated from Sarah Lawrence College. She has created a wide body of solo and group work and has long-term collaborations with many artists including Zeena Parks, DD Dorvillier, Yvonne Meier, and David Zambrano. For several years, Monson curated two dance/music improvisation series in New York City (Hothouse at PS122 and Dive-In at Danspace Project). She has a strong commitment to improvisation as a performance form and performs and teaches releasing, improvisation, and composition on many continents. Monson has received numerous awards and grants, including grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, and a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award. BIRD BRAIN, her ongoing navigational dance project, began in 2000.

YIAM REDD: Redd Alert was formed in 2002 as a forum to house and launch teaching and performance of a multimedia, multidimensional nature; to stimulate, inspire, provoke, and evoke audiences to their own creative self. Their style is rooted in improvisation as a tool for creation, as an end in itself. The work is facilitated through voice, freestyle movement, contact improvisation, music, percussion and rhythm, spoken word and text, visual art and film, esoteric study, and body work. In recent years, Yiam has been co-creating works in Australia, Canada, Germany, America, and the U.K.

GIONATAN EMILIANO SURRENTI lives in Orvieto, Italy, with dancer Laura Porter Blackburn and their daughter, Maya. He has studied, performed, and taught contact improvisation in Europe and in the U.S. He currently teaches CI in various dance contexts, and uses CI principles in his educational work with adolescents and in his career-counseling work with adults.

LISA WELLS dreamed of dance as she fell asleep as a child but fell away for too many years. She is now a Unitarian Universalist campus minister, a yoga and meditation instructor, a writer, a spiritual director, and a born-again dancer. Her permanent home is in Corvallis, Oregon, and from time to time she and her family live in Nicosia, Cyprus.

ADDITIONAL ISSUE CONTRIBUTORS:

Bill Arnold, John Bainbridge, Katya Bloom, Tom Brazil, Melinda Buckwalter, Ray Chung, Januar Ciel, Colin Cochran, Pen Dale, Carrie Demers, Bob Eddy, Melina Efstathiou, Benno Enderlein, Måns Erlandson, Sharna Fabiano, Claudia Finn, Rossella Fiumi (Zip Festival), Laura Fuller, Tracey Gilbert and the Flynn Center, Nilgun Guney, Paula Hadjipapas, Daniel Halkin, Thomas Häntzschel, Nataraj Hauser, Kim Hong Hee, Lila Hurwitz, Arlene Jordan, Kurt Koegel, David Koteen, Paul Langland, Theodora Litsios, Nina Martin, Ashik Mene, Ester Momblant-Ribas, Liz Moscarola, Blake Nellis, Jay Noller, Cheryl Pallant, Nicolas Panayi, Kendra Rosenblatt, John Rynders, Chara Savidou, SFADI, Barbara Stahlberger, Nancy Stark Smith, Tim Summers, Gwenn Thomas, Tim Trumble, Ronja Verkasalo, Horst Weierstall, Walter Weiler, Wire Monkey Dance, Maren Witte, Cameron Wittig courtesy of the Walker Arts Center, Yeesul Yoo.

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