Contact Quarterly - Previous issue

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, Måns 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

back to top

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

back to top

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. to top

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.

to top