"Another exercise was to consider the book to be your ground. Put the book on the floor and get on top of it, touching only the book, and then read it...which combines physicality, balance, concentration, consciousness. It's nothing less than a modern dance exercise."
–Boris Charmatz, from his Bocal Project (2003–4), featured in CQ Vol. 32:1, Winter/Spring 2007.
Photo of François Chaignaud during a Bocal "reading warm up" in Brest, France, 2003, by Nicolas Couturier.

CQ - a vehicle for moving ideas

Dear Friend of Contact Quarterly,

Contribute to CQ's 2010 Annual Appeal.

As a dancer and an academic, I've always appreciated that CQ takes us wide and deep, expanding our views of dance and investigating edgy dimensions of embodied practice.

For 35 years, Contact Quarterly has provided primary source material for numerous books, supported independent artists, and created a global community that connects us. What a pleasure, luxury, and necessity it is to feel a part of the integrity of this long-standing project.

But we can't take CQ for granted. As a guest editor through the years and a current member of the advisory board, I know that everyone at CQ is working full tilt, and funding is minimal. The sustainability of CQ relies on a creative participating community—that's us.

What is your role in keeping this journal alive? Does it matter if the CQ publications, web materials, and services continue—for you, colleagues, friends, and students? for future dancers and scholars?

If the answer is yes, please consider a generous gift.

This year's Annual Appeal will allow CQ to further its mission and make the organization more secure. If we want to keep embodied writings in print and on the web, this is a central endeavor to support.

Send your contributions today. Any (every) amount is important—in grant writing and fundraising, numbers of supporters count. Moving together, we move forward.

All the best with your dancing lives,
Andrea Olsen
CQ advisory board member
Professor of dance, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont

Imagine a dedicated part-time (think full-time) staff in a sunlit and lively office by the Mill River, in Florence, Massachusetts. Boxes of past issues, stacks of kneepads, and current projects-in-process fill the space. Images of your dancing bodies flash by on screen savers, and notices of workshops, performances, and donor contributions fill bulletin boards. New books from around the globe show up for review, and advisory board members and interns bring their views and energies to the table. This is a hub, a real place, an energized locale sustaining important work in the world.

Andrea Olsen
author of Body & Earth: An Experiential Guide

...and thanks from all of us at CQ:

Directors
Lisa Nelson
Nancy Stark Smith

Advisory Board
Leslie Cohen-Rubury
Craig Harman
Andrea Olsen
Lisa Thompson
Marlene Wong
Wendy Woodson

CQ Staff
Melinda Buckwalter, Coeditor
Teresa Czepiel, Operations Mgr.
Amy Wisehart, Office Mgr.
Jeanell Innerarity, Admin. Asst.
Patrick O'Rourke, Graphic Design
Craig Harman, Webmaster