Contact Improvisation – Page 3 – Creative & dance journal

Zoom! Dancing together – alone

When the UK Coronavirus lock-down started in March 2020, dance sessions and classes were halted. The response of many organisers was to host the sessions by teleconferencing – often using the service from Zoom. Here, I reflect on three Zoom sessions at London Contact Improvisation with Robert Anderson, Rachel Dean, and Angus Bainbridge in spring and summer 2020.

Looking back: Tango Diferente 2015

In Summer 2015, I attended Tango Diferente – a week-long course combining Argentine tango and contact improvisation, organised by Adriana Pegorer. It was held at Ponderosa, Stolzenhagen on the German Polish border. I wrote an essay about it ‘Dancing the metaphor : impressions of Tango Diferente 2015’ which is presented here.

Dancing contact improvisation with ‘contact-through’

In an age of coronavirus (July 2020) with the need to avoid bodies in contact, we can have some contact with each other through the use of artefacts like – balls, ropes, fabrics, sticks or poles. We can ‘contact-through’ them to other dancers while dancing outside. This article includes Government guidelines about reducing infection risks.

Dance with Social Distancing

Each summer, Oxford Contact Dance has organised Dance in the Park – where we dance contact improvisation outside. This year’s Dance in the Park is going to be a bit different due to COVID19. We won’t be dancing with our bodies in contact but physically distanced (‘social distancing’) and there must be no more than six dancers – by law (in England). Let’s investigate and research this configuration – six people, two metres apart. Let’s dance six two (#dance62)!

Freiburg Research Project 2019 (‘NOT-YET CONTACT IMPROVISATION’ by Flor Campise and Meldy Ijpelaar)

At the Freiburg Contact Festival 2019, Flor Campise and Meldy Ijpelaar facilitated the festival research project entitled ‘From CI island to CI connective Rhizome’ – which included workshops that I also attended. Subsequently, they produced the zine ‘NOT-YET CONTACT IMPROVISATION’ drawing on their research.

Dance in the face of coronavirus

The outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic in March 2020 caused the suspension of our dance and class sessions at Oxford Contact Dance. Assembles were unlawful, ‘social distancing’ the new normal, and most people were isolated at home. We couldn’t dance together. What could we do?

Embodied decision-making?

The University of Oxford has been using the humanities for leadership training – mostly for leaders in business. Acting and singing are two humanities featured in their programme but what about movement or dance? I draw-up a two day course based upon my movement practice of contact improvisation. [Research by Fiona Bennett]

Patrick Beelaert was one of the photographers at Freiburg 2019 and he has a great album of photos on Flickr which show people dancing.

Category: Contact Improvisation