Taken by Surprise

Contact Improvisation has had many different definitions “As time has gone on, the answer has shifted: away from an experimental dance phenomenon and toward a physical practice allied with a number of complex new body and mind studies.”(Paxton,2003,175). Steve Paxton explored Contact Improvisation firstly though imagination. He did not know much about imagination and with exploring it though Contact Improvisation he began to have a better understanding of what the imagination is and how it influences Contact Improvisation.

At first he had to teach students that the performance of actions do not just happen you have to imagine them first. With this it leaded Paxton on the exploration of the consciousness. Paxton found gaps appearing with the consciousness; this meant there were opportunities lost and these lost moments meant that you could not learn from them. Paxton believed that the reason these gaps happened was because the movement being performed was too fast for the conscious to keep up with. Dizziness and nausea were thought to be the borderline between the conscious and the reflexive, reflexive is what replaces when the conscious has gone, they would step in out of each other’s place. I find this interesting because when I think about moments when I have become dizzy because I have turned to fast I feel that there is a something lost with the conscious. When turning you are thinking and when you go to fast I feel you lose all thought, just for a brief moment, and then it returns with the dizziness.

To further explore and teach Contact Improvisation Paxton came up with a working model “I took the working model to be a simple imaginary person with no physical seasonal or social inhibitions”. (Paxton,2003,179) I think that Paxton made it simple so it would fit any person at any point; this is a smart move from Paxton because he can work with anyone.

Paxton assumed many aspects when exploring and learning about Contact Improvisation, he found that by assuming, these assumptions affected the result. “I tried to beware of what the assumptions were and to let the phenomenon we explored-the narrower field of improvisation when communicating via touch with another person-guide the definitive imagery into appropriate areas.”(Paxton,2003) Paxton had to make the assumptions to progress learning more about Contact Improvisation; he took into fact these assumptions but still went to assume many things when researching Contact Improvisation.

This reading was interesting to me as it showed me how Contact improvisation became to Contact Improvisation and how it progressed from just an idea to becoming an actual art form. I feel that it has opened my mind to Contact Improvisation and I am excited to learn more.

Moving from the Skin

Hautsache– this is a skin matter. Heitkamp used this to explore the skin in dance. One of the most important elements of Contact improvisation is communication of touch; through touch a wide range of information is exchanged. “Communication via the skin also involves dealing with limits and boundaries, my own and my partner’s- flexible, porous boundaries with limits that we define and are free to redefine”.(Heitkamp,2003,264) The skin does many different things, it is the bodies outer boundary. The skin inhales and exhales, maintains muscle tone, holds the body together and provides a framework for our sense of touch. Through the experiments I found common elements, I felt each experiment focused on the skin and how it was different in each exercise, such with the ground and environment and how it was with other people and how the skin was with clothing and how that made the person feel. I found it interesting to read each experiment and how it made the people feel and with the experiment more was learnt about the skin.

From the reading I found it interesting that skin does so much and can do much when dancing. I have never thought of the skin as a communication device when dancing and when I am back dancing I am excited to see how the skin communicates and what I experience through touch.

Bibliography

Heitkamp, D. (2003). Moving from the Skin: An Exploratorium. 2nd Edition. Northampton: Contact Editions.

Albright, A. C. & Gere, D. (2003) Taken by surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader, United States: Wesleyan University Press.