The Sunday Afternoon Jam:

2:00-5:00 pm Sundays at St. James/St. Monica Church parrish hall, Capital Hill, DC =======================================================================

directions to St. James/Monica from the Union Station metro station are here. a $5 donation goes to the church to help support their community outreach program, which makes our use of the space possible. see DC Sunday Contact Improv Jam for more details.

on the first sunday of each month we use the jam for a structured improv, usually based on Nancy Stark Smith's Underscore, with an orientation from 2:00 to 2:30. this is usually a good opportunity to get acquainted with the jam, and jamming in general!

The Thursday Evening Jam:

8:00 to 10:00 pm Thursdays at Liz Lerman's Dance Exchange, Takoma Park, MD

"... We look forward to helping create an opportunity to learn, practice, and deepen an appreciation and understanding of contact improvisation. Each jam begins with a brief guided physical warm up focusing on basic principles for beginners and dancers wishing a structured focus. The remaining time will be open space for people to improvise in solo, duet and larger group forms. The facilitators will ensure that safety is observed at all times. All skill and experience levels are welcome!"

Capital Inauguration Jam, Washington, DC

Here is one more reason to stay in D.C. for the US Presidential Inauguration: the Capital Inauguration Jam. On Martin Luther King Day, Monday January 19, 2009, it's a day of classes and jams in our nation's capital, the day before we swear-in our new president. (If you will be in town early, check out the thursday and sunday dc jams!)

Schedule:

*Both classes will lead into a jam.

Register here - you can pay with credit card via paypal or by check to Ilana Silverstein.

Spontaneous or planned out Jams and/or Performances on the Mall and elsewhere organized by TBD.

Housing: If you are traveling from out of town and need housing, the DC jammers can help find a place for you. Send email to Ilana.Silverstein@gmail.com with the dates and number of people.

Register now, and please forward this invitation to anyone else who may be interested!

General Local Contact Improv Resources

• the dc-ci mailing list is a private list for current and former dc jammers. this is the central way to keep track of contact improv in dc. (among other things, it's the best way to be informed about venue changes.)

  conversation is held to jam and local dance topics, and it's a good way to be filled in on progressive dance and related arts in the dc metro area. membership is by moderator approval - nobody is turned away if they're really interested in ci - and postings by non-members are moderated, so the traffic is high-fiber / no-spam.

• http://contactimprov.net has an entry for the dc jams, as well as lots of other jams, and other ci-related resources.

• Dan Burkholder, a local dancer and choreographer, has been teaching an ongoing (last confirmed in July, 2007) drop-in contact improv class at the Joy of Motion studio in Friendship Heights on wednesday evenings, from 8:00 to 9:30pm. ("drop-in" meaning you can join the class at any point in the series.) see the Joy of Motion "by style" schedule at http://www.joyofmotion.org/Fall%2006/bystyle.htm and do a text search for contact improv. (the link they have to the entry on the page is broken, alas.)

  For directions to the studio, see http://www.joyofmotion.org/directions.htm#Friendship

• this page and its subtopics, initiated September 13, 2006

• jammers - contact improv is a process of perpetual discovery, yet it is not just doing whatever. you can learn it in each dance, if you listen, but you can also learn from asking questions. feel free to ask for help, if you're feeling curious or lost.

• online resources describing CI, eg the wikipedia contact improvisation entry.

• ken (who's behind these pages) describes some of the stuff he's learned from this and other collaborative improvisation practices. see Contact Improvisation and particularly CI Beyond Sharing Balance and CI Sharing Balance.

any other suggestions for this list? use the "contact" link at the top right of the page to notify me about it, or the comment form below!