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at the washington, dc contact improv jam we have been having a nice time periodically practicing a movement improvisation structure, in addition to our sunday contact improv practice. since december of 2003, the jams on the first sunday of every month are dedicated to a run-through of something called "the underscore". over the course of that time we have experienced significant growth in the number of regular attendees at the jam and, i feel, in the accessibility of the jam to both inexperienced and experienced contact improvisors. [note]
what i see at the heart its effect is two principle focuses:
- making a space for people to physically investigate their interior appetites to move
- while incorporating an investigation of the connections between one's own impulses to move/movements with those of people around you.
the net effect is support and strengthening of the often delicate balance between following one's own muse and collaborating with others. the net result often is a delightful opportunity to be fully indulge one's own moving enjoyment while sustaining extraordinary and diverse connnection with others.
the underscore addressed some central tension between expertise and play that i gather can be an undercurrent at any jam:
how can we make the jam accessible to beginners? new uptake is necessary for the jam's ongoing vitality.
a jam is not an instructional context, and even those of us with the best intentions can't perpetually do enough enough of the time to fill in the gaps and while continuing to get the recreation we're seeking.
the tendency to pursue expertise at the expense of play and diversity - they need not be mutually exclusive by any means, but can be polarizing left unchecked
in the underscore, things are generally cooking enough in each person so that there's usually something juicy for anyone to dive into, at any moment. the underscore introduces a higher degree of circulation and diverse engagement, a richer stew for everyone to play in. i suspect that this reduces the need to focus on the extremes, while still offering full opportunity for the heights of intensity in any direction at any time, arising in a less tense way from the engagement in the moment.
one of the two primary features of the underscore is a progression bringing an interior focus out into engagement on the basis of ones internal appetites and interests, very distinctly and explicitly. several of us at the dc jam had previously recognized, over the years, how fostering our own solo movement skills/enjoyment was incisively helpful in developing not just our own enjoyment of the jam, but also the jam's ensemble vitality. what we lacked was a way to convey that insight in a clear and direct way. (we may have been suffering to some degree from lack of formal dance training and experience - having that may have given us stronger skills and confidence to convey this insight.) the underscore suggests that with forms that are commonly employed by contact improvisors gradually arriving and preparing themselves to engage - in their warm-up - explicitly delivering this insight in a way that immediately demonstrates its value.
the immediate delivery is in part because it arranges for others around you to be on a similar path, receptive and active in a way that rewards sensitive engagement. this situation almost has to yield a rich and fertile ground for discovery, and usually does. this sensitive, active engagement is also the kind of awareness key to good contact improv dances.
avoiding some pitfalls
the lead-in to the underscore is like a particularly rich cultural medium, like a petri dish or teenagers overnight retreat. in some ways, each underscore is a fresh-slate growth of a culture. in the early context, where everyone is sensitively exploring their appetites and responses, any distinct action can have profound ripple effects, and can propagate like wildfire - like the invention of fire or the while or language. in particular, pairings can have a big influence, and if they happen very early in the process than can lead to some urgency in the participants to be in pairings, themselves - which can be very much at the expense of continuing to include the wider personal responsiveness which helps foster the rich culture. so the pervasive rich context is not guaranteed, just available if people are willing to stick with the progression.
similarly, it can sometimes appear that anything can be part of this improv structure, and to some degree that's true. however, almost anything done without regard for your internal state and/or for what's happening around you can go against the fabric of interconnection which is at the heart of each sessions emerging culture. our experience has been that people can dive in catch on, without exactly knowing what's going on, if enough other people have a solid enough grasp of the structure to establish the fabric. however, a few people not catching on can be very disruptive, particularly in the early stages, and the more people that are oriented with the principle instructions, the more likely that a vital culture will emerge and grow.
| [note] | i am going to leave out some details about the underscore, itself, because it is a work in progress, and its creator - nancy stark smith - has yet to have time to widely publish her own presentation of it. (nancy has been presenting and conducting explorations of it in workshop and intensive settings for many years now, which is how i and other dancers are acquainted with it.) rather than preempt her, i would like to describe some essential effects which i've noticed, and present a perspective that can complement and elaborate nancy's when she is eventually ready to publish about it. |
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