Learning Contact Improvisation

by Ken Manheimer — last modified Oct 11, 2023 09:42 AM

Explaining how to do CI is like explaining how to walk or swim or surf or ride a bike – these kinds of things are learned by doing. Guidance about how to participate can provide orientation to help you find what works. In this section I offer such guidance.

Contact improv is organized differently than most partner dance, as a kind of question: how do we mutually follow shared points of contact to move together? I and many others have found that exploring this question teaches a very engaging kind of movement cooperation.

Nobody can tell you exactly how to answer that question, just as nobody can tell you exactly how to ride a bike or surf or even walk. However, experienced explorers can share guidance about how to tune in with greater ease and orientation. In this section I share exercises and principals that I have found useful in my CI learning and teaching, starting with my perspective on what and how contact improvisation practice teaches in What Contact Improvisation Does.

What Contact Improvisation Does — by Ken Manheimer — last modified Nov 27, 2023 05:51 PM: In Contact Improv partners practice moving cooperatively in a way that can approach the immediacy and depth of cooperating with oneself. Telling someone how to do CI is no more revealing than telling someone how to ride a bike or swim or surf, but we can provide guidance to participate in a way that invites what the practice teaches.
Exercise: The Finger Dance — by Ken Manheimer — last modified Aug 29, 2023 11:27 AM: A Contact Improvisation exercise that presents a kind of idealized opportunity to practice mutually following a point of contact.
Exercise: Slight Counterbalance — by Ken Manheimer — last modified Aug 29, 2023 11:27 AM: A Contact Improvisation exercise that provides a basis for sharing your kinesthetic situation with a partner by sharing balance.
Exercise: Rising and Descending Together — by Ken Manheimer — last modified Oct 06, 2023 10:01 AM: Explore using slight counterbalance to traverse levels together.
Exercise: Angel and Traveler — by Ken Manheimer — last modified Aug 29, 2023 11:27 AM: Cultivate attunement to how someone is organizing their movement.
Simplifying Selecting Partners — by Ken Manheimer — last modified Oct 11, 2023 09:31 AM: The CI exercises I describe involve selecting partners. Trying the exercises with different partners is often illuminating. I like to use a kind of non-competitive "musical chairs" approach to simplify and foster ease in the partner selection process.
Grazing and "Solo Contact Improv" — by Ken Manheimer — last modified Oct 11, 2023 09:01 AM: Cultivating movement from attention to small movements provides a way to tune in and participate that enables you to balance internal and external focus, bringing yourself to connections and to moving on your own.
Warm-Up: Following Small Inspirations into Grazing — by Ken Manheimer — last modified Oct 11, 2023 09:19 AM: "Warm-up" typically means pushing your body to get the juices flowing. While that can be useful, you often don't have to push in order to open your senses and notice inspiration in your own movement and in what's happening around you. This warm-up offers a simple progression to gradually notice and increasingly engage with small movement inspirations.
Warm-Up: Growing the Small Dance Into Grazing — by Ken Manheimer — last modified Oct 11, 2023 09:21 AM: Awareness of your body's small movements can be a way to embracing rather than fighting imbalance and deepening your cooperation with yourself and where you are going. This exercise gradual develops this premise as a group warm-up into "grazing" – exploring and developing interaction with yourself and others.
Steve Paxton's 1977 Small Dance Guidance — by Ken Manheimer — last modified Mar 22, 2020 12:16 PM: Notes taken from Steve Paxton's class in February 1977, during ReUnion’s teaching/performing tour of Contact Improvisation on the West Coast. Throughout the tour, the members of the 1977 ReUnion (Nita Little, Lisa Nelson, Steve Paxton, Curt Siddall, Nancy Stark Smith, and David Woodberry) transcribed each others’ classes, as close to verbatim as possible. What follows is a section from one of Steve’s classes, provided to me by the Contact Quarterly as part of the CI36 satellite events web presence.
What People Do At Jams — by admin — last modified Oct 11, 2023 10:40 AM: Here are some touch-points that may help in finding your way at Contact Improv jams.
CI Different From and Similar To Partner Dance — by Ken Manheimer — last modified Aug 18, 2023 04:17 PM: I came up with this while preparing to teach CI at a large dance festival, for people who practice other kinds of partner dance. I wanted to alert them to different orientations in CI (physical and figurative) that can lead to similar satisfactions.
Contact Improv As a Way of Moving — by Ken Manheimer — last modified Jun 20, 2023 06:32 PM: Contact improvisation is organized differently than other kinds of partner dance, but that doesn't mean it has to be unclear or confusing. In striving to be more clear I'm fascinated with the particular challenges in learning CI and how to navigate them well.

Document Actions

Expandable Site Map