Contact Improvisation

Bibliographic Data

ID8917797
AuthorsSteve Paxton (corresponding author)
Year1975
Volume19
Issue1
Pages40-42
Publication date1975-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Drama Review TDR (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0012-5962 • E-ISSN: 2326-2060
PublisherThe MIT Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2307/1144967
OpenAlexW4210997569
LanguageEN
Citations received10

The work is ongoing. It is still, in Johnston's phrase, about “any old people,” but it is no longer focused on personal incidents within pedestrian forms. Personal incidents happen now in the context of a duet system that has been named Contact Improvisation. Each party of the duet freely improvises with an aim to working along the easiest pathways available to their mutually moving, masses. These pathways are best perceived when the muscular tone is lightly stretched to extend the limbs, although not to a degree that obscures the sensations of momentum and inertia. Within this flexible framework, the shape, speed, orientation, and personal details of the relationship are left to the dancers who, however, hold to the ideal of active, reflexive, harmonic, spontaneous, mutual forms. The ideal creates the attitude, which is manifest in the quality of energy-use. This system is based in the senses of touch and balance

Acoustics · Aesthetics · Art · Balance (ability · Context (archaeology · Epistemology · Ideal (ethics · Improvisation · Linguistics · Phrase · Physics · Quality (philosophy · Reflexivity · Sociology · Tone (literature · Action Observation and Synchronization · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Diversity and Impact of Dance · History · Music Technology and Sound Studies · Philosophy · Psychology

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