Contact improvisation in the context of social dance of the XX century: features of the open dance form "jam"

Contact improvisation in the context of social dance of the XX century: features of the open dance form "jam" The purpose of the article is to reveal the features of contact improvisation as a practice of social dance of the XXI century and to determine the specifics of its implementation in the unique dance form "jam". Research methodology. A comprehensive method of studying the features of contact improvisation in the context of a social dance of the XXI century, a historical method, thanks to which the details of the development of contact improvisation have been clarified; the method of functional and systems analysis, which contributed to the study of contact improvisation as a unique hybrid practice; a phenomenological method that helped to highlight the essential features and identify the key elements of contact improvisation in the dance form "jam", etc. The scientific novelty consists in expanding the theoretical basis for analyzing the phenomenon of contact improvisation; clarifying the concept of "contact improvisation"; the features of the practice of contact improvisation in the context of the specificity of social dance are investigated on the basis of the analysis of its physical and mental components; analyzed the main elements of contact improvisation (inaction, weighing/carrying, falling, playing, discussing, observing, touching) through the prism of the unique open dance form "jam". Conclusions. Contact improvisation is based on communication between two moving bodies that are in physical contact, and the cumulative relationship of physical laws governing their motion - the laws of gravity, momentum, and inertia. In accordance with the specifics of social dance, contact improvisation is a tool for studying one's own capabilities, a model of human relations and meditative practice, which creates the preconditions for further development, providing a huge space of freedom and ease of performance of one or another dance element, removes the restrictions imposed by choreography, allows you to move like this, as the dancer wants, without tension, provides new material for self-knowledge and exploration of relationships, is a source of inspiration and a way of expressing the creative energy that is in the body. Contact improvisation, as a hybrid practice, works at the crossroads between body meditation, psycho-kinesthetic therapy, sports training, and dance improvisation and, in the context of the specifics of social dance, is implemented at improvisational meetings of contactees, the so-called jams, at the local and national level. Keywords: contact improvisation, social dance, jams, dance practice, dance form.

The Body’s Memory Archives in the Process of Generating an Aesthetic Movement and `Flow Experiences` for the Audience in the Production of the Performance tXc -TOXIC (after F. Richter’s play Rausch)

"The present enquiry is particularly interested in the performer’s body archiving memory while generating poetic movement on stage. The main site of investigation is a theatre-dance performance and the work engaged by the performers of tXc-TOXIC (after the Falk Richter’s play Rausch, an Insula Creative Hub production, directed by Cristian Grosu, choreographed and co-directed by me). The focal point of my argument is that, with proper and sustained body training, performers can easily incite and produce aesthetic movement after engaging the CI (contact improvisation) means of accessing movement and body memory. Keywords: (Non-toxic) body archives, aesthetic experience, embodiment, dance, performance "

Reimagining the Brown Body

William Forsythe’s screendance Alignigung (2016) depicts two male dancers, one fair- and the other brown-skinned, in hyperflexible and intimate configurations that vacillate between object and human. Alignigung engages with an egalitarian ethos along the same lines as contact improvisation but further demonstrates an alternative masculinity through movement qualities by reimagining the stereotypical brown body.

Making touch visible with the suture of fantasy with virtual aesthetician in “The Best Facial Clinic” – The glitchy-score of tele-synaesthesia performance in the age of global pandemic

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been adapting as fugitives of this accidental encounter with an “untouchable” virus, while being rendered into the shared virtual arena, where our discursive bodies are situated within, embedded in and tele-commuted to. Our increasing dependence on online interaction and video conferencing during the pandemic is not only facilitating social connectedness, but also contemplating the question: How to elongate our somatosensation and echo the embodied experience of touching through the incorporeal virtual connectivity? This essay focuses on the embodied nature of tele-synaesthesia performance, its potential effect of forging a rhythmic connection from one sensuous modality to another, and the concurrent emergences of glitch and internet latency as non-verbal cues of internet-situated communication. In reference to Laura Mark’s theory of haptic visuality, where vision triggers a tactile experience in the body; Naomi Bennett’s concept of virtual touch, in which an affective sensory response of touch can be elicited through non-tactile senses, Paul Sermon’s artistic production of Telematic Quarantine (2020) and Pandemic Encounter (2020), that telepresents the stories of self (isolation), and in relation to Michel Foucault’s concept Heterotopia in the context of internet-situated performance, I examine the performance work I have been developing during lockdown since March 2020: The Best Facial (2021), supported by Centre for Digital Media Cultures Research and School of Art Postgraduate Research at University of Brighton, a number of sessions of 25-minute 1-to-1 participatory tele-synaesthesia performances that take place on Zoom, where I become a virtual aesthetician and use telepresence to perform meditative virtual facial tactics, and to make tele-contact improvisation upon the surface of the participant’s face to trigger tactile experiences through haptic visuality, virtual touching, and auditory fantasization.

Joint Improvisation, Minimalism and Pluralism about Joint action

This paper introduces freely improvised joint actions, a class of joint actions characterized by (i) highly unspecific goals and (ii) the unavailability of shared plans. For example, walking together just for the sake of walking together with no specific destination or path in mind provides an ordinary example of FIJAs, along with examples in the arts, e.g., collective free improvisation in music, improv theater, or contact improvisation in dance. We argue that classic philosophical accounts of joint action such as Bratman’s rule them out because the latter require a capacity for planning that is idle in the case of FIJAs. This argument is structurally similar to arguments for minimalist accounts of joint action (e.g., based on joint actions performed by children before they develop a full-fledged theory of mind), and this invites a parallel minimalist account, which we provide in terms of a specific kind of shared intentions that do not require plan states. We further argue that the resulting minimalist account is different in kind from the sort of minimalism suggested by developmental considerations and conclude in favor of a pluralistic minimalism, according to which there are several ways for an account of joint action to be minimal.

A Radically Unfinished Dance

Nancy Stark Smith passed away due to ovarian cancer on 1 May 2020. Her dedication to contact improvisation for nearly half a century—as a dancer, teacher, writer, and editor—contributed to its development and will continue to inform its ongoing vitality. But much remains uncertain for the future of contact improvisation. Complicated by the challenges of Covid-19, what sort of bodies will result from the practice going forward, and how might the form itself change?