Contact Improvisation: Fascinating Stories and Facts

Contact improvisation is a unique form of dance art that originated in the late twentieth century. To this day, it hasn't achieved the popularity of its competitors, but it's certainly not on the decline. On the contrary, more and more people are drawn to moving freely while connecting and playing with their inner world—and for good reason.

This is a cultural movement that truly deserves to be brought into the mainstream, as the following points make clear.

Contact improvisation helps you reach a mutual understanding with others. If you practice with a partner, it fosters a happy relationship built on complete harmony—not just physically, but soulfully.

Improvisation also boosts self-confidence and self-belief. It teaches you to make serious decisions quickly, which can shape the outcome of many situations. That's why people who engage in this dance style tend to take responsibility for their actions and make the right calls even in the most extreme circumstances.

The approach to practice after warm-up is far from simple. Some movements are borrowed from yoga, many from ballet, and occasionally from theater, but the core of contact improvisation is recapturing the carefree movement of childhood. As strange as it sounds, that’s exactly what it is. Classes place great emphasis on those familiar movements from early childhood.

Yet many adults forget these movements due to work, family, and other responsibilities. If you watch children, you'll notice their slightly awkward plasticity and grace—qualities that fade with age. So, if you want to pursue contact improvisation, reconnecting with that distant past can play a huge role.

Freedom lies not only in movement but also in the environment. That's why contact improvisation is most often performed as a duet, though it can also involve multiple people simultaneously or take the form of a solo piece (using the floor, walls, or chairs).

In the history of this dance, it's hard to find contemporary figures widely known to the public, as there are thousands—even tens of thousands—of students and professionals both in our country and abroad. However, in the 1970s, five notable figures emerged: Steve Paxton, Curt Siddall, Nancy Stark Smith, Nita Little, and Karen Radler. In the early seventies, they toured the West Coast, teaching and performing new dance forms of that time.

The atmosphere was far from standard: the event was held without musical accompaniment. Costumes were unprepared, lighting was poor. The audience sat in a circle near the dancers, sometimes interfering with their performances. Solo pieces alternated with trios and duets. Afterward, they discussed the development of contact improvisation, and soon hundreds of other dance groups joined in. That's how the movement was born.

As for today, in Toronto as of 2009, there were numerous weekly jams that had been running for 33 years—the oldest in the world. In Russia, five "International Festivals of Contact Improvisation and Performance" have taken place. And still, people gather in various cities, organizing their own events, albeit on a smaller scale.

Many people don't consider contact improvisation to be a dance; to them, it's just a collection of movements reminiscent of many familiar ones—like hugging, wrestling, martial arts, jumps, throws, and similar concepts.

And a majority believe it's something everyone needs, because many problems are solved by connecting with your soul, and contact improvisation is a great way to start that dialogue.