page_title: Contact improvisation
section_title: Universities
hierarchical_section_title: Contact improvisation / Spaces of practice / Universities
caption_attribution_description: English: This image of a Contact Improvisation trio was taken in Florence (MA) during a workshop held by Nancy Stark Smith, in January 2017.
context_page_description: Contact improvisation is a form of improvised dancing that has been developing internationally since 1972. It involves the exploration of one's body in relationship to others by using the fundamentals of sharing weight, touch, and movement awareness.
  American dancer and choreographer Steve Paxton originated contact improvisation, drawing from his past training in aikido, a martial art form, to explore and push boundaries with his colleagues and students to develop this new practice. Contact improvisation plays with the artistry of falling off balance, counterbalance, finding the shelves of the body, learning the mechanics of the body in order to handle someone else's weight or be lifted, breathing techniques, and can involve the art of getting to know your partner past the physical point through the physicality.
  Steve Paxton, along with other pioneers Nancy Stark Smith, Danny Lepkoff, Lisa Nelson, Karen Nelson, Nita Little, Andrew Harwood, and Ray Chung, thus participated in creating an "art-sport," oscillating between different emphases depending on the moments and personalities who practice it:
  experimental dance
  theatrical form
  educational tool
  social dancing
  awareness practice
context_section_description: In June 1980, Elizabeth Zimmer, organizer and director of the American Dance Guild, put together the conference Improvisation: Dance Considered as Art-Sport. The conference was mainly dedicated to contact improvisation, which had been referred to as an "art-sport" a few years earlier by Simone Forti, and introduced contact improvisation in the American academic world.  Contact improvisation is now taught in a majority of American universities offering a choreographic curriculum (New York University, Oberlin College, Bennington College, Smith College, Ohio State University) as well as in many contemporary dance festivals (Jacob's Pillow, Bates Dance Festival).
caption: A contact improvisation trio (2017)
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