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"This work is necessary to me as a direct extension of my own language or form of communication. It liberates the whole body." Contact Improvisation or CI is "a contemporary game" says Steve Paxton. CI started in the US as a means to explore the physical forces imposed on the body by gravity, by the physics of momentum, falling and lifting. CI is a complex but very open form with infinite possibilities and is a dance form that is made by the dancer in the moment of dancing. Many Dance companies train in CI to bring a physical strength and agility to the dance, or to create a fluid close contact duet with a more sensory feel. CI is totally adaptable but it is no longer CI once the moves become set for a performance. CI is improvisational and sensational only in this context. There are ground rules but they can all be broken in the moment if expediency requires. It takes physical contact between the dancers, and commitment to the moment by moment unfolding of the duet. CI necessitates mutual support and trust which means that there are many levels of learning so that the dancers can work within their range of ability, experience and inhibition.
Touch is a non verbal language and very richly evocative of intention, direction, suggestion, refusal, acquiescence and many more. Through the point of contact there is a two way system of communication, of listening and responding, of commitment and question, of leading and waiting, etc. Trust comes from the fact that the agreement in the dance is to remove the boundaries of ability by working with them. This means that if one person is more mobile than their partner they learn to create movement at the place which is accessible to both, to explore and discover that place to dance freely and uninhibited together. This is the place of surprise and exhilaration as the dance is the sum of the two people and not for example, of one person leading a whole group through the same steps. As the dancers become familiar with using the support of the floor, each other, and of gravity, the dance becomes like "flying" or "swimming on land" or "an MOT for the body".
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