By Dror Zorhar
Translation by Yasmine Ariel
In recent years we have heard more and more about Contact Improvisation: improvisation with movement and touch. Lessons and jam sessions are happening all over the world on a regular basis, and in workshops and festivals.
Waking To The Body
On waking, before we open our eyes and remember who we are, and the things we have to do that day, there is a sweet instant of coming back into the body. For a small moment, we discover and taste our organs and senses, as if it were for the first time: we stretch and flex, and revel in the sensations.
In the twilight moment between sleeping and waking we are absorbed in the senses and body, feeling and acting without hesitation and judgment.
We are already abandoning the magical and mysterious place of dreams and moving toward routine and familiar places. Then we get up, brush our teeth and so on, drink something, and go out to do the day’s chores.
For most of us the day passes while executing actions that originate in the head, and the body is used as a vehicle that demands little special attention.
If we ignore the body we might feel pressure, tension, and pain in the long hours that pass before we finally ask ourselves what is happening in my body? It’s possible that an entire day may pass and we don't pay attention to our bodies.
What Is Contact Improvisation?
Contact Improvisation invites us to come back to that moment before we open our eyes and to be in connection with our bodies.
Contact is touch, an encounter and connection, and our first meeting is with ourselves. With bare feet, on a wooden floor we come back to the body and ask: what do I feel now, how am I breathing? What hurts, what itches? What needs a caress, stretch, or shake?
We go back closer to the heart and the bones, connect to our breathing here and now, and go out for a journey into the world while keeping in touch with ourselves.
This journey is a journey of movement, or a dance, if you will. But, if you get mental pictures of aerobic lessons or a dance club, forget about it. Usually when we think about dancing we imagine people moving in a certain way like salsa, or folk dancing, or people moving to a certain beat or a rhythm like trans, disco, or reggae.
In Contact we don’t care what shape the movement takes and the music doesn’t dictate the rhythm. Sometimes you move without music at all. We are also not trying to move the way we always wanted or dreamt. Instead, we just let the body move, as it wants to now! It is a very simple thing yet very big: free flowing and authentic movement.
Now comes the most interesting part: we begin to meet the world.
If moving with ourselves freely and authentically is a big thing, then moving with others is complex, rich, challenging, and a lot more rewarding.
Connecting To Others
What happens in the meeting? How can we move together? Who leads and who follows? What is the rhythm? We learn to get into a physical movement dialogue in which we converse through the skin, bones and muscles.
Communication that involves turning, sliding, coming together and moving apart, leaning, pulling and pushing.
Contact Improvisation demands listening, responsibility, creativity, and flexibility. And, as in life, anything can happen… The encounter can be exciting and surprising, but also boring or embarrassing. What we encounter when we meet others is basically ourselves.
The materials are familiar but the meaning on the physical level gives us another perspective: you can’t lie with your body, and it is very difficult to hide. The first few times it can be liberating but it can all so be over bearing. You should start delicately, somewhere that you feel comfortable and safe.
And Outside The Studio
After years of practice I can say that Contact Improvisation lasts long after you leave the studio. Personally, the dance connects me to myself and from this place of internal observation it is possible to have open encounters with others.
The same is true outside of the studio: I have learned to connect to my breathing and my will, and I am more present in every meeting that I have.
Current information and memories are stored in our bodies: how do I move? Am I willing to let go? Am I willing to carry the weight of another? In every dance you can discover something new through the language of physicality.
We are well trained and guarded in language and rationalization, but the body speaks with another language and there is great benefit in knowing how to listen to that language, and later on in leaning how to speak it. Or to be more exact - let it speak you.
For me, Contact Improvisation is a way of life, a tool for
transformation, and for creating a better more communicative world.