BATES DANCE FESTIVAL
Nancy Stark Smith
Bates College, Lewiston, ME
Contact:
batesdancefest@bates.edu,
www.bates.edu/dancefest
Bates is a full spectrum dance festival with four classes daily, your
choice of style/focus, performances, jams. Nancy teaches two classes daily
(M-F): a mixed level contact improvisation class introducing dancers to
CI practice and an intermediate/advanced level contact and improvisation
class.
CONTACT IMPROVISATION
Contact Improvisation is an improvised duet movement form set in motion
by choreographer Steve Paxton in 1972. The dance is based on the communication
between two moving bodies that are in physical contact and their combined
relationship to the physical laws that govern their motion – gravity,
momentum, inertia, friction, etc. To open to these sensations, the body
learns to release excess muscular tension and abandon a certain quality
of willfulness to experience the natural flow of movement. Practice includes
rolling, falling, being upside down, following a physical point of contact,
and supporting and giving weight to a partner. Alertness is developed
to work in an energetic state of physical disorientation and to trust
one’s basic survival instincts. Contact improvisations are spontaneous
physical dialogues that range from stillness to highly energetic exchanges.
All are welcome.
STATES OF GRACE: Contact Improvisation in
Detail and Perspective
A class for experienced contact improvisers designed to deepen, refresh,
and refine our dancing in contact improvisation while expanding our compositional
awareness and integrating CI into a broader field of improvised dance.
Our practice will focus on physical training in CI, detailed listening
practice, discussion, and various improvisation structures, including
Nancy’s “Underscore” (a long score for jamming/composition/contact).
Alone, in contact, in groups, in silence, and with occasional live music,
we’ll study physical and energetic changes of state, natural composition,
presence, and relationship.
Intermediate to advanced level CI required—e.g. fluency with falling,
weight taking and giving, following a point of contact, etc.
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