Earthing

(The 'syllabus' for Get in Contact – a series of classes about CI, from a contemplative perspective)

Contact Improvisation is not a thing, a form, or a choreography, but a research field. Here, it is approached as a space for cultivating the experience of earthing.

Earthing:  is the somatic experience of the simultaneous presence of two dynamic vectors: (1) releasing, which directs weight from the periphery and the centre of the body to the ground, leading to condensation, melting, yielding; and (2) rebound, which extends simultaneously in the ground and from there the centre and the other peripheries, leading to expansion, reaching and construction (the same applies – with a greater complexity – when the ground includes other moving bodies).

The simultaneous presence of releasing & rebound makes action unfold effortlessly and without any need for mental direction and planning. Action is then completely free, improvised, and unprovoked.

Everything is possible, and nothing is necessary. This experience is discernible at the intersection of three domains of experience:

Awareness: soft, open, peripheral perception (vs. tunnel vision), centred around the experience of weight (earthing).

Body conditioning: pathways and somatic habits that allow weight and gravity to travel through the body, moving it in the most efficient and safe way. This includes familiarization with the experience of falling and being disoriented (as a way of countering habitual patterns and uncover new possibilities).

Relational skills: emphatic and emotional intelligence capable of reading the situation, and the state of other beings, in order to establish a connection based on listening, mutual respect, curiosity, and willingness to explore together the unknown.

Paraphrases of Memorable Sentences

Definitions:

1.     CI is learning how to pose a question: what happens when I focus my attention on the sensations of gravity, the earth, and my partner(s)? (*Daniel Lepkoff)

2.     Start small—for a long time. Go beyond small to the place where no message is being given. Start there. Accept the first perturbation of that emptiness as the focus of the next moments. It is not a dance about you, or your partner. It is a dance about its movement (*Steve Paxton).

3.     CI is movement in reaction to the movement that you and your partner(s)’s are creating together (*Steve Paxton).

General directions:

4.     Pause. Breath. Smile (*Tom Goldhand).

5.     For every action several equal and opposite reactions are possible (*Steve Paxton).

6.     Be available, without being committed to move in a certain way (*Nancy Stark Smith).

7.     Tension masks sensation (*Steve Paxton).

8.     The Ego is unnecessary muscle tension (*Alan Watts).

9.     Don’t be interesting, be interested (*Sebas van Wetten).

10.  The way up is down (*Thomas Mettler).

11.  The essential is invisible to the eye (*Antoine de Saint-Exupéry).

Practical directions:

12.  Who can rest until the moment of action? (*Tao Te Ching, ch 15)

13.  What sort of mind and body do I need to practice CI? (*Leilani Weiss)

14.  Stability is overrated—both in dance and in life. Be unstable (*Leilani Weiss).

15.  Feel the weight, search for comfort, be loose (*Robin Belkermans).

16.  Pushing creates distance. Leaning creates community (*Eckhard Müller).

17.  Move at the speed of your (partners) attention (*Nita Little).

18.  Don’t move around your partner, move with them (*Vangelis Legakis).

Safety:

19.  Take good care of yourself (*Steve Paxton).

20.  If you’re wondering whether something might be beyond your boundaries, then it already is (*Leilani Weiss).

21.  Fall in love with the dance—not with the dancer (*Tom Goldhand).