1. The core gesture of CI is the act of directing attention towards gravity, the earth, and one’s partner(s).
2. Doing CI requires transforming habits into questions, by recovering one’s availability to explore the full spectrum of possible movements one has at their disposal, and exposing oneself to the unknown.
3. The basic training of CI consists in offering tools for sharpening attention and finding efficient pathways for letting gravity flow through the body.
4. By giving expression to the process of deconstructing patterns and exploring unknown possibilities, we make ourselves more available for adapting and cooperating with our ever-changing environment.
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I’ve been pondering on the following passage from an article written by Daniel Lepkoff (published in Nouvelles de Danse #38.39, 1998—bold is mine):
To learn Contact Improvisation is to learn how to pose a question. The question is: What happens when I focus my attention on the sensations of gravity, the earth, and my partner? The question is not asked by the mind, it is formulated in the body. To do this is a learned skill and requires a special effort. One needs to have an interest in one’s physical experience and in the associations and images which come into the body when one moves. One needs to have a curiosity about one’s unique patterns of response. The underlying practice requires an appetite for not knowing, and a willingness to experience disorientation. It is the energetic curiosity of this questioning that is the heartbeat of a Contact Improvisation duet.
In Contact Improvisation movement invention arises through interaction of the laws of physics with the living structure of the body. The specific movement invention itself does not necessarily hold the highest interest in observing a Contact Improvisation duet. Contact Improvisation constructs a formal setting in which to observe a person’s individual process of responding spontaneously to surprising and unusual physical circumstances. This display is a deeply human expression of a dancer’s physical history, imagination, particular survival strategies, and body intelligence.
My exercise in this post is to test whether this idea is adequate both descriptively (i.e. it help organizing various practices and techniques related to how CI is commonly done) and normatively (i.e. it provides an explanation of why CI matters) to capture the experience of CI and its meaningfulness.
Descriptive account: what do you do when you do CI?
1. The core gesture of CI is the act of directing attention towards gravity, the earth, and one’s partner(s).
As Lepkoff mentions in the quote above, this is a somatic and kinaesthetic awareness (sensitive to bodily feelings and dynamic processes associated with movement, proprioception, touch). It is also a question, in the sense that the object of attention is not a fixed entity given once and forever, but the whole field within which one’s body exists and operates. In this sense, ‘gravity, the earth, and one’s partner’ could be replaced by ‘environment’.
Neither the object of attention (the ‘gravitational environment’, so to say) nor the act of attention (awareness itself) are static entities; they are processes. Hence, directing attention is a constant movement, a constantly ongoing activity. This makes it open-ended, and hence better understood as a question, a research inquiry, more than a discrete action aimed at a given result. From this perspective, watching or being exposed to a performance of CI (both from within as participants, and as an observer) is like watching how attentions actually embodies and moves itself through bodies (and this connects with the good training maxim: "always move at the speed of your attention").
The three items identified by Lepkoff as objects of attention are worth distinguishing, since they capture three different facets of our experience in the gravitational environment. ‘Gravity’ is a force, it’s a dynamic vector, which entails and generate directed movement. Gravity pulls us down, but at the same time we can also use it to create spring, momentum, trajectories, by resisting and playing with it (in this sense, gravity can be associated with the ‘force of lightness’ I mentioned in previous posts, see here). Earth is the resting place where movement ends, is the place of surrendering and yielding, relinquishing and letting go. It both complements and contrasts gravity since it receives what falls down, but also stops any further motion (in this sense, earth can be associated with the ‘force of gravity’ I mentioned elsewhere). Our partner(s) are other living beings (often humans) that inhabit the same gravitational environment. They can alternatively act to emphasize the dynamic of gravity itself (by enhancing the spring, momentum, speed of motion) or that of earth (by offering support, ground, surfaces where to rest, and from where we can fall again). We are together in the constant negotiation between gravity and earth, and expanding this negotiation to multiple subjects makes it even wider, more complex, less predictable.
2. Doing CI requires transforming habits into questions, by recovering one’s availability to explore the full spectrum of possible movements one has at their disposal, and exposing oneself to the unknown.
The question posed by CI is seemingly trivial, since we all have our ways of moving and navigating through gravity, earth, and others. Any act of daily life can be seen as a form of CI—there is nothing special about it. However, CI proper lies in the ability to challenge this triviality and uncover the potential alternatives that we constantly have, even when we never take them. The question (‘how can I move?’) becomes also a questioning (‘should I move only in this way?’)—which includes the sense of ‘challenging’ what one pretends to know and critically investigating what can be discovered that is yet unknown. CI is thus better understood as an open research question, an inquiry, rather than as a well-defined form (see also this other piece by Lepkoff).
In Fall after Newton, Steve Paxon says: “Beyond Newton’s Third Law, we discovered that for every action several equal and opposite reactions are possible. Therein lies an opportunity for improvisation.” This statement encapsulates the idea of ‘improvisation’ that constitutes the core of CI. We realize that our habitual patterns are just that—well-trained pathways of motion, impressed in our body by repetition, like trails in the meadows. But if we can move in this way, can’t we also move in some other way? This is the question. And in order to make this question not purely intellectual, but somatically cogent, we need to put ourselves in a place of disorientation. Disorientation is essential because by temporarily making unavailable our habitual reactions based on past memory, it forces us to come up with new solutions. How does the body organize itself on the spot, when facing the unknown and having to take action without being able to just automatically repeat a well-known scheme?
In the early days of CI, this issue was explored by entering situations of physical risk and investigating the natural reflexes that would 'save' the body from injury or just hurting itself. The idea was to bring on display patterns of movement that are mostly pre-reflexive and unconscious. However, this was just one way of addressing the question, and not necessarily the only one. It is possible to explore the sense of disorientation and instability in other, sometimes less spectacular, yet maybe subtler ways. The point is not what one does, but how and with which intention. The immediate gut-reaction to a sudden fall is just a first bodily answer to a disorienting situation. But how does the body respond to a prolonged state of disorientation? How does it way of moving change when what was an exceptional risk becomes a more ordinary and continuous condition?
In any case, though, one cannot do CI completely ‘safely’ because it is intrinsic to the leading inspiration of CI to face the unknown, to take risk, to challenge what seems established and acquired. But one can do all of this ‘intelligently’, namely, by cultivating precisely the bodily agility and malleability to be ready and available for any situation that might occur. Instead of trying to foresee the future and control it by imposing pre-established response patterns, one can train the very ability to adapt to any circumstance, trusting not the response per se, but the capacity to respond in the most appropriate way to the ever-changing circumstances and environment, without any need to control or foresee anything in advance.
3. The basic training of CI consists in offering tools for sharpening attention and finding efficient pathways for letting gravity flow through the body.
On the basis of the previous discussion, it is possible to organize most of the CI common exercises into two categories, each of which is designed to train and cultivate awareness and availability, and to facilitate the interaction with gravity, earth, and others.
Tools for awareness include for instance all exercises aimed at sharpening one’s perception (small dance, finger dance, shades of touch, degrees of weight sharing, accessing different tissues and body structures, letting movement flow through different points in the body, ‘track&follow’ bodily feelings, rolling point of contact).
Another famous maxim in CI is “tension masks sensation” (Nancy Stark Smith). In other words, in order to really access the somatic and kinaesthetic awareness of how gravity affects the body, one needs to reach the right bodily tone (neither too loose, nor too tense). Relinquishing this unnecessary tension (and another quote, from Alan Watts, says “the Ego is unnecessary muscular tension”) is one of the hardest challenges in the beginning. But eventually, all the tools used to achieve this goal reshape the body and make it more sensitive, pliable, flexible, agile, even freer.
Efficient pathways include the forms of conditioning through which the body learns the most effective and safe ways of facing gravity, and let it flow through it instead of resisting and opposing it. Folding, rolling, and spiralling are the most general categories usually explored in CI. But efficient pathways also include more complex sets of movements that can be coordinated together in certain circumstances. The two most common circumstances are falling and lifting (or falling down vs. falling up). Falling is a crucial case study to explore how gravity affects the body, but learning how to fall efficiently is also an acquired skill. One can fall all at once, like a rock detaching itself from a mountain. The hardness of the structure will have then a certain impact on how the event is experienced. Alternatively, one can learn how to fall like ice melting into water, a drop at a time, so that the whole kinetic energy gets mobilized, travels through, and can dissipate itself smoothly. Lifting can be seen less as a mechanical act based on force and leverage, and more like catching someone on a trajectory, offering an unexpected surface where they can land before reaching the earth. Lifting in CI has little to do with the powerlifting at the gym, and more to do the synchronization of different patterns of motion (being at the right spot at the right time to offer the right kind of support).
Aren’t these pathways new kinds of habits? And if so, don’t they eventually constrain motion again? They can. But all depends on how one interprets and uses them. They can be used to condition the body to become sensitive to certain ways of facing unexpected changes of dynamic so that the body can adapt in the most efficient way (while avoiding injuries). They are not ‘forms’ in the sense that need to be repeated and reproduced in a fixed manner. They can be used just as stock sentences to get fluent with a certain language, and then dropped to let a more creative, freer, and poetical language arise on its own.
If this is correct, this might also provide an important cue about how to transmit and facilitate CI. Often, there might be emphasis on ‘grounding’ as the ability to feel a safe and stable stance. Grounding feels good and usually helps people opening up and relaxing into their experience. However, conditioning someone to find grounding might eventually be at odds with the research into instability and disorientation. If the focus of CI is not on the stability of things, but on their uncertainty, we need to find a way of relating to the ground that does not pretend to make it always safe and stable, and rather invites to gain familiarity with having to deal with a constantly changing ground. Do we need to be stable in order to be safe? Or can we be safe also in uncertain conditions, trusting just our ability to constantly adapt? In both cases we need to appreciate and sense our relation to the earth (the process of ‘earthing’ mentioned in the Underscore by Nancy Stark Smith), but the attitude towards it is different. If we seek for grounding, we seek for stability. If we don’t seek for anything in particular, we remain available and let the relation change as it needs, and simply adjust on the go.
Normative account: why doing CI?
To me, the above discussion provides a sufficiently complete descriptive account of CI, at least in its general outline. But then, why doing CI at all? The purpose of this question is not that of finding a general apologetic argument to show why everybody should be doing CI (which is clearly pointless). At the same time, its intention is that of unearthing something specific about CI that can help differentiating it from other contemplative (or less contemplative) practices.
By understanding CI from the point of view of how we use attention (point 1 above), we can in fact include CI among the broad group of contemplative practices. This is somehow encoded in the genesis of CI itself (just one example: the ‘small dance’ is a variation on Buddhist standing meditation). The difference is that in CI the object of attention is not static, but dynamic (and in this sense, CI is a form of dynamic meditation). Like other contemplative practices, moreover, CI focuses on the experience of uncertainty (the Buddhist aniccā) in order to let go of habits of control (the Buddhist anattā).
However, unlike more traditional contemplative practices, the purpose of CI is not simply deconstructive (after all, the purpose of the original Buddhist path wasn’t that of reaching a new constructed reality, but simply letting go of all constructions). The purpose of CI is expressive, namely, to embody and articulate the whole process of facing uncertainty, recognizing the limits of habitual patterns, and letting them dissolve—to make a story, a show, a performance out of it, and enjoy this representation. This expressive element is intrinsic to CI, since you can’t explore somatically how movement unfolds without actually enacting that movement. Expression here is not the outwards manifestation of an inner idea, but it is the very act of enacting ideas-in-movement, or meaningful-movements. The performance itself is the message that needs to be communicated, and not just a means of communication. The communication itself is not a transferal of bits of information from A to B, but the creation of a communal space of interaction, sharing, and co-creation.
As Lepkoff writes in the quote above:
Contact Improvisation constructs a formal setting in which to observe a person’s individual process of responding spontaneously to surprising and unusual physical circumstances. This display is a deeply human expression of a dancer’s physical history, imagination, particular survival strategies, and body intelligence.
I suggest that the motivation that could move someone to undertake CI can be summarized in the following:
4. By giving expression to the process of deconstructing patterns and exploring unknown possibilities, we make ourselves more available for adapting and cooperating with our ever-changing environment.
If expression is seen not just as the outwards surfacing of inner states, but as the process of enacting movement as it arises and changes, then expression is also a transformative act. In other words, we are changed by our own way of expressing ourselves, and expression is key in keeping us available, pliable, ready, adaptable.
What keeps us often stuck in our personal stories and dramas are all the little and big constraints and blockages that we learn to impose upon ourselves. Undigested and unprocessed emotions (and traumas), fears, interiorized social norms, and what not. Ultimately, all these elements boil down to specific ways in which we move in the world (since living in the world means moving in the world). By addressing these conditions at the kinaesthetic level and learning how to release frozen pattern of motion, facing their limitations, and exploring what’s possible in their surroundings, we actually make ourselves more aware of the unnecessary character of these constraints, manifest them to others, and thus create better conditions to adapt, mingle, and coordinate with them and the environment. Again, we don’t do that from the point of view of an expected and well-defined end state, but rather with the attitude of cultivating the ability of remaining fit for the ever-changing evolution of the space that we inhabit. The purpose is not to get somewhere in particular, but grow in our capability for moving along the way, wherever it might take us.
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