We began with an exercise in which we moved an object in the space and revealed an insecurity which we had about contact improvisation. I found this to be like the method which councillors use with children, asking them to tell a puppet their issues instead of a person. The object distracted you and made it easier to be honest. This exercise revealed that many of us shared the same insecurities, worrying about hurting others or what it would look like to outsiders. These were the main ones which were mentioned on this occasion, however with exercises like this it always makes me wonder whether people have other things which they want to say but are still afraid to mention in front of the rest of the group.

Pushing and pulling are actions which we use multiple times a day in many different activities such as opening and closing doors. These actions can be used with the idea of weight intertwined in order to show intention when moving with a partner in contact improvisation. They can be used in order to direct, move or resist. For example in the workshop we played with pushing or retreating through just the touch of the fingertips. Even this small amount of contact was enough in order to give instructions to the other person about where you were going to take the movement next. I found it easier to listen to these sensations when we did this with our eyes shut. It heightened my awareness to the sense of touch because I was relying on it more, with the comfort of sight gone. I feel we would have been able to take this further if there were only the two people in contact in the space with their eyes shut. Because we were all dancing at once, I found myself worrying about where others were and whether we would collide or hurt each other.

Within the workshop, we laid on the floor and imagined a rock in our centre which was falling to the centre of the earth. This was a way to find a connection with the floor and then lead to another person lying in the exact same position on the back of the other person. ‘A sense of unity is provided by the feeling of a shared “centre”‘ (Heitkamp, 2003, p256) After staying here for a while a connection was formed between the two people, the underneath person moved and the one on top went with it, allowing themselves to be taken.

‘The shared experience often begins with a common breathing rhythm, goes on to include tiny, synchronised movements of the fingers and             hands, and extends to feeling shifts of weight within the shared “double body”‘ (Heitkamp, 2003, p256).

Although physically you are two separate beings, capable of making your own decision, during this exercise you fuse together in an abstract sense and become one organism, navigating its way through the space.

Works Cited

Heitkamp, D. (2003). Moving from the skin: An Exploratorium. Contact Quarterly/ Contact Improvisational Sourcebook II, Vol. 28:2. Pp 256-264