Contact Improvisation is something that is completely new to me. I had watched videos of Contact Improvisation labs prior to the workshop in order to gain some idea of what to expect. The first thing that I noticed is that it builds and shows a strong relationship between the people who are in contact. In the moment in which they are improvising, they seem completely in tune with one another, there is a kind of telepathy between their minds, helping one another to understand and anticipate where this particular improvisation is going to take them. Watching two people improvising with contact, it looks to be very intimate. As you are entering another person’s kinesphere and breaching their personal space, they are very close and constantly bouncing off each other with their movements. I feel from watching that you must almost fully trust the other people involved. Much of what I saw involved giving another person your entire body weight. As it is an improvisation, there was no vocal pre-warning that this was going to happen, one person just gave themselves to the other, whether it was slowly and gradually or in some cases, simply throwing themselves, something which I think must take time for some people to be comfortable with.

I tried to go into the workshop with an open mind, I didn’t want to have any pre-conceptions of I’m not going to be able to do this or I won’t enjoy this. We began with looking at the spine, initiating movement from this area and using this as a way to move through the space. Although you may think that there are only so many ways which the spine can move, this can lead to many other possibilities through using the spinal movement to initiate something else, for example snaking the spine up to a diagonal point and then carrying on the movement with the arm or the leg.

We then began coming into contact with another person, at first resisting any pressure which they gave, trying to push you over. Thinking about being solid and firmly on the ground made it very difficult for the ‘pusher’ to move the other person. We moved from only one person giving weight to both people. We began palm to palm just moving the hands through pressure, after experimenting with this we rolled along one arm until we were back to back and keeping in contact played with giving and taking weight, sending messages through the spine before breaking apart while keeping similar motions.

We also experimented with some of Steve Paxton’s rolls; the helix and the crescent.  The helix roll I found that I really had to think about using the second leg in order to keep moving continuously, it was a constant thought that I needed to introduce the movement of that other leg much sooner. The crescent roll I found easier one way than the other. I found rolling onto my stomach first more difficult than rolling onto my back. The thing that I found most difficult was keeping my arms and legs behind me when I rolled, keeping the shape; I wanted to bring them with me.

Although I am not a huge fan of improvisation, I think that at this point I may find contact improvisation more enjoyable. I feel that, as I have somebody else with me I won’t feel as alone and self-conscious as well as having somebody else to draw ideas and inspirations from to experiment with new movement.