Nancy Stark Smith - interview
by Paul Roberts

What do you recall as initially the most striking thing about CI?

Dancing in this way was very new for me, in an artistic context and as a physical experience. Communication and relational aspects were very powerful... I think the combination of innovative dancing with full blown and very vigorous movement and interaction was very exciting for me.

Did you find aspects of the movement confronting?

Well, actually the whole experience that first couple of weeks, we lived together in a loft in New York, and ate and danced together, all our beds in one big room, and I hadn't done that before...

How old were you then?

I was 19, or maybe I was already 20. Id been a college student and I was still living at home; the sixties, Woodstock and that kind of thing was happening so it wasn't unknown, but, that whole way of 24 hour engaged being with people. Dancing, eating dinner, watching the videotape, having dreams...it was a total immersion experience. It was very exciting, but it was also a discipline.

Was any part of it, the movement or the situation, particularly confronting or difficult?

No, I didn't experience it that way. It was exciting and new - of course in that kind of situation you're up against yourself. There were certainly people in the group that I had greater difficulty meeting in the physical conversation - people whose movement backgrounds were quite different from mine. So to bridge those differences took a little bit more time and understanding and it did happen. But, yeah, I mean I just felt very wide eyed during the whole thing. I didn't experience much inhibition, more recognising I had a lot to learn and that I was in an unknown place. I really trusted Steve, I was very excited, and I wanted to be there so...We have this thing called suspending your disbelief, I think I definitely did that (laughs).

A bit of a trust experience?

I didn't feel like "this was a trust experience" like a vision quest, or walking on fire. Just this sense that I did trust Steve as an artist and as a director of this process. We were all very excited. There was a group of intelligent dancers - so we were all making sense of it as we went along and learning by doing it. It wasn't about doing anything right, we were invited into a process, and we weren't sure how long that process would go on - initially it was two weeks. At first I was going to stay with my parents but I quickly found out it was a total 24 hour a day kind of experience you know, sometimes we'd rehearse in the park sometimes in the loft...the food that we ate, the preparation, all of the exchange...watching video a lot, long hours of dancing - that kind of immersion... An intense process. It was, yeah it was.

Ok. What is it about Contact that has kept you continually inspired for all these years?

I don't find any other activity that touches on so many aspects of my interests as Contact. I have other studies and other ways of working and training that I like, that are feeding into my practice. But I think the exploration of how to find the next bit of learning and the next understanding and the next expression, to find the freedom within, what is possible for you and to feel the edges of that understanding physically and conceptually, to feel what are the next questions and to pursue them. It just seems to keep happening for me. Just at this point I think I'm kind of understanding completely my way of contact, and there is some pleasure in that, in doing it. Every dance is different, so there's newness there, but then, each level of understanding leads you on to the next, you're then moving towards that, so it just keeps going somehow. It makes sense that you want to accomplish something, and that you want to achieve a level of competency, but I think beyond that is learning how to find the new questions, the new challenges, physically and conceptually. And to invent forms and ways of exploring those and going towards those. As a process it seems to work. I mean some of my explorations might indeed have techniques slightly out of the definition of Contact Improvisation and I don't feel that detracts from my work. I feel that as a process, because it is my central practice that I keep coming back and working with, that as new information and understanding comes to me from any direction it will change my way of being in this practice, so it opens new territory there again.

What do you think is the most exciting thing about Contact in performance from your perspective as an audience member?

I think that the raw physicality, and the transparency of that, that people can actually see real bodies with real weight relating to the forces. The physical forces, and be exposed to them and grapple with them, and grapple with each other on a physical level, and a nervous system level. There is a tremendous amount of transmission of that kind of communication from seeing it. A kinaesthetic transmission. It can turn people on to their own bodies. Seeing human nature manifested in micro version in the dancers, the movement the pauses the excitement the dilemmas, thrills, virtuosity. All of that you can see in a very non linear, and not particularly narrative form. And I think people will see what they're interested in seeing. They can see a love affair they can see a fight, it's quite an open book in terms of how to look at it and what to get out of it. But I do think the kinaesthetic transmission is pretty strong. I find that even in more traditional pieces when modern dance choreographers incorporate aspects of Contact Improvisation into their partnering for the post modern work, I do feel a palpable difference in the audience when the dancers are touching and when they're exchanging weight.

Ok...are you still performing?

Oh yeah.

What then is the most exciting thing for you as a performer?

Well, that transparency is also true for both sides. And when I can achieve a level of communication with an audience. The feeling that you're offering a genuine experience to an audience - not hiding it from them, or forcing it on them. That puts us in the same environment, and it creates a positive exchange.

Where is your focus when you're performing?

There are a lot of levels of focus going on. It's very rare to do a straight on Contact duet as a performance. It does happen and I'm enjoying it more at the moment. Usually you find a more ensemble improvisational context with more ideas going on and not just Contact...but generally I'm noticing my own sensations, I'm feeling what my partners movement is generating on a sensational and a physical level in terms of timing and textures, and those start to add up in some way. Then again it can be a moment to moment situation where nothing adds up. I think it's an awareness as an artist of ones own aesthetic and compositional perceptions. How I might enjoy playing with my inward sensations, playing the music of it. I tend not to, well, I'm aware of visibility, not in the sense of trying to control what an audience sees, it's an interesting situation to be in, to have a front-on audience and be practicing a spherical form. I just want to be engaged in what I'm doing and know that people can see. And feel the energy of an audience and be able to add that into what I'm doing. I'm tracking my own engagement. If I feel my own attention or engagement flag, then really my job is to be fully engaged. The importance isn't totally so much what I'm doing, but how I'm doing what I'm doing.

Alright, last question. How has your practice of Contact informed the rest of your life?

Mmm, good question. I suppose a lot wouldn't it be. Every dance you have puts you, I think, in the sort of body time that we talked about on Friday. You're getting a very direct and sort of holographic reflection and transmission from your partner,to your partner,off of your partner, and there's certain truths on all those levels, some that are repeated, some that are unique and they add up. You see the same principles apply to the rest of your life in relation to people and your environment. I remember a basic example early on when we were spending all day falling and rolling and listening with each other in the loft, and then you get out on the street and seeing all the possible relationships. So you know, we were swinging on parking meters and falling over benches. It just seems so arbitrary that we just walk along, and you know all the other possible relationships to gravity and the objects in the world seem so arbitrarily limited. But I even find that if I'm dancing in a club and my body goes off centre more than a 45 degree-angle people find that threatening, that animal survival instinct, people think something's wrong. Not to mention falling or being upside down. People just aren't used to it. There is a desire to make connections. It goes both ways. The lessons I learn and the phenomenon in Contact are a metaphor or model for the rest of my life, and vice versa. When I learn things in life they come into my dancing as well.

Thanks Nancy.

Thankyou.