Andrew Morrish

Prologue
For me Contact Improvisation is like Ulysses by James Joyce. There is no doubting its significance to contemporary practice. It is simultaneously breath-taking, difficult and liberating. I have started reading Ulysses eight times, but usually stop around page 81 (it is 704 pages long!). Since 1982 I have sporadically attended contact improvisation classes and jams, I have had a number of wonderful teachers, but every time I start and then stop. I always feel like I am starting to read Ulysses and beginning as a contact improviser.

History
One of the philosophical attractions of contact improvisation was its evolution in the early 1970ís as part of a ìsocial experiment in egalitarianism and communityî (Novack, 1990, p4). Its character was essentially subversive. It was part of a move away from the virtuosity of traditionally trained dancers, towards art practices based in ìthe theme of the everyday...and...the role of chance and indeterminacyî (Novack, 1990, p.55). In the early 80ís of course this would attract me; I was completely without training and as a mover I was certainly ìeverydayî and ìindeterminate.î However, contact improvisation did not prove to be for me in a sustained way.
Virtuosity
I watch with envy as (usually men) commit acts of near suicide with impunity, and I see others (usually women) demonstrate a strength and physical integration that cats take for granted, but which humans (me in particular) usually lack. Well obviously people get good at it, that is not a problem. But while it attracts and sustains the highly skilled thrill seekers is its claim of a democratic heritage merely rhetorical? I remember being challenged on this issue in a forum run as part of Al Wunderís and Martin Hughesí inspiring workshop on Contact Improvisation and Performance this year. As a response to an intemperate outburst from me, Martin and Wendy Smith calmly stated that the gung-ho neo-suiciders do not necessarily represent virtuosic contact improvisation. This being so, especially, if they are not operating in the ìmutual negotiationî paradigm that is at the centre of and the solution to so many of the dilemmas of contact improvisation practice. I well remember watching a jam in PS 122 in New York during a brief visit in 1996 and watching one (male) quite experienced and mature participant serially injure three (male) partners, and manage to clear a significant part of the studio. In contrast I remember my first contact encounter with Nancy Stark-Smith in which I felt so completely met that there was a sense of enormous potential. I later watched her engage in some spectacular contact improvisation with more highly skilled practitioners, and yet I never sensed any frustration in her in negotiating contact with me and my limited resources. Here it was the inquiry that mattered: ìwhat is possible between us?í was the question, rather than ìhow far can I push myself.î This redefinition of virtuosity within contact improvisation into the realm of awareness, sensitivity and openness has proved to be very useful for me. The ìhigh riskî behaviours that I observe as I cringe in the corner at jams are a demonstration of the outcomes of virtuosic skills of sensitivity.

Democracy
It is argued that the democratic heritage of contact improvisation can, and is being maintained by inclusiveness and in particular by its practice with mixed ability groups. (See Anne Cooper-Albrightís Choreographing Difference for a provocative and intelligent discussion of this.) The noble pioneers of contact improvisation were passionately intent on claiming and charting the territory of inclusiveness. This does not mean we are all equal but that the form should seek to be as inclusive as possible by providing equal access to participation. This was an idea that swept through our education, social welfare and public health systems in the seventies. It is an idea that is not often articulted in the realm of ìhighî art.

Now
It is my belief that we live in an time when ALL the good ideas of the 1970ís are being questioned, and many are being dismantled and discredited. We now live in a world when it is routinely asserted that we cannot afford such things. But does a notion such as equity of access have relevance in the arts? We are being encouraged to believe that all arts practice is partially a sifting of wheat from chaff. that artistic practice has selection at its very essence. Is contact improvisation more properly a form of personal practice, a forum for community development, an excellent source of physical development, but not an ìartisticî endeavour?î (The answer to these questions may not matter apart from its implication for whom we might ask for funding.) The reasons why contact improvisation emerged (entrenched forms of elitist traditional dance practice, etc) have been challenged and diminished for a decade or so, but, I suspect, are being strengthened again. Maybe we once again need contact improvisation for subversive reasons. But what is subversive now? Contact improvisation cannot rest on its subversive heritage. It must seek to articulate itself more and more clearly, to not let itself rest in self congratulatory language but to genuinely inquire into its own relevance. I often hear it described as a physical activity, and hear participants describing its benefits to them personally. I do not hear so frequently it articulated as a democratic form, one that seeks to undermine what dance would be in our community if we left it to the academies to define it. When taught well it should be subversive, it should make the deans of our dance institutions very nervous! Not because their highly priced investments might be injured, but because it might place funny ideas in their heads about what dance is, or could be.

Epilogue
Contact improvisation now has a tradition and pioneers to respect. Contact improvisation will do this best not by trying to replicate their movement style, but by ìmaintaining the rageî that led to their movement style, by continuing to undermine principles of elitism that would make dance so precious as to be unavailable to people like me.
I consider myself to be lucky, eighteen years down the track, I have found my form in dance, but I would not have done so without the influence of forms such as contact improvisation.
Keep going! Or as James Joyce (p.704) puts it, ìAnd yes I said yes I will Yesî

References
Cooper-Albright, A. (1997). Choreographing Difference: The body and identity in contemporary dance. Hanover, NH: Weslyan University Press.
Novack C. (1990). Sharing the Dance. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press
Joyce, J. (1922/1968) Ulysses. Hammondsworth: Penguin