1. What is contact improvisation? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccNEYt WTjKs&safety_mode=true&persist_safety _mode=1&safe=activehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccNEYt WTjKs&safety_mode=true&persist_safety _mode=1&safe=active

2. “Contact Improvisation is an evolving system of movement initiated in 1972 by American choreographer Steve Paxton. The improvised dance form is based on the communication between two moving bodies that are in physical contact and their combined relationship to the physical laws that govern their motion—gravity, momentum, inertia. The body, in order to open to these sensations, learns to release excess muscular tension and abandon a certain quality of willfulness to experience the natural flow of movement. Practice includes rolling, falling, being upside down, following a physical point of contact, supporting, and giving weight to a partner. Contact improvisations are spontaneous physical dialogues that range from stillness to highly energetic exchanges. Alertness is developed in order to work in an energetic state of physical disorientation and trusting in one's basic survival instincts. It is a free play with balance, self- correcting the wrong moves and reinforcing the right ones as well as bringing forth a physical/emotional truth about a shared moment of movement that leaves the participants informed, centered, and enlivened.” —early definition by Steve Paxton and others, 1970s, from CQ Vol. 5:1, Fall 1979 http://www.contactquarterly.com/contact-improvisation/about/

3. http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q= contact+improisation&view=detail&mid =C90CCB2F5AB779592689C90CCB2F5 AB779592689&first=0http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q= contact+improisation&view=detail&mid =C90CCB2F5AB779592689C90CCB2F5 AB779592689&first=0

4. Contact session one Start class on the floor. The teacher will have students try to fill points of contact with the floor while doing a release technique style warm- up. At the end of the warm-up students will lye on the floor feeling their bodies supported by many contact points with the floor. To stand up students will do the paint your-self improvisation. Students will imagine they are lying in paint. It can be what ever color they like. The paint pan is the floor and you need to cover your entire body with paint. Don’t forget behind the ears and in-between the finger tips. When your whole body is painted, find a way to standing. When all students come to a standing position, they will explore an in and out of the floor improvisation where they safely and softly go in and out of the floor. The across the floor will have students rolling making full contact with the floor until center stage where they will come to a middle level and by the end, to a standing. End the class with a discussion about how it felt to do these improvisations. The teacher will explain that in the next class we will be making contact with other classmates. It is important to come to the class with respect and focus.

5. Hand to hand contact Grase parnter Try it Point of contact http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CekBZXsvvX8&feature=relmfu&s afety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=activehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CekBZXsvvX8&feature=relmfu&s afety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=active Rolling, sliding, pivot, push and resist or push and surrender Try it Lifting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhg6ElWe2Ko&feature=related&s afety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=active http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhg6ElWe2Ko&feature=related&s afety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=active

6. Contact Improvisation Contact improvisations are spontaneous physical dialogues that range from stillness to highly energetic exchanges. Alertness is developed in order to work in an energetic state of physical disorientation, trusting in one's basic survival instincts. It is a free play with balance, self-correcting the wrong moves and reinforcing the right ones, bringing forth a physical/emotional truth about a shared moment of movement that leaves the participants informed, centered, and enlivened. —early definition by Steve Paxton and others, 1970s, from CQ Vol. 5:1, Fall 1979

7. Reflection Contact Improvisation How does it affect you as a dancer? What is it? Reflect on what you have learned from this unit. How can it influence your movement and choreography?