December 2024
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Resistance and Support: Contact Improvisation @ 50 is a ground-breaking anthology of twenty original writings that elucidate vitally important somatic and political perspectives on Contact Improvisation (CI), a form of partner dancing initiated in the United States in 1972 which has now spread into a vibrant global community. It is edited and includes an introduction by veteran CI practitioner and dance studies scholar Ann Cooper Albright, professor of dance at Oberlin College. For much of its existence in the twentieth century, CI prided itself on its “democratic and egalitarian” roots. Jams were open to all, women learned to lift men, and dancing roles were not conventionally gendered. These operating assumptions meant that questions of social power were often ignored in CI spaces. Resistance and Support critically engages issues of inclusion and access through insightful essays by people whose experiences are shaped by this extraordinary form of kinesthetic communication. The chapters trace the stories of CI in China, Taiwan, India, Mexico, Brazil, the United States, Canada, and Europe. Some chapters discuss the somatic training that provides a movement basis for improvisational exchanges between dancers. Other essays foreground feminist and queer perspectives on the form. Several pieces elaborate on the healing, spiritual, or therapeutic aspects of CI, while others explore mixed-ability approaches. Like Critical Mass: CI @ 50, the international conference honoring CI’s 50th anniversary from which these writings emerged, these essays both celebrate the expansive possibilities and critique some of the exclusionary conventions of this ever-evolving form of communal dance.