Contact improvisation was born in the 60`s due to the Steve Paxton investigation, based on the modern dance vanguards in the middle XX century and the social dances, sports, martial arts and the personal interaction. It consists in a dance where you improvise movements trough the physical contact in different body parts, exploring collectively the physical forces of the movement like the gravity, the momentum, the inertia and the weight, with all its consequences like falls displacements and the encounter between bodies.
All these physical and bodily characteristics involved in this kind of improvisation, determine a specific attitude trough the own body, trough the other`s body and trough the space in which the improvisation is developing; that can affect not only the situations that go beyond the everyday life, like creation of art. This kind of tendencies brings natural, political, emotional, historic, social and ideologic dimensions; that can be revolutionary and change the way we create, maintain, and live our social relationships.
This tendency has become an introductory tool within the performing arts studies in a professional level, and it finds a very important place in the dance field in Colombia and around the world. The most interest thing in this situation is the moment the world is going trough right now: the colombian war or the other wars in other countries. If we want a change as a society, we need to modify our attitude which implies to give in to certain things and be opne to habits like forgiveness, awareness, and dialogue to build peace.In other words, what can dance improvisation contribute to the peace building and social transformation?
We must consider some things. First, it is necessary to think about the body for its centrality within the dance forms. The body will be understood as a territory, like a space with variable limits in relation to the place where it is, a plastic and moldable identity that can be inhabited. It is also, a territory with memory, experiences, certain uses, and representative parts within what can be consider as a little cartography.
Within this body territoriality, there is some singularities that are nor seen in such a visible war and with so many implications that can become problematic. The body then, is a life territory (a biologic organism as any ecosystem) marked by a culture, experiences, ratings and built social representations accompanied by collective or individual emotions, feelings, and subjectivities. This means that the body reflects our life situations, our physical or emotional injuries, our ways of relating or even our ways of feeding.
What happen with the dance improvisation then? It is a practice that is a result of a movement between the known and the unknown; between the own body and the other´s; between our own ideas and the external stimuli; and between safety and instability. Besides this, the improvisations involves an important element in the social relationship transformation: the awareness. This is the capacity of create relationships by movement guidelines, of being able to open our 5 senses in a constant listening of the space, the objects and the bodies (including the own) that are there. The awareness involves not only being alert in sensitive and material terms, it implies algo get carried away by other ideas and give in to things that were not initially thought. Thinking the other body has also a lot of knowledge and ideas to give, to build something that can be beautiful.
Keeping all these elements in mind, the contact improvisation dance is a mix between the necessary awareness of the improvisation based on specific movement guidelines (movement trough the contact and different supports between bodies, in this case) and the collective building between different bodies. It is then a different wat of inhabiting other bodies, other natures, of knowing other human beings, of talking, and even of thinking territories, experiences, and the capacities of others.