Contact Improvisation is a community organized social dance form built on ideas of touch, balance, gravity, and momentum. Two partners improvise dance together while sharing weight through a mobile point of contact. In practice it is as much a form of dance as it is an exploration of mutual movement or an expression of curiosity. It has been likened to a dynamic physical puzzle or a game with two winners: a game played and a puzzle solved by dancing. Since its inception in the early 1970's it has grown to be a worldwide phenomenon.

I say contact is a community focused dance because it exists largely in the absence of the rehersal-performance process. It can be performed--and is--but it is primarily practiced in an informal 'jam' setting, where groups of people get together to dance, to socialize, to relax, and to enjoy each others' company. There are two types of jams, regular and invitational. Regular jams are set up in areas where people like to dance often, usually weekly or bi-monthly. Invitational jams are less frequent events where a large network of people come together (such as the 4th of July Jam and the New Years Jam each year at Earthdance) and the festivities and dancing last for days.

Additionally, contact improv can be practiced as a practice, for self-development. Is this regard it can be considered similar to yoga or martial arts, in which a person uses their practice to refine skills and open to spirituality. It is also used in the professional and academic dance worlds as a form for exploration, building skills, and spontaneously generating movement that can later be used in choreography.

When people want to hone their contact improv skills they can either attend jams and learn by dancing with different people of different skill levels, or they can attend classes and workshops. Regular classes exist almost everywhere there are enough dancers for there to be a regular jam, and workshops occur frequently all over the world. They range anywhere from a weekend to several weeks, and are often held at retreat centers. Classes are often taught improvisationally as well, with a teacher arriving with a vague idea of what material they intend to cover, but no set curriculum. Instead, the teacher varies what they present and how they teach it based on the skill and energy level of their students as the class progresses.

There are no specific 'moves' in contact, even though the movement is very characteristic. Instead, it is learned as a process. Teachers provide students with exercises (of which there are unlimited variations) to practice attuning themselves to their own bodies, those of their partners, and to the environment in which they are dancing (including the force of gravity on the dancers as they move). Classes often include a period of open dancing in which students can play with, explore, modify, and build on what they have learned.

Because contact is based on a process of movement and interaction that is scalable, there is tremendous variety in the types of dancing that happen at classes and jams. It is common to see a pair of people dancing acrobatically, running and jumping and lifting their partner as high as their shoulder, while next to them another two people may be sitting quietly with only their fingers touching. Because of the principle of contact improvisation underlying both types of movement, both are equally valid dances, simply being met with different energies. After all, if we are tired one day and excited the next, why should we not dance on both?

It is worth noting that contact improvisation does not always look like what people often think of as 'dance' (though just as frequently it does). I am somewhat skeptical of photos of contact because its true beauty lies in its movement, the vector of two people dancing together. While striking still photos can be taken of dancing, they leave out something fundamental. At the same time, video makes up for this shortfall but can still leave out the sense of community generated by a group of people coming together to dance, and so I think if people really want to see what contact is all about they should simply go to a jam, or take a class.

So why contact improv? Most people love dancing but aren't always comfortable doing so in mixed company, but contact provides a venue for people of all ages, body types, and skill levels to dance together. Contact is like a physical conversation, and provides all types of people a common language with which to communicate. It's entertaining, it's good exercise, and most importantly, it's fun!