Contact Improvisation 

Jennifer C. Keller, Project Coordinator

		Projects Sponsored Projects Course Development Collaborative Projects

Jeannette Cardin, Graphic Design
Kuan Y. Li, Program Design

Contact improvisation is the art of moving with one or more partners, maintaining a shifting point of contact. Dancers learn a variety of dynamics from slow motion spirals to spectacular lifts. The improvisation is gender- free; each dancer, regardless of size, experiences leading, following, lifting, and falling.

This purpose of this project is to develop a multimedia program, using Authorware 3.5 for the Macintosh platform, that introduces Contact Improvisation to an adult audience of both dancers and non-dancers. This program will use video, text, and narrati on not only to show what Contact Improvisation looks like, but also to illustrate its skillful techniques. It should be made available in university media labs, especially those labs situated within dance departments. The ASU Dance Department's Multimed ia Learning Center is an ideal example of such a lab.

The learner will learn what Contact Improvisation looks like via the viewing of three of video clips. The learner will become familiar with three characteristics of Contact Improvisation: the use of touch, falling skills, and support skills.

In addition to a visual reference for this form of dance, the learner will become versatile in basic terminology related to the skills of Contact Improvisation via a glossary of terms. The learner should recall some history of Contact Improvisation, including its origins, as well as the characteristics of Contact Improvisation concerning gender and mixed ability.

This program will be written for adult dancers and non-dancers. The language used in both text and narration will define and explain in layman's terms the vocabulary relevant to understanding Contact Improvisation. Edited video will directly relate to the vocabulary being discussed to enhance the viewer's understanding. This program could serve as supplemental course material in a non-major's dance history class, studying the Contact Improvisation movement of the 1970's. In addition to non-dancers, this program is suited to the undergraduate dance student who is preparing to take a class in Contact Improvisation.