Contact
Quarterly

Action Theater

The Improvisation of Presence

by Ruth Zaporah

Action Theater is an improvisational physical theater training and performance method that incorporates movement, vocalization, and speech. Packed with over 100 skill-building exercises with photos, this book is an indispensable training manual for actors, dancers, musicians, and all who explore the relationship between mind, body, action and performance. 1995. North Atlantic Books.

Basic Neurocellular Patterns

Exploring Developmental Movement

by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

The Basic Neurocellular Patterns (BNP) form the underlying words and phrases in the language of human movement. They have a global influence on our physical, perceptual, emotional, and cognitive functioning and have extensive application in the areas of movement and psychophysical expression. With this book as a guide, Ms. Cohen invites you to directly experience, embody, and integrate your own developmental movement patterns. 2018. Burchfield Rose Publishers.

Body and Earth

An Experiential Guide

by Andrea Olsen

Integrating environmental science, biology, meditations, and creative expression, Olsen addresses the interconnectedness of body and place through a mixture of reflections, information, exercises, and visual art. 2002. Wesleyan University Press.

BodyStories

A Guide to Experiential Anatomy

by Andrea Olsen in collaboration with Caryn McHose 

Thirty-one days of learning sessions bring heightened awareness about each bone and body system as well as providing self-guided studies to activate the learning processes. The book draws on Olsen’s twenty years as a dancer and teacher of anatomy to show how our attitudes and approaches to our bodies affect us day to day. 1998. Station Hill Press.

Caught Falling

The Confluence of Contact Improvisation, Nancy Stark Smith, and Other Moving Ideas

by David Koteen and Nancy Stark Smith
with a Backwords by Steve Paxton

The inside-out of dancer/CQ editor Nancy Stark Smith's life as seen through the kaleidoscope of the dance form Contact Improvisation. Includes Q&As between David and Nancy; photos of dancing & living; Talk Bubbles from friends, colleagues, and family; the Underscore; Nancy's life stories; and more. 2008. Contact Editions.

Composing while Dancing

An Improviser’s Companion

by Melinda Buckwalter

Dance improviser and coeditor of Contact Quarterly, Melinda Buckwalter mines her direct experience of the improvisational strategies of 26 pioneering contemporary dance artists and their varied approaches to this art form. With a mosaic of histories, methods, sample practices, source writings, and biographies of the artists, including Barbara Dilley, Simone Forti, Nina Martin, Mary Overlie, Steve Paxton, Min Tanaka, Lisa Nelson, et al. Composing offers a much needed and inspiring resource for dancers and dance educators. Watch the YouTube infomercial. 2010. University of Wisconsin Press

Contact Improvisation

An Introduction to a Vitalizing Dance Form

by Cheryl Pallant

A devoted practitioner writes about contact improvisation from an experiential viewpoint, discussing its history, fundamentals, and political, social, and cultural ramifications, with questions, exercises, and a teacher's sampler. 2006. McFarland & Co.

Contact Improvisation & Body-Mind Centering

A Manual for Teaching & Learning Movement

by Annie Brook

Designed to be a manual and study guide, this book supports body-mind integration and the development of an improvisational mind through movement with a blend of play, fundamental BMC exercises, and CI skills. 2000. Body-Mind.net.

CQ/Contact Improvisation 25th Anniversary Sourcebook

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1975-1992

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

The first volume of writings reprinted from Contact Quarterly dance journal concerning the practice of contact improvisation. Xeroxed articles, essays, drawings, photos, and quotes from CQ's birth as a newsletter in 1975 through 1992. An indispensable resource for dance students, teachers, and practitioners of CI to experience the roots and track the development of the practice and philosophy of this influential contemporary dance form. 1997. Contact Editions.

CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. II

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1992-2007

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

In celebration of Contact Improvisation’s 36th anniversary, we released this second volume of the multivioiced history of the dance form’s ...read more

CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. III

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 2008–2018

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

This third volume of Contact Improvisation's multivoiced evolution is collected from CQ Vol. 33 through 43, including writings from CI Essentials, Editor Notes, Still Moving, CI Newsletter and more. Containing perspectives on the practice, principles, issues, and applications of Contact Improvisation from diverse contemporary practitioners around the globe, it is an invaluable creative resource for teachers, practitioners, and dance libraries. 2019. Contact Editions.

Dancing Deeper Still

The Practice of Contact Improvisation

by Martin Keogh

Through numerous detailed essays on the practice and teaching of Contact Improvisation, longtime Contact teacher Martin Keogh presents Dancing Deeper Still, a sourcebook and philosophical treatise on Contact Improvisation in performance, boundaries and sexuality, political activism, dancing while aging, expanded teaching research notes, and advanced skills. 2018. Intimately Rooted Books.

Embodied Lives

Reflections on the Influence of Suprapto Suryodarmo and Amerta Movement

Editors: Katya Bloom, Margit Galanter, and Sandra Reeve

Suprapto Suryodarmo's moving/dancing has inspired many thousands of people in the West, and many more in his native Java, who have witnessed, worked with, or been otherwise influenced by his Amerta Movement practice. Embodied Lives brings together 30 experienced practitioners from around the world to describe the impact of Amerta Movement on their lives and work, in fields ranging from the arts and performance to psychotherapy and somatics, and other professions as diverse as law, archaeology, and architecture. 2014. Triarchy Press.

Encounters with Contact

Dancing Contact Improvisation in College

edited by Ann Cooper Albright, et al.

Through a series of student writings and essays by established artists teaching in universities throughout the U.S., Encounters considers the unique experience of teaching and learning Contact within an educational institution. Included are sections on students' first impressions, thoughts on the often surprising effects of touch within the dance, classroom exercises, the role of Contact in life after school, debate about institutional formats, and more. 2010. Oberlin College Theater and Dance Program.

Gravity

by Steve Paxton

In this elegant pocket-sized book, dancer Steve Paxton traces a lifetime in the company of gravity. In pithy prose essays, he brings us the memory of his first flight, a meditation on walking, pondering on the conditions of life, and a dream of dancing that make up pieces of a puzzle. He reveals the physical force that affects us all and underpins our personal stories. 2018. Contredanse Editions, Brussels.

A Guide to a Somatic Movement Practice

The Anatomy of Center

by Nancy Topf with Hetty King

Making available the full text of somatic dance education pioneer Nancy Topf's manuscript, The Anatomy of Center, for the first time in print, this introduction to Topf Technique/Dynamic Anatomy® helps professionals, teachers, and students of all levels integrate embodied, somatic practices within contexts of dance, physical education and therapy, health, and mental well-being. 2022. University Press of Florida.

Handbook in Motion

An Account of an Ongoing Personal Discourse and Its Manifestations in Dance

by Simone Forti

An account of an ongoing personal discourse and its manifestations in dance. Tracing a period in her life from the 1969 Woodstock Festival through the following years living on the land, this singular dance artist’s direct and poetic writings bring a turbulent transitional era to life. 1974. The Presses of the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design and New York University.

Inside Motion

An Ideokinetic Basis for Movement Education

by John Rolland

An in-depth and comprehensive study of anatomical imagery based on the Todd-Clark body alignment work, with a complete description of the skeletal system. 1984. Rolland String Research Associates.

A Kinesthetic Legacy

The Life and Works of Barbara Clark
revised edition

by Pamela Matt

An invaluable historical resource and practical text about Barbara Clark, a pioneering thinker in the somatics field. Includes Clark's previously published and unpublished manuals and teaching notes. 2020. Thinking Body Institute Media LLC.

The Knowing Body

The Artist as Storyteller in Contemporary Performance

by Louise Steinman

This hands-on guidebook offers a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process involved in transforming personal stories to theater. Including journal notes and drawings, Steinman interviews some of the key post-modern performers of the ‘80s—Trisha Brown, Ping Chong, Meredith Monk, Whoopi Goldberg, Spaulding Gray, and a host of others. By weaving descriptions of her own path as a writer and performer into a thesis, she demonstrates how one can work towards developing an authentic voice, sparking a student’s sense of possibility. 1986. 1995. North Atlantic Books

Landscape of the Now

A Topography of Movement Improvisation

by Kent De Spain

Based on a series of interviews with master teachers who have developed unique approaches that are taught around the world—Steve Paxton, Simone Forti, Lisa Nelson, Deborah Hay, Nancy Stark Smith, Barbara Dilley, Anna Halprin, and Ruth Zaporah—De Spain takes readers on a deep journey into the underlying processes and structures of postmodern movement improvisation. 2014. Oxford University Press.

My Body, The Buddhist

by Deborah Hay

An account of Hay's dance-making process with insights into the creation of her performance practices and the invention of her dance libretto, with comments from contemporary artists. 2000. Wesleyan University Press.

On the Edge

Dialogues on Dance Improvisation in Performance

edited by Agnès Benoit

Bilingual: English/French
Fourteen interviews with dancers/improvisers whose creative process derives directly from instant composition: Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, Katie Duck, Lisa Nelson, Julyen Hamilton, Pauline De Groot, K.J. Holmes, Suzanne Cotto, Simone Forti, David Zambrano, Mark Tompkins, Alessandro Certini, Frans Poelstra, and others. 1997. Contredanse/Nouvelles de Danse #32/33

ONE SHOT

dialogues on real time composition

by Mark Tompkins and Meg Stuart

Bilingual English/French
Two seasoned dancer-improvisers have created a book of conversations, interviews, performance transcripts, and images about real time composition. An investigation of sensations and perceptions, a study of presence and play in improvised performance, a handbook for survival. Images by Gilles Toutevoix. 2022. Éditions L'ŒIL D'OR.

The Place of Dance

A Somatic Guide to Dancing and Dance Making

by Andrea Olsen, with Caryn McHose

A workbook that integrates experiential anatomy with the process of moving and dancing, with a focus on the creative journey involved in choreographing, improvising, and performing. Each chapter introduces a particular theme and features information on the topic, movement and writing investigations, personal anecdotes, and studio notes from professional artists and educators. 2014. Wesleyan University Press.

Questioning Contact Improvisation

by Keith Hennessy

Hennessy’s zine, coming from decades of practice and questioning of CI, interrogates whiteness, racism, heterosexism, and white supremacy in the dance form. “How do predominantly white alternative cultures defeat their stated intentions and wishes by reproducing mainstream or hegemonic injustices?” [p. 1]. The questioning takes place against a background of Hennessy’s experience as a dancer and teacher of CI since the late ’70s,
and as a white, queer, cis male. Unique full color design with photos. 2018. San Francisco: Circo Zero.

Sensing, Feeling, and Action, 3rd ed.

The Experiential Anatomy of Body-Mind Centering®

by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

Pioneering movement educator Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s innovative approach to embodiment, movement analysis and reeducation, Body-Mind Centering®, is the subject of this book of collected essays, interviews, and exercises written for Contact Quarterly dance journal between 1980 and 2009. The 3rd edition includes sixteen additional pages with new articles on inspiration, expiration, and dancing through the transitional fluid, including a subject Index and List of Explorations. 1993. 2008. 2012. Contact Editions.

Sharing the Dance

Contact Improvisation and American Culture

by Cynthia J. Novack

In Sharing the Dance , Cynthia Novack considers the development of contact improvisation within its web of historical, social, and ...read more

Standing In Space

The Six Viewpoints Theory & Practice

by Mary Overlie

Mary Overlie, among the most influential choreographer-dancer-educators in postmodern dance and theater practices, created the Six Viewpoints as an answer to the question "What are dance and theater made of?" Emerging out of the late-'60s NYC downtown dance scene, what followed was the development of a comprehensive language and learning system that is applicable to directing, choreographing, dancing, acting, improvisation, and performance analysis. Standing in Space is essential reading for dancers-dancemakers of all cultures, ages, and genres. 2016. Movement Publishing.

Taken by Surprise

A Dance Improvisation Reader

Editors: Ann Cooper Albright & David Gere

Twenty-one essays by prominent practitioners and scholars reflecting the development of improvisation as a compositional and performance mode. Including considerations of contact improvisation, recent innovations in tap dancing, and improvisation in everyday life. Including essays by Susan Leigh Foster, Steve Paxton, Sally Banes, Nancy Stark Smith, Simone Forti, Janice Ross, Ruth Zaporah and many others. 2003. Wesleyan University Press.

Terpsichore's Deck

by Eliza Larson

Terpsichore’s Deck is a fun, tactile way to engage with principles of choreography and performance. From broad aspects of dance-making to subtle elements of performativity, each set of 52 cards encourages the creator to investigate and consider aspects of crafting dance and performance. 2013. NEW EDITION 2017.

This Very Moment

teaching thinking dancing

by Barbara Dilley

This Very Moment braids threads of Barbara Dilley’s memoir in and out of a handbook for classroom practices of dance, ...read more

Through the Back

Situating Vision between Moving Bodies

by Jeroen Peeters

In today’s visual regime, contemporary dance operates as a critical force. It questions univocal representations and dominant cultural ideals of the body. Developing alternative approaches to physical expression, certain choreographers create body images that are vulnerable and permeable to the world. Through the Back seeks to articulate this critical potential in a series of essays that explore the work of experimental choreographers active throughout the 2000s: Alexander Baervoets, Boris Charmatz, Meg Stuart, Benoît Lachambre, Vera Mantero, Philipp Gehmacher, Jennifer Lacey and Nadia Lauro, and deufert & plischke. 2014. Theatre Academy of the Univ. of the Arts Helsinki, Kinesis 5

Wisdom of the Body Moving

An Introduction to Body-Mind Centering®

by Linda Hartley

A comprehensive guide to the basic philosophy and key elements of Body-Mind Centering®, the innovative approach to embodiment pioneered by movement educator Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen; with concrete and poetic explorations, clear exercises, and extensive anatomical drawings and photos. 1989. 1995. North Atlantic Books.

Anna Halprin, Dancing Life/Danser
la vie (DVD-Rom)

by Baptiste Andrien, Florence Corin / Contredanse,
with Anna Halprin

This interactive DVD-ROM presents the unique approach of this groundbreaking dance artist through more than six hours of video covering the entirety of a 2012 workshop in Paris, previously unpublished interviews, and extracts of precious archive material. 2014. Contredanse.

Contact Improvisation at 36 (DVD)

Perspectives on the Dance Form in its 36th Year

a documentary film by Nathan Wagoner

This documentary about Contact Improvisation was shot at CI36, a celebration of Contact’s 36th birthday in 2008 which brought together ...read more

Force of Nature (DVD)

a performance documentary with Kirstie Simson

by Katrina McPherson

Over the course of five years, award-winning director Katrina McPherson filmed improvising dance artist Kirstie Simson performing and teaching across ...read more

Material for the Spine - Steve Paxton (WEB_APP)

A Movement Study

Produced by Contredanse

This interactive WEB-APP immerses us in Paxton's world, to experience the logic and invention at the core of Material for the Spine, a technique evolved from his observation of the spine in the practice of Contact Improvisation. Includes original audiovisual essays, motion capture sequences, extracts from lectures, classes, and performances, and each of the forms of the technique is detailed. 2008. Contredanse, Brussels.

A Moving Presence (DVD)

Ruth Zaporah and Action Theater

a film by Kent De Spain

A glimpse into Ruth Zaporah's Action Theater™, an improvisational physical theater training and performance method that incorporates embodied movement, vocalization, and speech. Follow sixteen people through a two-week workshop in which improvisers are pushed to the edge of their creativity. 2008. Kent De Spain/Ruth Zaporah.

Videoda Contact Improvisation Archive

1972 – 1983

Six edited programs in Videoda's Archival Collection of Contact Improvisation track a key period of exploration and discovery through narrated ...read more

Workshop with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen (DVD)

Dance and Body-Mind Centering®

Produced by Contredanse

A rare document of a workshop led by ground-breaking movement educator Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen in Brussels in May 2004. She speaks about the evolution of her work and demonstrates her theories of weight, time, and space as they apply to dancing and the body systems. In English, with live translation into French. 2006. Contredanse, Brussels.

Action Theater

The Improvisation of Presence

by Ruth Zaporah

Action Theater is an improvisational physical theater training and performance method that incorporates movement, vocalization, and speech. Packed with over 100 skill-building exercises with photos, this book is an indispensable training manual for actors, dancers, musicians, and all who explore the relationship between mind, body, action and performance. 1995. North Atlantic Books.

Anna Halprin, Dancing Life/Danser
la vie (DVD-Rom)

by Baptiste Andrien, Florence Corin / Contredanse,
with Anna Halprin

This interactive DVD-ROM presents the unique approach of this groundbreaking dance artist through more than six hours of video covering the entirety of a 2012 workshop in Paris, previously unpublished interviews, and extracts of precious archive material. 2014. Contredanse.

Caught Falling

The Confluence of Contact Improvisation, Nancy Stark Smith, and Other Moving Ideas

by David Koteen and Nancy Stark Smith
with a Backwords by Steve Paxton

The inside-out of dancer/CQ editor Nancy Stark Smith's life as seen through the kaleidoscope of the dance form Contact Improvisation. Includes Q&As between David and Nancy; photos of dancing & living; Talk Bubbles from friends, colleagues, and family; the Underscore; Nancy's life stories; and more. 2008. Contact Editions.

Composing while Dancing

An Improviser’s Companion

by Melinda Buckwalter

Dance improviser and coeditor of Contact Quarterly, Melinda Buckwalter mines her direct experience of the improvisational strategies of 26 pioneering contemporary dance artists and their varied approaches to this art form. With a mosaic of histories, methods, sample practices, source writings, and biographies of the artists, including Barbara Dilley, Simone Forti, Nina Martin, Mary Overlie, Steve Paxton, Min Tanaka, Lisa Nelson, et al. Composing offers a much needed and inspiring resource for dancers and dance educators. Watch the YouTube infomercial. 2010. University of Wisconsin Press

Contact Improvisation

An Introduction to a Vitalizing Dance Form

by Cheryl Pallant

A devoted practitioner writes about contact improvisation from an experiential viewpoint, discussing its history, fundamentals, and political, social, and cultural ramifications, with questions, exercises, and a teacher's sampler. 2006. McFarland & Co.

Contact Improvisation & Body-Mind Centering

A Manual for Teaching & Learning Movement

by Annie Brook

Designed to be a manual and study guide, this book supports body-mind integration and the development of an improvisational mind through movement with a blend of play, fundamental BMC exercises, and CI skills. 2000. Body-Mind.net.

Contact Improvisation at 36 (DVD)

Perspectives on the Dance Form in its 36th Year

a documentary film by Nathan Wagoner

This documentary about Contact Improvisation was shot at CI36, a celebration of Contact’s 36th birthday in 2008 which brought together ...read more

CQ/Contact Improvisation 25th Anniversary Sourcebook

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1975-1992

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

This is the first volume of writings reprinted from Contact Quarterly dance journal concerning the practice of contact improvisation, a ...read more

CQ/Contact Improvisation 25th Anniversary Sourcebook

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1975-1992

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

The first volume of writings reprinted from Contact Quarterly dance journal concerning the practice of contact improvisation. Xeroxed articles, essays, drawings, photos, and quotes from CQ's birth as a newsletter in 1975 through 1992. An indispensable resource for dance students, teachers, and practitioners of CI to experience the roots and track the development of the practice and philosophy of this influential contemporary dance form. 1997. Contact Editions.

CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. II

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1992-2007

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

In celebration of Contact Improvisation’s 36th anniversary, we released this second volume of the multivioiced history of the dance form’s ...read more

CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. II

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1992-2007

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

In celebration of Contact Improvisation’s 36th anniversary, we released this second volume of the multivioiced history of the dance form’s ...read more

CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. III

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 2008–2018

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

This third volume of Contact Improvisation's multivoiced evolution is collected from CQ Vol. 33 through 43, including writings from CI ...read more

CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. III

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 2008–2018

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

This third volume of Contact Improvisation's multivoiced evolution is collected from CQ Vol. 33 through 43, including writings from CI Essentials, Editor Notes, Still Moving, CI Newsletter and more. Containing perspectives on the practice, principles, issues, and applications of Contact Improvisation from diverse contemporary practitioners around the globe, it is an invaluable creative resource for teachers, practitioners, and dance libraries. 2019. Contact Editions.

Embodied Lives

Reflections on the Influence of Suprapto Suryodarmo and Amerta Movement

Editors: Katya Bloom, Margit Galanter, and Sandra Reeve

Suprapto Suryodarmo's moving/dancing has inspired many thousands of people in the West, and many more in his native Java, who have witnessed, worked with, or been otherwise influenced by his Amerta Movement practice. Embodied Lives brings together 30 experienced practitioners from around the world to describe the impact of Amerta Movement on their lives and work, in fields ranging from the arts and performance to psychotherapy and somatics, and other professions as diverse as law, archaeology, and architecture. 2014. Triarchy Press.

Encounters with Contact

Dancing Contact Improvisation in College

edited by Ann Cooper Albright, et al.

Through a series of student writings and essays by established artists teaching in universities throughout the U.S., Encounters considers the unique experience of teaching and learning Contact within an educational institution. Included are sections on students' first impressions, thoughts on the often surprising effects of touch within the dance, classroom exercises, the role of Contact in life after school, debate about institutional formats, and more. 2010. Oberlin College Theater and Dance Program.

Force of Nature (DVD)

a performance documentary with Kirstie Simson

by Katrina McPherson

Over the course of five years, award-winning director Katrina McPherson filmed improvising dance artist Kirstie Simson performing and teaching across ...read more

Gravity

by Steve Paxton

In this elegant pocket-sized book, dancer Steve Paxton traces a lifetime in the company of gravity. In pithy prose essays, he brings us the memory of his first flight, a meditation on walking, pondering on the conditions of life, and a dream of dancing that make up pieces of a puzzle. He reveals the physical force that affects us all and underpins our personal stories. 2018. Contredanse Editions, Brussels.

Handbook in Motion

An Account of an Ongoing Personal Discourse and Its Manifestations in Dance

by Simone Forti

An account of an ongoing personal discourse and its manifestations in dance. Tracing a period in her life from the 1969 Woodstock Festival through the following years living on the land, this singular dance artist’s direct and poetic writings bring a turbulent transitional era to life. 1974. The Presses of the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design and New York University.

The Knowing Body

The Artist as Storyteller in Contemporary Performance

by Louise Steinman

This hands-on guidebook offers a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process involved in transforming personal stories to theater. Including journal notes and drawings, Steinman interviews some of the key post-modern performers of the ‘80s—Trisha Brown, Ping Chong, Meredith Monk, Whoopi Goldberg, Spaulding Gray, and a host of others. By weaving descriptions of her own path as a writer and performer into a thesis, she demonstrates how one can work towards developing an authentic voice, sparking a student’s sense of possibility. 1986. 1995. North Atlantic Books

Landscape of the Now

A Topography of Movement Improvisation

by Kent De Spain

Based on a series of interviews with master teachers who have developed unique approaches that are taught around the world—Steve Paxton, Simone Forti, Lisa Nelson, Deborah Hay, Nancy Stark Smith, Barbara Dilley, Anna Halprin, and Ruth Zaporah—De Spain takes readers on a deep journey into the underlying processes and structures of postmodern movement improvisation. 2014. Oxford University Press.

Material for the Spine - Steve Paxton (WEB_APP)

A Movement Study

Produced by Contredanse

This interactive WEB-APP immerses us in Paxton's world, to experience the logic and invention at the core of Material for the Spine, a technique evolved from his observation of the spine in the practice of Contact Improvisation. Includes original audiovisual essays, motion capture sequences, extracts from lectures, classes, and performances, and each of the forms of the technique is detailed. 2008. Contredanse, Brussels.

A Moving Presence (DVD)

Ruth Zaporah and Action Theater

a film by Kent De Spain

A glimpse into Ruth Zaporah's Action Theater™, an improvisational physical theater training and performance method that incorporates embodied movement, vocalization, and speech. Follow sixteen people through a two-week workshop in which improvisers are pushed to the edge of their creativity. 2008. Kent De Spain/Ruth Zaporah.

My Body, The Buddhist

by Deborah Hay

An account of Hay's dance-making process with insights into the creation of her performance practices and the invention of her dance libretto, with comments from contemporary artists. 2000. Wesleyan University Press.

On the Edge

Dialogues on Dance Improvisation in Performance

edited by Agnès Benoit

Bilingual: English/French
Fourteen interviews with dancers/improvisers whose creative process derives directly from instant composition: Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, Katie Duck, Lisa Nelson, Julyen Hamilton, Pauline De Groot, K.J. Holmes, Suzanne Cotto, Simone Forti, David Zambrano, Mark Tompkins, Alessandro Certini, Frans Poelstra, and others. 1997. Contredanse/Nouvelles de Danse #32/33

ONE SHOT

dialogues on real time composition

by Mark Tompkins and Meg Stuart

Bilingual English/French
Two seasoned dancer-improvisers have created a book of conversations, interviews, performance transcripts, and images about real time composition. An investigation of sensations and perceptions, a study of presence and play in improvised performance, a handbook for survival. Images by Gilles Toutevoix. 2022. Éditions L'ŒIL D'OR.

The Place of Dance

A Somatic Guide to Dancing and Dance Making

by Andrea Olsen, with Caryn McHose

A workbook that integrates experiential anatomy with the process of moving and dancing, with a focus on the creative journey involved in choreographing, improvising, and performing. Each chapter introduces a particular theme and features information on the topic, movement and writing investigations, personal anecdotes, and studio notes from professional artists and educators. 2014. Wesleyan University Press.

Sharing the Dance

Contact Improvisation and American Culture

by Cynthia J. Novack

In Sharing the Dance , Cynthia Novack considers the development of contact improvisation within its web of historical, social, and ...read more

Standing In Space

The Six Viewpoints Theory & Practice

by Mary Overlie

Mary Overlie, among the most influential choreographer-dancer-educators in postmodern dance and theater practices, created the Six Viewpoints as an answer to the question "What are dance and theater made of?" Emerging out of the late-'60s NYC downtown dance scene, what followed was the development of a comprehensive language and learning system that is applicable to directing, choreographing, dancing, acting, improvisation, and performance analysis. Standing in Space is essential reading for dancers-dancemakers of all cultures, ages, and genres. 2016. Movement Publishing.

Taken by Surprise

A Dance Improvisation Reader

Editors: Ann Cooper Albright & David Gere

Twenty-one essays by prominent practitioners and scholars reflecting the development of improvisation as a compositional and performance mode. Including considerations of contact improvisation, recent innovations in tap dancing, and improvisation in everyday life. Including essays by Susan Leigh Foster, Steve Paxton, Sally Banes, Nancy Stark Smith, Simone Forti, Janice Ross, Ruth Zaporah and many others. 2003. Wesleyan University Press.

Terpsichore's Deck

by Eliza Larson

Terpsichore’s Deck is a fun, tactile way to engage with principles of choreography and performance. From broad aspects of dance-making to subtle elements of performativity, each set of 52 cards encourages the creator to investigate and consider aspects of crafting dance and performance. 2013. NEW EDITION 2017.

This Very Moment

teaching thinking dancing

by Barbara Dilley

This Very Moment braids threads of Barbara Dilley’s memoir in and out of a handbook for classroom practices of dance, ...read more

Through the Back

Situating Vision between Moving Bodies

by Jeroen Peeters

In today’s visual regime, contemporary dance operates as a critical force. It questions univocal representations and dominant cultural ideals of the body. Developing alternative approaches to physical expression, certain choreographers create body images that are vulnerable and permeable to the world. Through the Back seeks to articulate this critical potential in a series of essays that explore the work of experimental choreographers active throughout the 2000s: Alexander Baervoets, Boris Charmatz, Meg Stuart, Benoît Lachambre, Vera Mantero, Philipp Gehmacher, Jennifer Lacey and Nadia Lauro, and deufert & plischke. 2014. Theatre Academy of the Univ. of the Arts Helsinki, Kinesis 5

Caught Falling

The Confluence of Contact Improvisation, Nancy Stark Smith, and Other Moving Ideas

by David Koteen and Nancy Stark Smith
with a Backwords by Steve Paxton

The inside-out of dancer/CQ editor Nancy Stark Smith's life as seen through the kaleidoscope of the dance form Contact Improvisation. Includes Q&As between David and Nancy; photos of dancing & living; Talk Bubbles from friends, colleagues, and family; the Underscore; Nancy's life stories; and more. 2008. Contact Editions.

Chute (1979)

© Videoda
9:36 min.
Narration in English

Documentary of the first Contact Improvisation demonstrations in N.Y.C. at the John Weber Gallery in 1972. With narration by originator, ...read more

Contact at 10th & 2nd (1983)

© Videoda 49:05 min.

Document of the 11th anniversary of Contact Improvisation performance festival at St. Mark’s Church in New York City with seasoned ...read more

Contact Improvisation

An Introduction to a Vitalizing Dance Form

by Cheryl Pallant

A devoted practitioner writes about contact improvisation from an experiential viewpoint, discussing its history, fundamentals, and political, social, and cultural ramifications, with questions, exercises, and a teacher's sampler. 2006. McFarland & Co.

Contact Improvisation & Body-Mind Centering

A Manual for Teaching & Learning Movement

by Annie Brook

Designed to be a manual and study guide, this book supports body-mind integration and the development of an improvisational mind through movement with a blend of play, fundamental BMC exercises, and CI skills. 2000. Body-Mind.net.

Contact Improvisation at 36 (DVD)

Perspectives on the Dance Form in its 36th Year

a documentary film by Nathan Wagoner

This documentary about Contact Improvisation was shot at CI36, a celebration of Contact’s 36th birthday in 2008 which brought together ...read more

CQ/Contact Improvisation 25th Anniversary Sourcebook

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1975-1992

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

This is the first volume of writings reprinted from Contact Quarterly dance journal concerning the practice of contact improvisation, a ...read more

CQ/Contact Improvisation 25th Anniversary Sourcebook

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1975-1992

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

The first volume of writings reprinted from Contact Quarterly dance journal concerning the practice of contact improvisation. Xeroxed articles, essays, drawings, photos, and quotes from CQ's birth as a newsletter in 1975 through 1992. An indispensable resource for dance students, teachers, and practitioners of CI to experience the roots and track the development of the practice and philosophy of this influential contemporary dance form. 1997. Contact Editions.

CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. II

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1992-2007

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

In celebration of Contact Improvisation’s 36th anniversary, we released this second volume of the multivioiced history of the dance form’s ...read more

CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. II

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1992-2007

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

In celebration of Contact Improvisation’s 36th anniversary, we released this second volume of the multivioiced history of the dance form’s ...read more

CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. III

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 2008–2018

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

This third volume of Contact Improvisation's multivoiced evolution is collected from CQ Vol. 33 through 43, including writings from CI ...read more

CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. III

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 2008–2018

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

This third volume of Contact Improvisation's multivoiced evolution is collected from CQ Vol. 33 through 43, including writings from CI Essentials, Editor Notes, Still Moving, CI Newsletter and more. Containing perspectives on the practice, principles, issues, and applications of Contact Improvisation from diverse contemporary practitioners around the globe, it is an invaluable creative resource for teachers, practitioners, and dance libraries. 2019. Contact Editions.

Dancing Deeper Still

The Practice of Contact Improvisation

by Martin Keogh

Through numerous detailed essays on the practice and teaching of Contact Improvisation, longtime Contact teacher Martin Keogh presents Dancing Deeper Still, a sourcebook and philosophical treatise on Contact Improvisation in performance, boundaries and sexuality, political activism, dancing while aging, expanded teaching research notes, and advanced skills. 2018. Intimately Rooted Books.

Encounters with Contact

Dancing Contact Improvisation in College

edited by Ann Cooper Albright, et al.

Through a series of student writings and essays by established artists teaching in universities throughout the U.S., Encounters considers the unique experience of teaching and learning Contact within an educational institution. Included are sections on students' first impressions, thoughts on the often surprising effects of touch within the dance, classroom exercises, the role of Contact in life after school, debate about institutional formats, and more. 2010. Oberlin College Theater and Dance Program.

Fall After Newton (1987)

© Videoda
22:45 min.
Narration in English

A sweeping look at 11 years of practice of Contact Improvisation by Nancy Stark Smith and initiator, Steve Paxton. The ...read more

Gravity

by Steve Paxton

In this elegant pocket-sized book, dancer Steve Paxton traces a lifetime in the company of gravity. In pithy prose essays, he brings us the memory of his first flight, a meditation on walking, pondering on the conditions of life, and a dream of dancing that make up pieces of a puzzle. He reveals the physical force that affects us all and underpins our personal stories. 2018. Contredanse Editions, Brussels.

Magnesium (1972)

© Videoda
9:33 min.

Document of a dance made by Steve Paxton during a Grand Union residency at Oberlin College, Ohio in January, 1972. ...read more

Peripheral Vision (1975)

© Videoda
21:05 min.
Narration in English

Selections from a Contact Improvisation concert at Firehouse Theater in San Francisco, CA in 1973: “You Come, We’ll Show You ...read more

Questioning Contact Improvisation

by Keith Hennessy

Hennessy’s zine, coming from decades of practice and questioning of CI, interrogates whiteness, racism, heterosexism, and white supremacy in the dance form. “How do predominantly white alternative cultures defeat their stated intentions and wishes by reproducing mainstream or hegemonic injustices?” [p. 1]. The questioning takes place against a background of Hennessy’s experience as a dancer and teacher of CI since the late ’70s,
and as a white, queer, cis male. Unique full color design with photos. 2018. San Francisco: Circo Zero.

Sharing the Dance

Contact Improvisation and American Culture

by Cynthia J. Novack

In Sharing the Dance , Cynthia Novack considers the development of contact improvisation within its web of historical, social, and ...read more

Soft Pallet (1973)

© Videoda
17:53 min.

Selections from a vintage Contact Improvisation concert in Rome at L’Attico Gallery in 1973. With performers: Annette LaRoque, David Woodberry, ...read more

Taken by Surprise

A Dance Improvisation Reader

Editors: Ann Cooper Albright & David Gere

Twenty-one essays by prominent practitioners and scholars reflecting the development of improvisation as a compositional and performance mode. Including considerations of contact improvisation, recent innovations in tap dancing, and improvisation in everyday life. Including essays by Susan Leigh Foster, Steve Paxton, Sally Banes, Nancy Stark Smith, Simone Forti, Janice Ross, Ruth Zaporah and many others. 2003. Wesleyan University Press.

Videoda Contact Improvisation Archive

1972 – 1983

Six edited programs in Videoda's Archival Collection of Contact Improvisation track a key period of exploration and discovery through narrated ...read more

Anna Halprin, Dancing Life/Danser
la vie (DVD-Rom)

by Baptiste Andrien, Florence Corin / Contredanse,
with Anna Halprin

This interactive DVD-ROM presents the unique approach of this groundbreaking dance artist through more than six hours of video covering the entirety of a 2012 workshop in Paris, previously unpublished interviews, and extracts of precious archive material. 2014. Contredanse.

Basic Neurocellular Patterns

Exploring Developmental Movement

by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

The Basic Neurocellular Patterns (BNP) form the underlying words and phrases in the language of human movement. They have a global influence on our physical, perceptual, emotional, and cognitive functioning and have extensive application in the areas of movement and psychophysical expression. With this book as a guide, Ms. Cohen invites you to directly experience, embody, and integrate your own developmental movement patterns. 2018. Burchfield Rose Publishers.

Body and Earth

An Experiential Guide

by Andrea Olsen

Integrating environmental science, biology, meditations, and creative expression, Olsen addresses the interconnectedness of body and place through a mixture of reflections, information, exercises, and visual art. 2002. Wesleyan University Press.

BodyStories

A Guide to Experiential Anatomy

by Andrea Olsen in collaboration with Caryn McHose 

Thirty-one days of learning sessions bring heightened awareness about each bone and body system as well as providing self-guided studies to activate the learning processes. The book draws on Olsen’s twenty years as a dancer and teacher of anatomy to show how our attitudes and approaches to our bodies affect us day to day. 1998. Station Hill Press.

Gravity

by Steve Paxton

In this elegant pocket-sized book, dancer Steve Paxton traces a lifetime in the company of gravity. In pithy prose essays, he brings us the memory of his first flight, a meditation on walking, pondering on the conditions of life, and a dream of dancing that make up pieces of a puzzle. He reveals the physical force that affects us all and underpins our personal stories. 2018. Contredanse Editions, Brussels.

A Guide to a Somatic Movement Practice

The Anatomy of Center

by Nancy Topf with Hetty King

Making available the full text of somatic dance education pioneer Nancy Topf's manuscript, The Anatomy of Center, for the first time in print, this introduction to Topf Technique/Dynamic Anatomy® helps professionals, teachers, and students of all levels integrate embodied, somatic practices within contexts of dance, physical education and therapy, health, and mental well-being. 2022. University Press of Florida.

Inside Motion

An Ideokinetic Basis for Movement Education

by John Rolland

An in-depth and comprehensive study of anatomical imagery based on the Todd-Clark body alignment work, with a complete description of the skeletal system. 1984. Rolland String Research Associates.

A Kinesthetic Legacy

The Life and Works of Barbara Clark
revised edition

by Pamela Matt

An invaluable historical resource and practical text about Barbara Clark, a pioneering thinker in the somatics field. Includes Clark's previously published and unpublished manuals and teaching notes. 2020. Thinking Body Institute Media LLC.

Material for the Spine - Steve Paxton (WEB_APP)

A Movement Study

Produced by Contredanse

This interactive WEB-APP immerses us in Paxton's world, to experience the logic and invention at the core of Material for the Spine, a technique evolved from his observation of the spine in the practice of Contact Improvisation. Includes original audiovisual essays, motion capture sequences, extracts from lectures, classes, and performances, and each of the forms of the technique is detailed. 2008. Contredanse, Brussels.

The Place of Dance

A Somatic Guide to Dancing and Dance Making

by Andrea Olsen, with Caryn McHose

A workbook that integrates experiential anatomy with the process of moving and dancing, with a focus on the creative journey involved in choreographing, improvising, and performing. Each chapter introduces a particular theme and features information on the topic, movement and writing investigations, personal anecdotes, and studio notes from professional artists and educators. 2014. Wesleyan University Press.

Sensing, Feeling, and Action, 3rd ed.

The Experiential Anatomy of Body-Mind Centering®

by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

Pioneering movement educator Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s innovative approach to embodiment, movement analysis and reeducation, Body-Mind Centering®, is the subject of this book of collected essays, interviews, and exercises written for Contact Quarterly dance journal between 1980 and 2009. The 3rd edition includes sixteen additional pages with new articles on inspiration, expiration, and dancing through the transitional fluid, including a subject Index and List of Explorations. 1993. 2008. 2012. Contact Editions.

Wisdom of the Body Moving

An Introduction to Body-Mind Centering®

by Linda Hartley

A comprehensive guide to the basic philosophy and key elements of Body-Mind Centering®, the innovative approach to embodiment pioneered by movement educator Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen; with concrete and poetic explorations, clear exercises, and extensive anatomical drawings and photos. 1989. 1995. North Atlantic Books.

Contact Improvisation at 36 (DVD)

Perspectives on the Dance Form in its 36th Year

a documentary film by Nathan Wagoner

This documentary about Contact Improvisation was shot at CI36, a celebration of Contact’s 36th birthday in 2008 which brought together ...read more

CQ/Contact Improvisation 25th Anniversary Sourcebook

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1975-1992

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

This is the first volume of writings reprinted from Contact Quarterly dance journal concerning the practice of contact improvisation, a ...read more

CQ/Contact Improvisation 25th Anniversary Sourcebook

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1975-1992

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

The first volume of writings reprinted from Contact Quarterly dance journal concerning the practice of contact improvisation. Xeroxed articles, essays, drawings, photos, and quotes from CQ's birth as a newsletter in 1975 through 1992. An indispensable resource for dance students, teachers, and practitioners of CI to experience the roots and track the development of the practice and philosophy of this influential contemporary dance form. 1997. Contact Editions.

CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. II

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1992-2007

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

In celebration of Contact Improvisation’s 36th anniversary, we released this second volume of the multivioiced history of the dance form’s ...read more

CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. II

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1992-2007

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

In celebration of Contact Improvisation’s 36th anniversary, we released this second volume of the multivioiced history of the dance form’s ...read more

CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. III

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 2008–2018

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

This third volume of Contact Improvisation's multivoiced evolution is collected from CQ Vol. 33 through 43, including writings from CI ...read more

CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. III

Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 2008–2018

Eds: Nancy Stark Smith & Lisa Nelson

This third volume of Contact Improvisation's multivoiced evolution is collected from CQ Vol. 33 through 43, including writings from CI Essentials, Editor Notes, Still Moving, CI Newsletter and more. Containing perspectives on the practice, principles, issues, and applications of Contact Improvisation from diverse contemporary practitioners around the globe, it is an invaluable creative resource for teachers, practitioners, and dance libraries. 2019. Contact Editions.

This Very Moment

teaching thinking dancing

by Barbara Dilley

This Very Moment braids threads of Barbara Dilley’s memoir in and out of a handbook for classroom practices of dance, ...read more

Videoda Contact Improvisation Archive

1972 – 1983

Six edited programs in Videoda's Archival Collection of Contact Improvisation track a key period of exploration and discovery through narrated ...read more