86 Aspects of Composition
a tool for open-ended creative research
(deck of cards)
Adapted from Mike Vargas’s article, “Looking at Composition is Like Painting the Golden Gate Bridge: 86 Aspects of Composition,” published in Contact Quarterly, Vol. 28 no. 2, Summer/Fall 2003, this deck of cards is designed
to help people in their process of organizing materials, perceptions, and decisions related to sound, movement, or any other artistic medium.
The 86 aspects can be used as lenses to evaluate and analyze art, but
they can also focus our attention on the composition of nature and the environment. There is a single aspect on each card, and on the back is
a corresponding question related to the aspect.
"The list of aspects was inspired by the need to examine my own creative practice. I used plain English to name the aspects so as to maximize their usefulness in a wide variety of contexts." —Mike Vargas
Card concept and production by Jun Akiyama
To access Vargas's CQ article, go to: www.mikevargas.net/documents/86%20Aspects.pdf
Contact Editions currently publishes and distributes digital books and videos. Since ceasing to sell physical products in late 2020, we are promoting our former titles on contemporary dance, improvisation, performance, and somatic movement arts on a page of Recommended Books and Videos with links to where to purchase them. These titles are by authors and contributors to Contact Quarterly's pages over 45 years of printing. You can access articles by these authors by searching them on our site.
In January 2021, we began transitioning our website to CQ Resource-Archive Site. Thanks for your patience while we update and reorganize our pages. Some of our titles are pending new distributors. Please stay tuned here and through our e-newsletter.
by Category
| CQ/Contact Improvisation 25th Anniversary Sourcebook Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1975-1992 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 Sourcebook, Vol. III Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 2008–2018 This third volume of Contact Improvisation's multivoiced evolution is collected from CQ Vol. 33 through 43, including writings from CI ...read more $32 Spiral bound new distributor coming $27
PDF (10.9 MB) available NOW
|
| This Very Moment teaching thinking dancing This Very Moment braids threads of Barbara Dilley’s memoir in and out of a handbook for classroom practices of dance, ...read more |
| 86 Aspects of Composition
a tool for open-ended creative research Adapted from Mike Vargas’s article, “Looking at Composition is Like Painting the Golden Gate Bridge: 86 Aspects of Composition,” published ...read more $25 new distributor coming |
| Basic Neurocellular Patterns Exploring Developmental Movement The Basic Neurocellular Patterns (BNP) form the underlying words and phrases in the language of human movement. They have a ...read more Available through author |
| BodyStories A Guide to Experiential Anatomy The information in BodyStories is applicable to dancers, artists, athletes, bodyworkers, massage therapists, teachers, and individuals with injuries or with ...read more Available through HFSbooks |
| Caught Falling The Confluence of Contact Improvisation, Nancy Stark Smith, and Other Moving Ideas The inside-out of dancer/ Contact Quarterly editor Nancy Stark Smith’s life as seen through the kaleidoscope of her thirty-six year ...read more $33 new distributor coming |
| Composing while Dancing An Improviser’s Companion 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, et al. Composing offers a much needed and inspiring resource for dancers and dance educators. Watch the YouTube infomercial. Available through uwpress |
| Contact Improvisation An Introduction to a Vitalizing Dance Form In this book the author draws upon her own extensive experience and research to explain the art of contact improvisation, ...read more widely available |
| Contact Improvisation & Body-Mind Centering A Manual for Teaching & Learning Movement This book is a playful and skillful guide that supports body-mind integration and the development through movement of an improvisational ...read more Available through author |
|
| CQ/Contact Improvisation 25th Anniversary Sourcebook Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1975-1992 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 Sourcebook, Vol. II Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1992-2007 In celebration of Contact Improvisation’s 36th anniversary, we released this second volume of the multivioiced history of the dance form’s ...read more $30 Spiral bound new distributor coming |
|
| CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. III Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 2008–2018 This third volume of Contact Improvisation's multivoiced evolution is collected from CQ Vol. 33 through 43, including writings from CI ...read more $32 Spiral bound new distributor coming $27
PDF (10.9 MB) available NOW
|
| Dancing Deeper Still The Practice of Contact Improvisation Through numerous detailed essays on the practice and teaching of Contact Improvisation, longtime Contact teacher Martin Keogh presents Dancing Deeper ...read more Available through author |
| Embodied Lives Reflections on the Influence of Suprapto Suryodarmo and Amerta Movement Since the mid-1980s, Suprapto Suryodarmo's moving/dancing has inspired many thousands of people in the West, and many more in his ...read more Available through Triarchy Press |
| Encounters with Contact Dancing Contact Improvisation in College Through a series of student writings and essays by established artists teaching in universities throughout the U.S., Encounters considers the ...read more Available by email |
| Gravity In this elegant pocket-sized book, dancer Steve Paxton traces a lifetime in the company of gravity. In pithy prose essays, ...read more Available through Contredanse |
| Handbook in Motion 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 ...read more $15 new distributor coming |
| Inside Motion An Ideokinetic Basis for Movement Education Inside Motion is a comprehensive study of anatomical imagery based on the Todd-Clark body alignment work as developed by dancer ...read more $19.95 Spiral bound
$19.95 Perfect bound new distributor coming |
| A Kinesthetic Legacy
The Life and Works of Barbara Clark A Kinesthetic Legacy presents the biography and writings of Barbara Clark, who devoted her life to the preservation and creative ...read more Available through Thinking Body Institute |
| The Knowing Body The Artist as Storyteller in Contemporary Performance This hands-on guidebook offers a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process involved in transforming personal stories to theater. Including journal ...read more Available through Penguin... |
| Landscape of the Now A Topography of Movement Improvisation Author Kent De Spain takes readers on a deep journey into the underlying processes and structures of postmodern movement improvisation. ...read more widely available |
| My Body, The Buddhist Through a series of imaginative approaches to movement and performance, choreographer Deborah Hay presents a profound reflection on the ephemeral ...read more Available through HFSbooks |
| On the Edge Dialogues on Dance Improvisation in Performance
Bilingual: English/French Available through Contredanse |
| The Place of Dance A Somatic Guide to Dancing and Dance Making The Place of Dance is written for the general reader as well as for dancers. It reminds us that dancing ...read more Available through HFSbooks |
| Questioning Contact Improvisation Hennessy’s zine, coming from decades of practice and questioning of CI, interrogates whiteness, racism, heterosexism, and white supremacy in the ...read more Available through circozero |
| Sensing, Feeling, and Action, 3rd ed. The Experiential Anatomy of Body-Mind Centering® Pioneering movement educator Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s innovative approach to embodiment, movement analysis and reeducation, Body-Mind Centering®, is the subject of ...read more Available through author |
| Sharing the Dance Contact Improvisation and American Culture In Sharing the Dance , Cynthia Novack considers the development of contact improvisation within its web of historical, social, and ...read more Available through UWpress |
| Standing In Space The Six Viewpoints Theory & Practice “Observe the ingredients, the materials of performance, contemplate the particles. Once you find them, train yourself to listen, allow them ...read more Available through sixviewpoints |
| Taken by Surprise A Dance Improvisation Reader This collection of new and previously published writings on dance improvisation brings together twenty-one essays by prominent dancers, scholars, and ...read more Available through HFSbooks |
| Terpsichore's Deck Terpsichore’s Deck (named after the muse of dance) is an instructional and inspirational creative text for novice and advanced dance ...read more Available through author |
|
| This Very Moment teaching thinking dancing 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 In today’s visual regime, contemporary dance operates as a critical force. It questions univocal representations and dominant cultural ideals of ...read more Available through Books on the Move |
| Wisdom of the Body Moving An Introduction to Body-Mind Centering® A comprehensive guide to the basic philosophy and key elements of Body-Mind Centering®, the innovative approach to embodiment pioneered by ...read more Available through Pengiun... |
| Contact Improvisation at 36 (DVD) Perspectives on the Dance Form in its 36th Year This documentary about Contact Improvisation was shot at CI36, a celebration of Contact’s 36th birthday in 2008 which brought together ...read more $15 new distributor coming |
| Force of Nature (DVD) a performance documentary with Kirstie Simson Over the course of five years, award-winning director Katrina McPherson filmed improvising dance artist Kirstie Simson performing and teaching across ...read more Livestreaming at GO/AT |
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| A Moving Presence (DVD) Ruth Zaporah and Action Theater Following sixteen people through a two-week workshop in New Mexico, we enter the challenging improvisational world of Action Theater™ and ...read more Available through ZAP |
| Videoda Contact Improvisation Archive (DVD) Collected Edition 1972 – 1983
VIDEODA, a project of Contact Collaborations, Inc., archives performance documents of Contact Improvisation from its inception in 1972. $60 Indiv. Streaming soon |
|
| 86 Aspects of Composition
a tool for open-ended creative research Adapted from Mike Vargas’s article, “Looking at Composition is Like Painting the Golden Gate Bridge: 86 Aspects of Composition,” published ...read more $25 new distributor coming |
|
| Caught Falling The Confluence of Contact Improvisation, Nancy Stark Smith, and Other Moving Ideas The inside-out of dancer/ Contact Quarterly editor Nancy Stark Smith’s life as seen through the kaleidoscope of her thirty-six year ...read more $33 new distributor coming |
|
| Composing while Dancing An Improviser’s Companion 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, et al. Composing offers a much needed and inspiring resource for dancers and dance educators. Watch the YouTube infomercial. Available through uwpress |
|
| Contact Improvisation An Introduction to a Vitalizing Dance Form In this book the author draws upon her own extensive experience and research to explain the art of contact improvisation, ...read more widely available |
|
| Contact Improvisation & Body-Mind Centering A Manual for Teaching & Learning Movement This book is a playful and skillful guide that supports body-mind integration and the development through movement of an improvisational ...read more Available through author |
|
| Contact Improvisation at 36 (DVD) Perspectives on the Dance Form in its 36th Year This documentary about Contact Improvisation was shot at CI36, a celebration of Contact’s 36th birthday in 2008 which brought together ...read more $15 new distributor coming |
|
| CQ/Contact Improvisation 25th Anniversary Sourcebook Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1975-1992 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 Sourcebook, Vol. II Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1992-2007 In celebration of Contact Improvisation’s 36th anniversary, we released this second volume of the multivioiced history of the dance form’s ...read more $30 Spiral bound new distributor coming |
|
| CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. III Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 2008–2018 This third volume of Contact Improvisation's multivoiced evolution is collected from CQ Vol. 33 through 43, including writings from CI ...read more $32 Spiral bound new distributor coming $27
PDF (10.9 MB) available NOW
|
|
| Embodied Lives Reflections on the Influence of Suprapto Suryodarmo and Amerta Movement Since the mid-1980s, Suprapto Suryodarmo's moving/dancing has inspired many thousands of people in the West, and many more in his ...read more Available through Triarchy Press |
|
| Encounters with Contact Dancing Contact Improvisation in College Through a series of student writings and essays by established artists teaching in universities throughout the U.S., Encounters considers the ...read more Available by email |
|
| Force of Nature (DVD) a performance documentary with Kirstie Simson Over the course of five years, award-winning director Katrina McPherson filmed improvising dance artist Kirstie Simson performing and teaching across ...read more Livestreaming at GO/AT |
|
| Gravity In this elegant pocket-sized book, dancer Steve Paxton traces a lifetime in the company of gravity. In pithy prose essays, ...read more Available through Contredanse |
|
| Handbook in Motion 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 ...read more $15 new distributor coming |
|
| The Knowing Body The Artist as Storyteller in Contemporary Performance This hands-on guidebook offers a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process involved in transforming personal stories to theater. Including journal ...read more Available through Penguin... |
|
| Landscape of the Now A Topography of Movement Improvisation Author Kent De Spain takes readers on a deep journey into the underlying processes and structures of postmodern movement improvisation. ...read more widely available |
|
| A Moving Presence (DVD) Ruth Zaporah and Action Theater Following sixteen people through a two-week workshop in New Mexico, we enter the challenging improvisational world of Action Theater™ and ...read more Available through ZAP |
|
| My Body, The Buddhist Through a series of imaginative approaches to movement and performance, choreographer Deborah Hay presents a profound reflection on the ephemeral ...read more Available through HFSbooks |
|
| On the Edge Dialogues on Dance Improvisation in Performance
Bilingual: English/French Available through Contredanse |
|
| The Place of Dance A Somatic Guide to Dancing and Dance Making The Place of Dance is written for the general reader as well as for dancers. It reminds us that dancing ...read more Available through HFSbooks |
|
| Sharing the Dance Contact Improvisation and American Culture In Sharing the Dance , Cynthia Novack considers the development of contact improvisation within its web of historical, social, and ...read more Available through UWpress |
|
| Standing In Space The Six Viewpoints Theory & Practice “Observe the ingredients, the materials of performance, contemplate the particles. Once you find them, train yourself to listen, allow them ...read more Available through sixviewpoints |
|
| Taken by Surprise A Dance Improvisation Reader This collection of new and previously published writings on dance improvisation brings together twenty-one essays by prominent dancers, scholars, and ...read more Available through HFSbooks |
|
| Terpsichore's Deck Terpsichore’s Deck (named after the muse of dance) is an instructional and inspirational creative text for novice and advanced dance ...read more Available through author |
|
| This Very Moment teaching thinking dancing 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 In today’s visual regime, contemporary dance operates as a critical force. It questions univocal representations and dominant cultural ideals of ...read more Available through Books on the Move |
|
| Caught Falling The Confluence of Contact Improvisation, Nancy Stark Smith, and Other Moving Ideas The inside-out of dancer/ Contact Quarterly editor Nancy Stark Smith’s life as seen through the kaleidoscope of her thirty-six year ...read more $33 new distributor coming |
|
| Contact Improvisation An Introduction to a Vitalizing Dance Form In this book the author draws upon her own extensive experience and research to explain the art of contact improvisation, ...read more widely available |
|
| Contact Improvisation & Body-Mind Centering A Manual for Teaching & Learning Movement This book is a playful and skillful guide that supports body-mind integration and the development through movement of an improvisational ...read more Available through author |
|
| Contact Improvisation at 36 (DVD) Perspectives on the Dance Form in its 36th Year This documentary about Contact Improvisation was shot at CI36, a celebration of Contact’s 36th birthday in 2008 which brought together ...read more $15 new distributor coming |
|
| CQ/Contact Improvisation 25th Anniversary Sourcebook Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1975-1992 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 Sourcebook, Vol. II Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1992-2007 In celebration of Contact Improvisation’s 36th anniversary, we released this second volume of the multivioiced history of the dance form’s ...read more $30 Spiral bound new distributor coming |
|
| CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. III Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 2008–2018 This third volume of Contact Improvisation's multivoiced evolution is collected from CQ Vol. 33 through 43, including writings from CI ...read more $32 Spiral bound new distributor coming $27
PDF (10.9 MB) available NOW
|
|
| Dancing Deeper Still The Practice of Contact Improvisation Through numerous detailed essays on the practice and teaching of Contact Improvisation, longtime Contact teacher Martin Keogh presents Dancing Deeper ...read more Available through author |
|
| Encounters with Contact Dancing Contact Improvisation in College Through a series of student writings and essays by established artists teaching in universities throughout the U.S., Encounters considers the ...read more Available by email |
|
| Gravity In this elegant pocket-sized book, dancer Steve Paxton traces a lifetime in the company of gravity. In pithy prose essays, ...read more Available through Contredanse |
|
| Questioning Contact Improvisation Hennessy’s zine, coming from decades of practice and questioning of CI, interrogates whiteness, racism, heterosexism, and white supremacy in the ...read more Available through circozero |
|
| Sharing the Dance Contact Improvisation and American Culture In Sharing the Dance , Cynthia Novack considers the development of contact improvisation within its web of historical, social, and ...read more Available through UWpress |
|
| Taken by Surprise A Dance Improvisation Reader This collection of new and previously published writings on dance improvisation brings together twenty-one essays by prominent dancers, scholars, and ...read more Available through HFSbooks |
|
| Videoda Contact Improvisation Archive (DVD) Collected Edition 1972 – 1983
VIDEODA, a project of Contact Collaborations, Inc., archives performance documents of Contact Improvisation from its inception in 1972. $60 Indiv. Streaming soon |
|
| Basic Neurocellular Patterns Exploring Developmental Movement The Basic Neurocellular Patterns (BNP) form the underlying words and phrases in the language of human movement. They have a ...read more Available through author |
|
| BodyStories A Guide to Experiential Anatomy The information in BodyStories is applicable to dancers, artists, athletes, bodyworkers, massage therapists, teachers, and individuals with injuries or with ...read more Available through HFSbooks |
|
| Gravity In this elegant pocket-sized book, dancer Steve Paxton traces a lifetime in the company of gravity. In pithy prose essays, ...read more Available through Contredanse |
|
| Inside Motion An Ideokinetic Basis for Movement Education Inside Motion is a comprehensive study of anatomical imagery based on the Todd-Clark body alignment work as developed by dancer ...read more $19.95 Spiral bound
$19.95 Perfect bound new distributor coming |
|
| A Kinesthetic Legacy
The Life and Works of Barbara Clark A Kinesthetic Legacy presents the biography and writings of Barbara Clark, who devoted her life to the preservation and creative ...read more Available through Thinking Body Institute |
|
| The Place of Dance A Somatic Guide to Dancing and Dance Making The Place of Dance is written for the general reader as well as for dancers. It reminds us that dancing ...read more Available through HFSbooks |
|
| Sensing, Feeling, and Action, 3rd ed. The Experiential Anatomy of Body-Mind Centering® Pioneering movement educator Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s innovative approach to embodiment, movement analysis and reeducation, Body-Mind Centering®, is the subject of ...read more Available through author |
|
| Wisdom of the Body Moving An Introduction to Body-Mind Centering® A comprehensive guide to the basic philosophy and key elements of Body-Mind Centering®, the innovative approach to embodiment pioneered by ...read more Available through Pengiun... |
|
| 86 Aspects of Composition
a tool for open-ended creative research Adapted from Mike Vargas’s article, “Looking at Composition is Like Painting the Golden Gate Bridge: 86 Aspects of Composition,” published ...read more $25 new distributor coming |
|
| Caught Falling The Confluence of Contact Improvisation, Nancy Stark Smith, and Other Moving Ideas The inside-out of dancer/ Contact Quarterly editor Nancy Stark Smith’s life as seen through the kaleidoscope of her thirty-six year ...read more $33 new distributor coming |
|
| Contact Improvisation at 36 (DVD) Perspectives on the Dance Form in its 36th Year This documentary about Contact Improvisation was shot at CI36, a celebration of Contact’s 36th birthday in 2008 which brought together ...read more $15 new distributor coming |
|
| CQ/Contact Improvisation 25th Anniversary Sourcebook Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1975-1992 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 Sourcebook, Vol. II Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 1992-2007 In celebration of Contact Improvisation’s 36th anniversary, we released this second volume of the multivioiced history of the dance form’s ...read more $30 Spiral bound new distributor coming |
|
| CQ/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, Vol. III Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly dance journal 2008–2018 This third volume of Contact Improvisation's multivoiced evolution is collected from CQ Vol. 33 through 43, including writings from CI ...read more $32 Spiral bound new distributor coming $27
PDF (10.9 MB) available NOW
|
|
| Encounters with Contact Dancing Contact Improvisation in College Through a series of student writings and essays by established artists teaching in universities throughout the U.S., Encounters considers the ...read more Available by email |
|
| Handbook in Motion 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 ...read more $15 new distributor coming |
|
| Inside Motion An Ideokinetic Basis for Movement Education Inside Motion is a comprehensive study of anatomical imagery based on the Todd-Clark body alignment work as developed by dancer ...read more $19.95 Spiral bound
$19.95 Perfect bound new distributor coming |
|
| A Kinesthetic Legacy
The Life and Works of Barbara Clark A Kinesthetic Legacy presents the biography and writings of Barbara Clark, who devoted her life to the preservation and creative ...read more Available through Thinking Body Institute |
|
| A Moving Presence (DVD) Ruth Zaporah and Action Theater Following sixteen people through a two-week workshop in New Mexico, we enter the challenging improvisational world of Action Theater™ and ...read more Available through ZAP |
|
| This Very Moment teaching thinking dancing 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 (DVD) Collected Edition 1972 – 1983
VIDEODA, a project of Contact Collaborations, Inc., archives performance documents of Contact Improvisation from its inception in 1972. $60 Indiv. Streaming soon |
