Pausing My Practice of Contact Improv

Tonight, I attended my last contact improvisation jam for what I believe will be some period of time. I made this decision last Thursday, while I was also in a jam.

Why, Maya?

Contact Improvisation is a dance form that explores the possibilities that arise when we come together. I'm quitting contact for the same reason I quit traditional talk therapy: I don't know how to identify or articulate my desires and architect goals that I can move towards. I lack the vocabulary to do so, at least on command.

But in contact improvisation, you don't have to know what you want, right? One of my first teachers, the lovely and dear Ann Cooper Albright, drilled this concept into my bones, which I believe has been attributed to Nancy Stark Smith: "Replace ambition with curiosity." You don't have to know what you want, just listen. Listen to yourself, the floor, the room, listen to your partner.

But what if desire is attunement? What if imagination is care? What if judgement is a compass? Then knowing what I want, where I want to go, and how fast I want to get there becomes improvisation's substrate, and impulse the seed from which crystal lattice can grow.

Find play.

Keith Hennessy talks about precarity a lot. And precarity is not just uncertainty, it's not just discomfort. Precarity is the negotiation of self in the face of true danger.

Come back to sensation.

The body is our first and only interface with our self and our surroundings. Mihyun Lee gave me hints about the journey back (to the body), Brenton Cheng about the importance of having levity through it all, and Yuting Yin about the ease and natural order of this process.

Breathe.

Inhale, Exhale. Gather, Send. → David Zambrano through Karla Quintero.

Don't try to impress anyone.

→ Stu Phillips and Shira Yaziv.

Remember your lineage. Cite your teachers.

→ Melecio Estrella.

Remember your structure.

mayfield brooks studies whales. Whales and decomposition and the decomposition of whales. Remember your structure.

My departure from the jam container is a decision based on structure. The structure of jams and the classes that precede them does not have the affordances I need to feel safe deepening my exploration with and integrating the lessons I've listed above. I find myself continually activated, stuck in anxiety, disorientation, and pattern repetition. My system needs a reset.

In my time away, I will be experimenting with more choreographed dance forms to expand my movement lexicon. I'm all in my own head a lot, so being able to step into some other people's rhythms and grooves will be good for me. Learning the vocabulary of others will hopefully also help me find more of my own.

Additionally, I'll be taking this time to find a more regular routine for my life that works for me... so structuring my time as well, a little bit. Structuring space; I've taken steps to organize my room! Structuring relationships, seeking relational safety, interactions where I can reasonably know what to expect.

I've spent a lot of my life disrupting structure, going against the grain, finding little ways to rebel, but the mechanism behind this rebellion has always been a desire to have eyes on me.

I want to know that I'm loved for just being, that I don't have to make a show to have people captivated by my existence. I want myself to know that.

I want to spend time building, not just breaking. Building culture, building sustainable infrastructures in collaboration with others, building systems.

There are no portals to utopia. Every breath is a portal. Meet me in that contradiction, please. <3