Robert Bettmann – Page 54 – Robert Bettmann

A little more about Contact Improvisation

There’s a myth in the Contact Improv community that you should dance the same way with everybody. That if you’re a good loving contacter, you dance the same way with everybody, and you love dancing with everybody the same. I’ve been doing Contact Improvisation for 15 years, and have studied with some wonderful teachers – including Nancy Stark Smith, Anne Cooper Albright, Andrew Harwood… – and it’s absolutely clear to me that we all dance differently with one another.

The Contact community is open, and caring. Closing doors to connection is not encouraged. But I have seen the most generous dancers exert clear control over the depth of connection in a dance. They don’t close the door, but they know not to fling it wide open with every dance either. That’s something that many amateurs can not perceive at first.

We are all capable of being truly sensitive to ourselves and others at the same time. But you can’t control other people. If you find yourself dancing with someone who is not really being sensitive to you – what can you do? What should you do?

If I feel like I’m having a dance with someone who is not present with me, I get more distant. And I have developed a variety of physical skills to create slight distances. (I’ll be teaching some exercises to develop those skills this weekend.) If I try to take some distance and they don’t let me – they are unresponsive to me – I know to push a little further away, and create as much distance as I need until I find myself in a dance I am comfortable with.

The class I’m teaching this Saturday at Artomatic will introduce some exercises focusing on control of our boundaries, and the edges of contact. I hope you’ll join me. Saturday, 2-3:30pm on the 6th floor dance stage at Artomatic. I’ve designed this class to be friendly for beginners, but hopefully of interest to those with experience, too.

Contact dance is intimate. It is built around following a point of contact on someone else’s body, with a point on your body. But the release and flow of improvisation do not negate the need to be able to make choices. This class will allow us to practice some options for dance connections.

The video here is a nice example of Contact dance. I see in it how partners follow the point of contact as a guide to following each other’s energy.

Art and Science

book-cover

The last few days Ive been working on a series of blog posts for OvationTv.Com. Theyve got me framing some really interesting video clips related to Bill Iveys new book, Arts, Inc. The book raises some excellent questions about how we understand art.

At the same time, Ive been celebrating publication of my book. (For some excerpts find the Somatic Ecology page on Facebook.) I got a copy in the mail from the publisher today, and found a footnote in my presentation of the Galileo material that I always really liked. The quotation in the footnote is from Galileos father, who was a professional musician. For me his thoughts highlight that Science and Art share an ethos of clarity.

The sentence in the book is, “Galileo, who would spend his entire lifetime fighting for objectivity, was born to a family which supported questioning and intellectual rigor over faith in tradition.” The footnote is:

“Galileos father in particular clearly influenced his intellectual bent. Consider the following from his fathers Dialogue of Ancient and Modern Music which was published at the time that Galileo was in University. It appears to me that they, who in proof of any assertion rely simply on the weight of authority, without adducing any argument in support of it, act very absurdly. I on the contrary, wish to be allowed freely to question and freely to answer you without any sort of adulation as well becomes those who are in search of truth. [in Fermi, Laura and Bernardini, Gilberto Galileo and the Scientific Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 1961) 8]”

You sorta gotta understand the stranglehold that Artistotelian philosophy had on the science of the period to really appreciate the quote, but trust that his attitude was not common.

More another time, perhaps, on connections between art and science.

More from D.C.’s Creative Economy Study

I attended another Creative Economy event yesterday afternoon at the D.C. Economic Partnership. The Partnership works to build business in D.C., and they seem to have a mature vision. They are a major partner in the District’s ongoing Creative Economy study, which is assessing the existing creative economy (artists, performers, graphic designers, chefs, film-makers, web-designers, etc.) and will conclude with a set of guidelines or recommendations for future development.

At this point they’ve gathered the data, and are now figuring out what to do about it/do with it. In motivating both private investment and government spending the Creative Economy study could have a real impact on the city for years to come. The event yesterday included presentations by five panelists, including the Director of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and residents of Sunderland, England (one of the Districts Sister Cities.) Sunderland apparently has a vibrant arts sector, and several members of that community offered their thoughts on why/how that is. The Creative Economy study is gathering facts, but it is also gathering ideas. Yesterday was an idea session.

Here (un-attributed – sorry I forgot my notebook) are some of the ideas that grabbed my attention, in no particular order, and without any endorsement.

Development aiming for lots of middle class returns, middle class jobs, v. development aiming for the big score

Government instigating small business/arts business development instead of funding or creating

Creation of a Sponsors Club for the Arts connecting business to local artists

Creation of visual artist/poet in residence programs inside the offices of larger businesses. Providing some stipend, office space, value-added to office culture

Is export of goods/services from arts community the right measure of success?

Creation of a Creatives Office Park, including non-creative, creatives, and artists work space — Innovation Lab

Arts as part of Small Business community, period, and the bet on creatives as a sector for investment/support

Creative sector aligning with educational and community missions – example of Gallaudet and the creation of a floor that produces sound everyone could experience. Were in the same world