ABSTRACT
Contact improvisation is a form of dance improvisation based on energy and weight exchange, incorporating elements of aikido, jitterbugging, child’s play, and tumbling. Contact improvisation remains an exceptional tool for the strong physical actor, though the goals are a little different. The actor engaged in a contact improvisation is inevitably compelling, and incidentally often graceful, balanced, harmonious, and full of surprises. The beauty and freedom of contact improvisation is that there is no right or wrong instinctive movement—there is only honestly following through the established line of energy. Someone once said that the manners of the baroque era were the manners of the boudoir—intimate, attentive, and deeply personal. The same can be said of any good contact improvisation, even the joyous, rowdy, acrobatic challenges. The joyous and intimate quality of the improvisatory dance form has remained popular, and practice is also widespread in Europe both as a dance technique and as a social interaction.
