Below are the notes I took from an interview with Steve Paxton. He describes his "ideal dance".
Contact Improvisation Poetry
Two people come together into touch and spend ±20 minutes hardly moving.
just bonding, somehow
Then - slow movement
Following as intimately as they can the point of contact
extremely slow
slower
slower even..
When they find each others small dance
a shimmer of movement
then we can start dancing with that size of movement
really tiny, recognizing each other
Then the dance starts to get bigger and faster
it should retain the qualities that were found in the first 20 minutes
with identification of that persons smallest movement units and the speed and clarity that comes with that
This creates a "third force"
something between the two people that is not controlled by either one of them
The basic thing is how can both people
follow each other
How can we have not leader / follower
But follower follower
What is the politics of that?
(Thank you Steve)
