My love affair with contact improvisation is still in its infancy but I am totally smitten with a particular form I've been practicing for the past 8 months called the Underscore. The Underscore was conceived of by Nancy Stark Smith, one of the founders of CI. You can read more about her here. (This accompanying photo was added later, take in December at a community underscore Nancy led during her Bay Area visit. Read more in the Dec. 19 post). In this video my underscore mentors, the red shirts Rosemary and Vitali, demonstrate their smooth moves at the grand opening of Blick art supply store on Market St. I join in the dance with my partner Tree. Centrifugal force and spirals are themes we frequently explore. In our Wednesday night workshop last week Vitali posed the question--what if we thought of time not as a line, but as a curve or spiral? Later that evening there was an accumulation of bodies swirling through space around a central axis, sort of like crack-the-whip, but more dynamic with people getting drawn in and out and around the center. At some point I literally got swept off my feet and lifted up over the top--it was one of those rare moments when time slowed down and I could feel everything. I spontaneously burst out, "Yaaaaaaay!"
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