I recently got back from being on tour with Intersect Dance Collective, the group I danced with when I lived in Mississippi. When they invited me back for the tour this summer, I gladly took the opportunity, and it was really a wonderful trip. Intersect is a modern-based collective and incorporates a significant amount of non-traditional partnering, both in a contact improv sense and in a fully choreographed partnering sense. We performed frequently on tour, yes, but we also spent time teaching classes and setting a piece on a group in Knoxville, TN. Naturally, those classes heavily emphasized partnering work.
One of the classes was two hours devoted simply to contact improv (focusing on weight sharing by different means). For those who have never participated in contact improv, it’s a beast all its own. It doesn’t require any dance experience whatsoever. All it requires is a willingness to listen and collaborate.
It’s difficult to describe the experience of improvising with a good partner. It’s easy to describe the experience of being partnered with someone you don’t work well with–awkward and uncomfortable! Always pushing and pulling, never feeling in sync. It’s not a good feeling. But when you gel, there’s nothing else like it. It’s like all thoughts turn off and there’s only noticing, listening, reacting. I had a chance to partner with an old friend during that class I mentioned earlier. We had hardly talked to each other in four years, but for ten minutes we moved and explored together as if we still saw each other all the time, in a way that I think only someone who has experienced it can understand. The intimacy that happens partnering together is a special thing.
You can dance for years and never encounter or need to encounter this type of movement. It often takes a college class (my entry point) or some other situation to bring it to mind. After all, when was the last time you saw a studio offering contact improv classes? I have never seen it happen, although I’m sure it must happen somewhere.
But regardless of whether or not you have to experience it, I strongly recommend you search out opportunities. In most small to mid-sized cities, it’s likely that improv groups will exist. I have to drive over an hour to find them, but they’re at least moderately accessible. Facebook or google searches should highlight some places to try it out, and if not, then try a college with a dance program. Most should have at least one class, and it may be open for non-students to audit.
You might not like it at first; I didn’t. I felt scared and awkward and like nothing was working. I still feel like that sometimes (a lot!), so it boggles my mind that I like it enough to teach it (insert thanks here to my teacher at university who forced me to do it until I liked it! ha!). But I cannot say it strongly enough–if you’re a person who finds this at all intriguing or a dancer, period, please try it. It will enhance your internal and external listening skills like nothing else.
Some references, for those who are curious:
The How-To Dancer 