CI 36 Self-Interview, Question #3

[Melinda]

Question 3: Describe an ultimate contact experience—factual or fantasy, dream or nightmare.

Please read others' responses and add your own in a comment. Thanks!


Flyer from one of John Faichney's workshops

[Melinda]

Andrew Wass, San Francisco?, CA: I am still looking for it.

[Melinda]

Nina Martin, Marfa, TX: It's hard to think about, there are so many! I do remember going into that class with Daniel Lepkoff at the beginning, there were about 30 of us very consistently studying, not only with Danny, but with Nancy Topf, Mary Fulkerson, and Mary Overlie. So it felt like a little school that went around together. Everyone would start the contact class by lying quietly on the floor. I didn't know how to do that! So I would do multiple laps of akido rolls around the edges. I was trying to expend a little energy so I could be Zen, and chill out. I didn’t know how these people could lie on the floor when I had an uncontrollable urge to move!

[Melinda]

Sue Lauther, Troy, NY: I had one two nights ago at Intercontinental Contact! It was the most blissful. Peter Jones playing music, my absolute favorite composer in the world. And there was Stephen Yoshen. I was wondering about his leg, I haven’t danced with him since his condition changed. I was really listening, there didn't seem to be very many no’s! It got into this momentum thing. I felt like I was dancing with God! It was so clear and so surprising. The thing in contact that I love are the surprises. I think I had it! It was blissful. The hug I gave him was the hug of blissfulness, love, and sincerity.

[Melinda]

Leda Franklin, Chesham, UK: I guess fictitious would be to
experience gravity and no gravity at the same time. Or to achieve
complete spiralism. A thing which is achievable: How do you do that
thing where you stand there and you fly and end up on a person’s
shoulder? Most people I ask who do it a lot say they don't know. And
I would like to remove all fear from my body, so that I could be free
as a bird.

[Melinda]

Stephen Yoshen, Cummington, MA: Nightmare: So try to make dinner in your kitchen and have thirty or forty people crawling all over the cabinetry, in and out of your cooking pots, on you. And you are just trying to make a simple meal. Your kids are crying! They are not interested in thirty people climbing all over you. And it just goes on and on. It never stops.

[Melinda]

John Faichney, Toronto, Canada: By peculiar accidents of time and place, I encountered Contact Improvisation before it was something fully formed. But while it clicked with me almost immediately, I don’t think I had any particular purchase on it until perhaps 12 years ago; before that, it was fun, and interesting, but also kind of wishy-washy, and a little too mystical. I also found it frustrating for what might be called its resistance to the choreographic gaze; CI performances I've seen recently suggest that this remains a problem. Mostly, however, I came to feel that it was too much about what I enjoyed doing, and not enough about the person with whom I was dancing. They're stuck in their dilemmas, like you are, so you have the choice of steamrollering over that, or of asking yourself, "Who is this person, anyway? How can I draw them out in an interesting way?" I mean, yes, there are certain things I do over-and-over again that reflect movement potentialities I find interesting—for example, I've always been drawn to mastering the technical demands of dancing 'fast.’ But now, to me, CI is much more like conversation in the strong sense—by which I mean things like asking questions, almost like a psychotherapist would—not that I'm saying we should all be shrinks with each other. It's like you say to yourself, "I could do anything with this person; what is the movement I can do that will bring something out?"

[Melinda]

Carol Swann, Albany, CA: Contact spoke to the part of me that is human animal as opposed to a human “being”. It brought me back to my instincts and back to the organization of the body. It disorganized me in terms of balance to imbalance and back to orientation. The beautiful thing is, because contact began to include information from Body-Mind Centering® and all the many different body-mind practices, I began to learn those systems in order to take care of myself. Every new injurty was physically and psychologically painful but became my teacher. I had to learn to dance over and over again, and I am a better person because of it. That's been huge.

[Melinda]

Heidi Henderson, Wakefield, RI: I don't have a very good memory, and I move on easily from friendships and my own personal history, good and bad. So I don't mark my life that way, in highlights. But I did feel a related sense today after the Underscore, when everyone was sharing their experiences in such emotional ways. My feeling was that I am lucky to dance Contact enough in my life that this singular experience doesn't feel like a highlight. Aren't I lucky to teach this every semester and to dance it enough that each of these experiences is valuable—and one of them doesn't have to become a superior model.

[Melinda]

Alexis Halkovic, NYC, NY: I was having this long dance with Ray Chung last night, just getting into that vibe. Jeff Bliss and Steven Yoshen were dancing around us. They both came behind me and went like this—
Melinda: She just swiped down my back, very nice!, down to the heel. A tactile ulitmate experience.
Alexis: A playful moment, too.

[Melinda]

Eckhard Müller, Strasbourg, France: I did a workshop—dance technique and improvisation—with Julyen Hamilton. At night we jammed. I remember that I was on Julyen’s shoulder, and he turned me around his shoulders like ten times and did not stop. I was completely freaking out, but at the same time I was kind of open for this, and he knew how to do it. It happened so quick! I was very impressed.