Page 6-Wednesday, June 11, 1980-The Michigan Daily
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CONTA CT .IMPR 0 VISA TION
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Dance as a contact sport?
By ANNE GADON
Ann Arbor is nationally renowned for
providing a home for an assortment of
radical ideas. With this reputation
behind it, it seems logical that a
revolutionary dance form should thrive
here in Ann Arbor, while the rest of
dance fanatics clamor for performan-
ces by classical ballet and modern
companies. On Sunday night, the Ann
Arbor based dance collective Mirage
and Catpoto, a dance troupe from Mon-
treal, presented an evening of Contact
Improvisation. An up and coming dan-
ce form, contact improvisation should
assure all dance lovers that the city
that spawned the SDS movement can
have the same impact on the arts.
Contact improvisation is commonly
referred to as an "artsport," because it/
is a blending of dance and athletics. The
dance is based on the sharing of weight
between two or more people. The dan-
cers roll, tumble, spin, fall, and support
each other as they follow the demands
of gravity and momentum. What
emerges is a cross between wrestling
and lovemaking, except the goal of con-
tact is to free a, partner rather than to
pin him or her down.
THE CREATION of contact dance is
spontaneous. Movement is stimulated
by the energy flow between partners. In
traditional dance, a choreographer,
usually an exterior person, directs the
dancing. In contact improvisation, the
dancer is the choreographer. The dance
becomes an expression of personality,
rather than a series of technical
movements.
Sunday night's performance began
with a presentation by Catpoto. The
members of Catpoto, Gurney Bolster,
Dena Davida, Evelyn Ginzburg, and
Sylvie St.-Laurent, come from a wide
variety of backgrounds, including
gymnastics, modern dance, theatre and
sports. Together they were poetry in
motion. They balanced each other on
shoulders, on hips, on thighs, nuzzled
necks and arms, and continually
responded to and seeked out the sym-
bolic infinite possibilities of human con-
tact. An outstanding feature of their
performance was their undeniable trust
in each other's physical support and
sensitivity. Each movement was made
with ease, always in a unpretentious,
natural flow.
The introduction of the second dance
followed the rule in contact of perpetual
flow of movement. At the conclusion of
their first number, the members of
Catpoto lodged themselves on the win-
dow sills at one end of the dance floor.
Each of the Mirage dancers, Joan
Derry, Susan Schnell, Halina Ujda, and
Nena Van Velzor, walked over to one of
the windows, took theplace of a member
of Catpoto and continued the dance.
ALTHOUGH CONTACT im-
provisation is not deliberately
representational, the dance is frequen-
tly transformed into the enactment of a
particular scene or character. In the
end of the first set, Catpoto joined
Mirage on stage and the action
developed into a race between six dan-
cers. The runners then became the
crowd at the finish line of the race and
cheered on the progress of the two dan-
cers who were crawling backwards
towards them. In the second set a
collision between two women evolved
into a dance audition. The women
proceeded to leap across the floor in
front of and into each other while com-
petitively shouting "5-6-7-8!"
The second set consisted of a per-
formance by members of both groups
with the exception of Davida. As the
movement progressed, the seven dan-
cers broke into several duets, frequen-
tly halting their dance to admire the
work of their co-contacters. The most
successful moments of the evening oc-
curred when only one duet performed
at a time as the dialogue between
larger groups was extremely difficult
to follow. The dancers reduced this
problem somewhat when they with-
drew to the side of the stage while a lone
pair continued the movement.
Usually contact improvisation is per-
formed without music or sound. The
improvisors create a "silent score,"
moving to an inner melody rather than
external stimulus. In portions of the
second set, however, a drum and a
xylophone were used as accom-
paniment and served as more of a
distraction than an enhancement to the
performance. The dancers used souid
effectively in contact as a natural ex-
tension of movement or emotion, such
as a grunt, a laugh, or a groan. The ad-
dition of other outside stimulus seemed
superfluous.
Compared with traditional dancing,
contact improvisation is egoless. There
are no. individual stars in contact,
rather the group is the star. With their
Sunday night performance, Mirage and
Catpoto displayed the promise of a new
light in the world of dance with the
revolutionary development of contact
improvisation.
Be an angel...
Read 00 zil
764-0558
4
Dai'yPhoto by DAVYIDARL'
Members of the Mirage and Catpoto dance collectives prepare for a perfor-
mance in Contact Improvisation, a unique dance form. From left to right the
dancers are Dena Davida, Halina Ujda, Evelyn Ginzburg, and Joan Derry.
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