CONTACT @ the DOJO
Contact Improvisation (CI) class & jam
Mixed level, open to beginners and advanced
Lani Nahele and Gabi RevlockSmith Crew House, Northampton, MA 2024
2025
Summer
Aug 17 w/ Chisa Hidaka
Fall: 1st & 3rd Sundays
3:00–6:00 pm
3:00 Class, 4:30 Jam
Navigating Spherical Space w/Chisa Hidaka
Spinning! Spiraling! Corkscrewing! With wild dolphins, we are often co-creating trajectories through spherical space.
On land, we lack the support of the water, but we can still fathom the possibilities for moving backwards and upside down using principles borrowed from moving underwater.
Come dance with me as I share my research into how “dolphin dancing” can deepen Contact Improvisation (CI) practice. I’ll offer guided exercises informed not only by over 15 years of freediving and dancing with trained humans and wild dolphins, but also of teaching musculoskeletal anatomy to dance students.
The dojo will be a perfect location for our investigations – a sacred space, where the floors are soft enough for plenty or falling and rolling.
Chisa Hidaka, has practiced dance improvisation since the 1980s, having studied with Nancy Stark Smith, Nina Martin, Cynthia Novack and others. Based in NYC, she has performed Contact Improvisation at the MoMA, 92nd St Y and other venues. She has taught CI and facilitated the Underscore at Movement Research since 2017. She previously served as Board and CI Committee member at Earthdance. As a young dancer, she won critical acclaim for performances with independent choreographers (Pooh Kaye, Mark Dendy, Frey Faust, Bill Young, Marta Renzi and others). Since 2009, she has co-directed Dolphin Dance Project with Benjamin Harley, producing several award-winning short films featuring underwater dances co-created by trained humans and wild dolphins in the open ocean. Her underwater dancing is currently featured in the IMAX film “Call of the Dolphins”. With an MD from Cornell (’94) she has taught anatomy at her alma mater Barnard College (’86) since 2007.
__________________CONTACT @ THE DOJO
Once a month, Patrick Crowley teaches the contact improvisation class, and once a month, he curates other teachers, who hold and convey Contact Improvisation with a comprehensive depth. Contact @ the Dojo began in Oct 2021, meeting twice a month on Sundays.
Dojo comes from “Do-”, a variation of Tao/Dao (the way) and “jo” (immersive learning space).
3-4:30 pm CLASS (general description)
A broad range of Contact Improvisation will be explored — states, skills, scores/Underscore, artistic practice, life learnings.
In Contact @ the Dojo, dancers play with movement pathways in contact with a partner — in relationship with gravity, momentum, inertia, and friction. We work with ease and natural tone in our tissues and neurology. We explore rolling, falling, and flying in CI with the safety of mats as our floor.
The slow and subtle brings us to the big and enthusiastic, and vice versa. Center, perception, integrated body, solo/follow/lead/3rd entity, reflexes, experimentation, readiness, rigor, heart, awareness, and enlivening will all be in the mix.
Please arrive a little early.
January Workshop 2012 © Emily Bowman4:30-6 pm JAM
The jam will be open space to play and practice — with music and possible structure/warm-up.
For those experienced and new to CI, honoring different abilities. ~10–25 people. BIPOC & LGBTQIA+ welcoming. Please come w/ no symptoms: Health safety agreements.
What is Contact Improvisation?
WHERE: Aikido of Northampton
30 N Maple St, #14, Florence, MA 01062
(Park in parking lot to right of building. Come in entrance in parking lot. Go in and upstairs to right.)
Dojo Etiquette:
- Take shoes off outside the door
- Bow to space when entering & exiting.
- Hygiene & what to wear: Bathe that day. Clean feet, cut & filed toenails. Wash or sanitize hands upon entering. Wear pants that are free to move in — no belts. Little/no jewelry, no belt buckles.
Other Info:
- Please come early (5-15 min) to leave enough time (for finding the Dojo, parking, settling in the space, and making payment if you haven’t).
- The Dojo is in the center of Florence: 30 N Maple St, #14, Florence, MA 01062. Upstairs.
- Health safety: come with no symptoms; no exposure to someone with illness in the last 3 days. Health safety agreements
- Here is my approach to CI.
- Be ready. The class can be quite physical and there is a lot input in a number of ways. You may not be able to do everything so you can always modify and/or witness/take breaks.
- Bathrooms are downstairs to right.
Aikido of Northampton Dojo © Emily Bowman