2026 UNDERSCORE+ in Northampton, MA USA
Contact @ the Dojo Class & Jam
1st & 3rd Sundays:
3:00 pm Contact Improvisation (CI) Class
4:30 pm CI Jam
Mixed-level, for beginner to advanced dancers
Contemplative Dance Practice
Fridays 12:30–1:45 pm (outside in Childs Park, Northampton, MA)
Underscore +/- Group
Thursdays 6–9 pm. Northampton, MA USA
Occasionally open to guests — experience required. Info
Global Underscore 2026
Flo/NoHo Global Underscore
Saturday, June 20, 9:45 am–2 pm
Live music w/ Rob Flax
Saturday, June 20, 9:45 am–2 pm
Live music w/ Rob Flax
Hosted by Patrick Crowley and Sarah Young
@ Florence Community Center, 140 Pine St, Florence, MA 01062
$30–$35–$40 Practice
Work-exchange available: contact
$30–$35–$40 Practice
Work-exchange available: contact
Breaking Ground: How To Facilitate Your First Underscore
Global (Zoom) Talk-Through
The Underscore is a long-form dance improvisation structure developed by Nancy Stark Smith. It has been evolving since 1990 and is practiced all over the globe.
After teaching Contact Improvisation for over fifteen years in the 1970's–1980's, Nancy increasingly felt confined by her own curriculum and found herself prolonging open, structureless sections of class without exercises or scores. Her students noticed specific parts of class happening and talked to her about them. Nancy realized there was a consistent score happening operating "under" this open space in her workshops.
The Underscore is a vehicle for incorporating Contact Improvisation into a broader arena of improvisational dance practice; for developing greater ease dancing in spherical space—alone and with others; and for integrating kinesthetic and compositional concerns while improvising. It allows for a full spectrum of energetic and physical expressions, embodying a range of forms and changing states. Its practice is familiar yet unpredictable.
The practice progresses through a broad range of dynamic states, including long periods of very small, private, and quiet internal activity and other times of higher energy and interactive dancing.
There are 20+ phases, 12+ connections, and 7+ aspects of the score—each represented by a "glyph"—which create a general map for the dancers. Within that frame, dancers are free to create their own movements, dynamics, and relationships—with themselves, each other, the group, the music, and the environment. Each Underscore is unique, providing rich and often inspiring experiences of the human and artistic phenomena of dance improvisation.
There are 20+ phases, 12+ connections, and 7+ aspects of the score—each represented by a "glyph"—which create a general map for the dancers. Within that frame, dancers are free to create their own movements, dynamics, and relationships—with themselves, each other, the group, the music, and the environment. Each Underscore is unique, providing rich and often inspiring experiences of the human and artistic phenomena of dance improvisation.
The Underscore is not led with verbal cues, so the idea is that people "know" it and come together to share the practice. Participants come on time and stay for the duration, which is 3–4 hours in length. Underscores are open to people who have a firm base in Contact Improvisation (CI), have an interest in composition, and participate in at least one hour-long Underscore talk-through. It is best invite people personally, rather than through public announcements.
A talk-through of the Underscore takes about an hour ("in-depth" talk-throughs are 2-3 hours) and are done before most Underscores. Dancers are encouraged to come to many talk-throughs. Nancy conceived of talk-throughs being done in-person, because there is an embodied transmission through the oral tradition.
The 4 Northampton Seasonal Underscores (incl. Flo/NoHo Global Underscore) and January Community Jam are facilitated by Patrick Crowley, Sarah Young, and others as a focused space for CI, dance improvisation, and sound in embodied awareness.
The GLOBAL UNDERSCORE (GUS) is an annual event in which the Underscore is practiced simultaneously for a 4-hour period by people all over the world near the summer solstice (northern hemisphere). There have been 90+ sites participating in GUS. Claire Filmon proposed the event to Nancy in 2000 from a desire to connect dancers all around the planet to dance and to compose together in the moment. Patrick Crowley, Sarah Young, Colleen Bartley, and Nicole Touzien coordinate GUS with Natalie Baumann, social media, and Nancy Hughes and Brandin Steffensen as advisors. www.globalunderscore.com
"The Underscore is a form of play and research,
not the law."
Nancy Stark Smith, Caught Falling
Nancy Stark Smith's and David Koteen's book about her life and work (with a section about the Underscore): Caught Falling: A Confluence of Contact Improvisation, Nancy Stark Smith, and Other Moving Ideas