Keith Hennessy
Post-Contact Improvisation

Post-Contact Improvisation Experimental practices in body-to-body engagement. Dance training in physical and energetic relationship. A laboratory that extends the proposals and possibilities of Contact Improvisation. How do we engage, critique, and evolve the practices of pas-de-deux, improvised duet, group touch and shared weight? What are its limitations of Contact Improv in relation to performance, contemporary art, choreographic innovation and intervention? Contact Improvisation, more than any other development in European and American dance, challenged the hierarchy of the vertical body, attempted to democratise body parts, challenged the role of gender in dance partnering, and disrupted deeply embodied choreographic and institutional habits. Post/Contact questions and celebrates the resistance to Contact Improvisation in contemporary dance and performance. 1960-70s dance experimentation was heavily influenced by pop culture and youth rebellion, including hippy culture and activist projects (anti-war, feminism, black power…). How do contemporary dance practices erase, engage or embody these influences?