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Contact Improvisation in Greece: Its Entrance And American Journal of Humanities and Social Science (AJHSS) Volume 19, 2021 Contact Improvisation in Greece: its entrance and implementation Panagiota (Teti) Nikolopoulou, Ph.D candidate, School of Physical Education and Sport Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Choreographer, Dancer Contemporary dance and CI teacher in various professional schools of dance and physical education teacher in various public schools of Athens Maria Koutsouba, Professor of Dance Studies/Choreology with emphasis on Greek traditional dance, School of Physical Education and Sport Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Abstract Contact improvisation has been practiced in Greece ever since the 1990s. Its practice is associated with the history of contemporary dance in Greece, while the methods by which it has been applied include the experiential research and quest on the practice itself, which, since 1972, when it surfaced in USA, has brought new aesthetics, and approaches in dance. Since a detailed account of the practice in the Greek context is lacking, the aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive description of contact improvisation‟s entrance and practice by dancers, choreographers, and dance teachers, from the 1990s to the present day. Data were gathered through literature review, observation of live performances and interviews, while emphasis was also given on the effect of the practice on contemporary dance in Greece. Keywords: Contemporary dance, embodiment, kinesthetic awareness, dance research Introduction In Greece, contact improvisation (CI) appeared in the 1990s, following the experiential research and practice that had been established in the United States in the context of postmodern era as a new aesthetical and social approach to dance. Despite its late entrance in Greece, nowadays, contact improvisation counts for a presence of almost thirty years, a history that is worthwhile looking at in association with the global world of contact improvisation. Nevertheless, the literature review showed that information on contact improvisation in Greece is limited. Therefore, a detailed account of the practice‟s entrance and implementation in the Greek context is lacking. Based on this, the aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive description of contact improvisation of its entrance and practice by dancers, choreographers, and dance teachers, from the 1990s to the present day. Data were gathered through literature review, observation of live performances and interviews with dance artists, while one of the authors‟ personal experiences on contact improvisation throughout all these years was also taken into consideration. Contact Improvisation in theory and praxis Contact improvisation (1972) is a result of Steve Paxton‟s and his collaborators‟ experimentations (Nancy Stark Smith, Danny Lepkoff, Lisa Nelson, Nita Little) on the fundamentals of sharing weight, touch, and movement awareness, as a unique and independent practice of postmodern dance (Hennessy, 2008; Kaltenbrunner, 1998; Novack, 1999). Originating from the liberal movements of the 1960s and 1970s in the USA, contact 1 American Journal of Humanities and Social Science (AJHSS) Volume 19, 2021 improvisation questioned the notion of dance as a representational art. Instead, the practice perceived dance as a subjective and changing process in which the human body and its kinesthetic experience constitute the core of the dance phenomenon. In other words, contact improvisation, by its nature, incorporated the theory of embodiment in dance (Albright, 2010; Little, 2014). It should be mentioned that, in dance, embodiment was generally greatly promoted by Sondra Fraleigh (1995, 2010, 2013), who utilized Maxine Sheets Johnstone‟s (1966, 1999) phenomenological texts to showcase the significance of the dancer‟s connection with his/hers „thinking‟ body (Todd, 1929), the environment and others. Fraleigh(1995, 2010, 2013) emphasized the dancer‟s subjective experience and his/her connection with the action, so that the dancer becomes the dance, an approach that opened a new study field in dance as well as a new dance pedagogy (Shapiro, 1998;Yamashita, 2013). This approach highlighted specific practices that help dancers to develop appropriate psychosomatic dexterities, so as to cope in their action through functional choices. These practices, like Feldenkrais Method, Body-Mind Centering®, Alexander technique, release techniques, contact improvisation and others (Eddy, 2002; Batson, 2009; Fortin, 1998, 2002; Fortin & Siedentop, 1995; Fortin et al, 2002; Johnson, 1995; Little, 2014; Shapiro, 1998) re-educate the body-mind awareness and formed a new field of research in somatology named Somatics by Tomas Hanna (1928–1990) in 1976. Based on the above, contact improvisation gives emphasis on the senses, experiential anatomy, breathing and touch, and focuses on developing sensory skills, spatial awareness, and peripheral vision, as well as bodily dexterities in terms of physics, such as managing gravity, momentum, inertia, and friction (Kaltenbrunner, 1998). In this way, contact improvisation approaches body‟s awareness through various multiple movement factors. In particular, contact improvisation focuses on body-mind connection, on mindfulness and conscious presence of the dancer in the moment of dance and, especially, on the dance and dancing with another person. Specifically, contact improvisation approaches the body and the contact with others through consciousness and kinesthetic empathy, seeking receptive, thinking bodies open in challenges in a constantly changing world/space (Kaltenbrunner, 1998; Albright, 1989, 2010, 2011; Little, 2014). As an embodied practice, contact improvisation includes most of the somatics‟ features in its structure according to the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association (ISMETA). These features are the body‟s activation through contact with “hands on”, the opening of the senses and kinesthesia, the spiral paths of joints, the evolutional/developmental movement and the experiential anatomy, the silence, the emotion etc. (Εddy, 2009). Moreover, contact improvisation as practice includes moving into space, disorientation, and gyroscopic movement, as well as handling physical forces along with another body, a feature that distinguishes it from other practices (Bigé, 2019; Albright, 2010; Evans, 2010; Little, 2014). Contact improvisation‟s revolutionary approach of movement altered contemporary dance internationally and formulated a new, holistic, ecological and ongoing field of research till nowadays(N. Little, personal communication, October 10, 2014). In addition, it has influenced the next generations of dancers and formed communities around the world that share not only dance but also other humanitarian ideas such as solidarity, freedom, diversity, equality, democracy, unity, (Little, 2014; Novack, 1990;Paxton, 2018). Due to its embodied nature, contact improvisation dancers feel pleasure and freedom while dancing, their technique progresses, and their presence in the „here and now‟ of dance allows them to evolve. The practice 2 American Journal of Humanities and Social Science (AJHSS) Volume 19, 2021 is included in professional dance studies, changing the contemporary dance education internationally (One of the authors, 2020). Moreover, contact improvisation is based on the phenomenological paradigm of embodiment(N. Little, personal communication, October 10, 2014), which, subverting the standard dualisms, connects the body‟s materiality both with the field of lived experiences and the effects subjected upon it by the social sphere (A.C. Albright, personal communication, October 18, 2016). Merleau-Ponty‟s phenomenology of embodiment (1964) inspired by Husserl‟s philosophical ideas (Husserl, 1962), claimed that the mind and body cannot exist separately when it comes to a human organism. From this point of view, human experience cannot be explained with the dualistic model since the body is a phenomenological body experienced subjectively, by „a first person‟ and not an object. Today, this theory has been mainly enriched by the „embodied sociology‟(Αlexias, 2011; Csordas, 1990, 1993; Fardon, 2010; Koutsouba, 2005,2008; Makrinioti, 2009; Schiphorst, 2009)and the embodied concept of neuro-phenomenology (Alexias, 2011; Savrami, 2017; Varela & Shear, 1999). Specifically, neuro-phenomenological scientists Francisco Varela and colleagues showed the ability of the senses to be retrained through focusing on phylogenetic process, meditation, and intuition, proving that specific practices, such as somatics, can develop a body-mind connection and can frame a reliable methodological framework in scientific research (Varela & Shear, 1999;Varela, Rosch&Thompson, 1991). Contact improvisation in Greece: an overview In close connection with contemporary dance in Greece, contact improvisation was introduced in the country in the early 1990s. Its introduction was associated with major changes in the dance field at that time. From the beginning of the twentieth century until the 1970s, modern dance in Greece was following the norms of modernism and the aesthetics of Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham and Mary Wigman who had adopted an ancient Greek aesthetic approach (Barbousi, 2014; Hassioti, 2004; Tsintziloni, 2014). Regardless of the experimentation and research in the international dance scene (Albright, 1989, 2010, 2011; Alexander, 1999; Banes, 1994; Bannon, 2004), research on the movement per se did not develop
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