A short report about the contact improvisation and body politics meeting in Gothenburg in March 2012 - - -

It took place 16 – 18 March, in two locations, Fräntorps Folketshus and Musikens Hus. Excellent vegan food was supplied by Organize Organics. - - -

We were between 20 – 25 people (not everyone was able to be there all the time), most participants were from Sweden. 80% women. Only a few people without prior experience of contact improvisation, but almost all with some kind of dance/physical theatre/movement experience. - - -

We started on Friday morning with a workshop led by BD and EA focusing on consent and personal boundaries in contact improvisation. We worked on our yes and no signals and found out that this is very important, and that this work influences the dance, in a good way. We also did an exercise in small groups on our images of “the typical contact improvisation dancer”. We laughed a lot and felt a wish to leave such norms behind and open up the dance space for more differences. - - -

In the afternoon EK led an exploration of bodywork as a practice of only doing what you really want, followed by a contact improvisation technique class led by DM introducing lifts, with some mention of the psycho-somatics of the fear of falling etc. Friday evening: jam, introduced by AH. - - -

Saturday morning: more contact improvisation fundamentals taught by DM, working with weight, rolling, surfing etc, combined with a talk exploring the meaning of the concepts “politics”, “radical”, “body politics”… - - -

In the afternoon: a drag workshop with DY, lots of fun for some, challenging for others, definitely nobody was bored… - - -

Saturday evening: jam. - - -

Sunday morning: DM teaching. First bodywork, movement material focusing on the mobility of the spine and contact fundamentals. Then some movement research on the gaze & object and subject positions, and practicing asking for specific kinds of touch. - - -

Lunch, closing circle, cleaning up and finally a closing jam led by SH, focusing on our second skin (clothes). - - -

On Sunday at the end everyone seemed pretty happy and the event was generally considered a success. - - -

In the follow-up meeting on Sunday evening there was a discussion on how to make the event a safer space versus opening it to a larger spectrum of people interested in the issues, but with varying degrees of knowledge. One suggestion was a clearer structure for working in separate groups (for example in different gender groups). - - -

It was also suggested to take inspiration from the safe space policy of the Queertopia festival and use it for the next event. - - -

It was decided to bring some of the ideas and practices we had been working on to the LGBT festival in Gothenburg at the end of May, to the Nordic Impro Meeting in Stockholm in the last week of June, and to the No Border Camp, also in Stockholm, same week. It was also decided to do another similar meeting, over four days, in Gothenburg in October. - - -