Radical Contact October 2013 – invitation text

Invitation to Radical Contact 25 – 29 October 2013

Meeting on contact improvisation and body politics in Göteborg, Sweden

This is an invitation to the third meeting on contact improvisation and body politics to take place in Göteborg, Sweden, 25 – 29 October 2013.

Its aim is to use contact improvisation as a way of exploring body politics, as a tool for communication and for personal change. We welcome both people familiar with contact improvisation who are interested in body politics, and political activists who are interested in movement, dance, bodywork…

We have been working on creating safer spaces at these meetings. We hope that on this basis we will be able to challenge ourselves, and extend the range of what is possible in interactions between people.

This event is a political intervention, not a commercial project. All the organisers and teachers are donating their labour. Please note that the deadline for applications is 1 September.

What is this about?

Our aim is to practice clear and honest communication, to learn more about sensing and respecting the boundaries of others, as well as our own. We want to create safer spaces, especially for people who do not usually enjoy the privilege of having their wishes and boundaries respected, who are not usually shielded from abuse and insult.

We want to explore ways of undoing, unlearning, some of the internalised social norms, habits and ways of being that structure our physicality and affective life. We will be working with and through the body. Expect this to be at times hard work, sometimes easy going. Sometimes scary or sad, sometimes liberating, exhilarating, great fun.

We ask questions about the social construction of the body and the axes of oppression and privilege that traverse us and make us what we are. We are interested in how social relations of domination and exploitation (gender, race, class, sexuality…) become concrete and material in our bodies, our patterns of movement, our ways of touching and seeing.

This is the third event of its kind in Sweden (the first two were also in Gothenburg, in March and in October 2012). Other similar meetings have taken place in Spain, France, Germany and the UK in recent years.

What is contact improvisation?

At the basis of the practice are the physical contact between two or more partners, the relation to gravity, and to the momentum of moving bodies. It’s about letting go of excess tension, waking up the reflexes and sense of balance, and working with weight. It is a very subtle way of interacting and negotiating through touch and movement.

Why contact improvisation?

Because we like it. We think it would make a great addition to the culture of various political scenes we feel close to. We also believe it is a useful tool for personal change, and for investigating issues of body politics.

What is body politics?

One aspect of body politics is seeing how social norms and structures affect how we experience and use our bodies. How much space we let our body take up, how we move and hold our selves, what our idea of strength is and how strong we think we are… How they affect the way we let our bodies interact with other bodies, whom we let into our personal space and whom we don’t. How attentive we are to non-verbal signals and how clear we are with our intentions and boundaries, to what extent we are able to feel safe in physical contact, which bodies we believe we can dance with and which ones not. Who is dancing, with whom, and how?

Politics of contact improvisation

We, the organisers of this event, are active in various political networks and are also part of the contact improvisation world. So obviously we have thoughts about and are interested in its functioning, its micro-politics.

The contact improvisation scene as we know it is a fairly homogenous milieu that tends to see itself as inclusive, open-minded and safe. Sexism, for instance, seems less apparent here than in many other areas of society.

But it is a fairly nonpolitical space, and those contact improvisers who are also politically interested seem to leave their political standpoints at the door, however present they may be in their everyday life otherwise.

Why? Are we perhaps content with the safe space we have created, relieved to have found a place where we don’t have to constantly question things? Are we maybe quite happy to leave vexing political questions outside, delighted at not having to work, for once?

Or is it because we fear that our safe space is only safe as long as we don’t question how things are done? Do we go along with the idea that this group is inclusive, open-minded and safe, and look the other way when we face situations that might refute this view?

Changing the practice

We want to put an emphasis on the good stuff that is already part of what we do in contact improvisation, and strengthen it by introducing explicit safer space and inclusion policies. We want to find creative ways of subverting the invisible rules on the dance floor. We would like this work to take place within the dance, by creating movement spaces that help us go beyond limiting norms.

Practical issues

There will be delicious vegan food. We intend to find accommodation for all participants, either at the venue itself, or with people we know in Göteborg. As noted above, the event is a political intervention, not a commercial project. All the organisers and teachers are donating their labour, no one gets paid. We are trying to make it as affordable as possible. The cost to participants including food should be around SEK 1000. If this is too much for you, talk to us, maybe we can find a solution.

In terms of a total number of participants we are thinking of around 30 – 40. We would prefer if around half of the participants already had some experience with contact improvisation, so we will do a bit of selecting among applications to achieve this, if necessary.

We are proposing a mixed setting with the possibility of setting up various kinds of non-mixed situations (according to gender, sexuality, racialization or class…) depending on people’s needs at any given moment…

Children are welcome at the event but we do not provide childcare. We are confident that we will be able to collectivise childcare to some degree, so that parents are not left with the sole responsibility for their kids (unless that’s what they want), but we cannot foresee how much participants will be willing and able to help. We will organise a discussion early on during the meeting about people’s availability for childcare, about how they feel about children at the meeting, and in general.

The meeting starts on Friday 25 October with dinner at 6 pm and ends on Tuesday 29 October in the evening. We think it will be much easier to develop a good working atmosphere and some group cohesion if there is not a constant coming and going. That’s why we would really like as many people as possible to be there for the whole event (Friday evening to Tuesday evening). If this is not feasible for you, it’s OK to come only for the first two full days, Saturday and Sunday. But that’s the minimum commitment we will accept – it is not possible to miss Saturday and/or Sunday or come for just one day. There will probably be an open afternoon, though, which we will announce separately.

At least half the meeting will be dedicated to teaching and learning the form, the rest of the time to various practical “labs” (experimental, collaborative workshops) and discussions on specific issues. We will have some experienced people teaching every morning, and other people – you? – will propose and facilitate workshops, labs or discussions that would take place in the afternoon and evening.

We will leave some space in the schedule for ideas that might come up during the meeting. There will also be smaller groups for discussion and sharing.

Application process

If you are interested in participating, please write a few words about your background, politically and in terms of physical practices, about what interests you about this event and what, if anything, you would like to contribute to it. Please don’t be intimidated by this, it doesn’t have to be long and any style is OK. While you are at it, please also tell us if you need housing, if you are allergic to specific foods or have any special needs. If you live in Göteborg, please tell us if you could host people, and if so how many. Send it all to [email protected] as soon as possible, but by 1 September 2013 at the latest. We will get back to you to let you know if your application has been accepted and send you more information on the event – where it will take place, how to get there, our safer spaces policy document, etc. If you have any questions of course don’t hesitate to contact us via the same email address.