Focusing in Contact by Maria Parise

In the Contact Quarterly article Harvest: One History of Contact Improvisation, Nancy Stark Smith informs us that one of the most challenging aspects of performing contact is focusing on your partner. In my experience throughout this course, I have found that to be entirely true. Focus is a very difficult but much needed aspect of contact improvisation.
Steve Paxton created contact improvisation in the early 1970s. One of the first exercises of this new dance form came from his dance State in which a group of people performed the small dance. The small dance consists of standing in one spot and just allowing your body make the little adjustments that it needs. This exercise takes immense focus. In a room filled with external stimuli, you must stand completely silent and intently focus on your body. As one of the first exercises we learned in class, it helped prepare for the focus that is needed when contacting with a partner.
Along with the small dance, many other exercises also work on focus. In the article, Smith tells us that Steve had them identify small sensations in their bodies by using different images of the skeleton, expansion of the lungs, and flow of energy. We did a similar exercise to this in class by moving from different parts of the body such as skin, organs, and skeleton. These exercises forced me to internalize my focus and pay attention to where every movement I made was coming from. Rolling point of contact is another exercise that works on focus. Being one of the first exercises we did with a partner, it helped me to get used to the idea of focusing on the movement of another person. In all other dance forms that I have studied, focus is solely on yourself. It is a much different experience to have to listen to the needs of another person. Another exercise that strengthened focus was walking shoulder to shoulder with someone and getting your pace in sync. Your attention must be on the other person’s movement as well as the point of contact between you.
Throughout these exercises, I felt like I was progressing, but still had not quite gotten the entire concept of what it meant to be completely focused on the dance and your partner. I still felt like my focus would drift from the dance; my mind would wander to other things. I was stuck in a rut and was not sure if I would ever be able to get past this awkward stage. Then we focused on breath for an entire day of class. This is when I feel like I finally ‘got it’. Breathing helped me to clear my head of all the distracting thoughts that would normally affect my duets. I felt like when I began to dance with my partner, I was able to stay in tune with them. This made me available; I was ready when my partner needed me. This also helped me tremendously in coming up with new movement and ways of doing things.
Contact improvisation is a form of dance that requires a specific concentrated focus. According to Smith, “You are following the point of touch, and if your mind starts to wander, you lose contact. And that wakes you up to the fact that you’re not focusing on the present, on the touch. You’re somewhere else. And then you come back.” Before the day of breathing, I never understood this. However, once I realized what it was like to be completely focused on the moment, my dancing changed. From then on, I felt like every duet I had was successful in its own way. I could finally identify the moments when I was not entirely focused on the dance and was able to bring my attention back to it. For me, focus was the most difficult concept to grasp in contact improvisation but ultimately the most rewarding.