Posting by Keiran Baliban

Before coming to Columbia, I hadn’t had much experience with improvisation – just a few classes here and there – and I’ve never felt too comfortable with the idea of it. I think I lack a lot of confidence in myself when it comes to dancing, and I don’t trust that the moves or ideas I come up with will be, in a sense, good enough. However, when upon being accepted into a summer intensive program in 2008, the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts, I had one contact improvisation class, and that was the first experience that sparked my interest. I supposed it was the thought that contact improvisation is less about doing your own improvisation, but more about learning how to move your body with others’.

After a few weeks of classes, I was really nervous about how this class would be for me. I worried that I rushed into it too quickly, and maybe should have waited a semester or two to take it. But I don’t think I would be getting as much out of my first semester experience had I not taken it now. I find myself relating a lot of key concepts from my contact class into my other dance classes. One major thing would be breathing. Breath is so important as a dancer, not just so you can keep moving, but it allows you to expand and find movement from within. In contact, if ever I feel stuck or lost in a duet, it’s incredible what stopping to take some deep breaths can do; it opens up a whole new set of doors.

In “Taken By Surprise, A Dance Improvisation Reader,” Anne Cooper Albright mentions an exercise she uses called “the small dance,” one I’m quite familiar with. As you relax and stand on two feet, you can feel the tiny adjustments and corrections your body makes to keep you upright without your brain having to think about it. This so closely relates to my daily life as I constantly do small things without thinking twice to keep me succeeding. Anything from eating a small snack when I’m hungry, to writing a paper before the day it’s due, all contribute to keeping me on my feet and ahead of the game.

Anne Cooper Albright also discusses the “Gap” in Taken By Surprise, A Dance Improvisation Reader” and how the beauty of this empty space of life is often ignored. I think college is a perfect example of the Gap – the unfamiliar environment brings a mix of feelings, emotions, and uncertainty that can’t be fixed. And this Gap was not just for a moment, but for the first few weeks. Reading this article helped me make connections back to that time of lack of control and confusion, a feeling I have forgotten. I now appreciate the barrier I’ve overcome in adjusting to this new lifestyle and I know I’m now better prepared for the next Gap I’ll have to face – going home for winter break, starting new classes next semester, graduating from college – the list goes on. But what’s most interesting, I think, is that one wouldn’t initially relate this idea to improvisation. I would have explained it as a moment to grow as you figure out how to adjust, but now I see that’s exactly what improvisation is.

I think as much as I understand how a lot of the activities I participate in require improvisation, it’s just as important to understand how to improvise when you need to. Life is full of disappointments – a restaurant closes before you get there, a store doesn’t have the pair of shoes you love in your size, you fall ill unexpectedly – all things that can’t be fixed by a small snack or anything of that matter. There are times when we all catch ourselves stuck in disappointment, unwilling to move on from these hiccups in life, and improvisation is essential in avoiding just that, and finding something else to do. Not just taking contact improvisation, but studying it in class brings more into perspective about improvisation as a whole. There aren’t many things in dance that pertain to the real world, but this is one thing that truly carries over into everyday life.