In a world increasingly shaped by digital communication, meaningful human contact is becoming rare. Yet physical connection is essential for our wellbeing, fostering trust, empathy, and emotional regulation.
Contact improvisation (CI), a dance practice built on shared weight, touch, and responsiveness, offers a powerful reminder of the importance of human connection.
While I have not practised CI myself (other than glimpses of it through body-body games during FM Practice workshops), I am currently working on a research project as part of my Dance Science MSc degree on relationship building using CI in an interdisciplinary collaborative arts project.
Our research explored relationship-building in CI using a bifocal case study approach:
We primarily used a deductive thematic analysis, guided by PERMA, with a latent approach to uncover deeper, underlying meanings related to relationship-building. While the analysis was primarily deductive, we incorporated elements of inductive analysis to allow new, unanticipated themes to emerge from the data. This involved using the sticky note method and mind mapping to identify and refine themes from the journal entries.
Two participants — a musician new to CI and an experienced dancer — worked together. While their backgrounds differed, both relied on attunement to connect. Attunement (see the works of Steve Paxton) involved:
Self-Attunement: Becoming aware of one's own body.
Contact Attunement: Learning to respond to a partner’s movement.
Shared Experience: Building connection through mutual responsiveness.
Key Findings: The Role of Touch and Trust
The dancer naturally applied CI principles to guide interactions, while the musician found comfort in rhythm and sound as a bridge to movement. Despite differing approaches, their shared attunement fostered curiosity, trust, and connection.
Connection doesn’t require identical skills — it emerges through listening, adapting, and meeting others where they are.
Reclaiming the Power of Contact
In case CI doesn’t appeal to you, I’m going to use the words connectivity through movement for the rest of this ramble to minimise connotations/assumptions/biases.
Connectivity through movement challenges us to embrace vulnerability — to lean, to fall, and to trust. In a time when we are digitally connected yet socially distant, this reminds us that the simplest act of sharing space and touch can profoundly restore our sense of connection.
Side thought: For some individuals, the word “touch” itself carries negative associations, fears and triggers. In these instances a subtle shift in the language we use can foster an opening to possibility. What if we used the word “connect” instead?
Another side thought: An interesting paper on CI in neurorehabilitation
Conclusion: A Call to Connect
Whether through touch, sound, or presence, movement with others invites us to connect deeply. By reclaiming the power of CONNECTION, we rediscover what it means to feel seen, supported, and truly present with others.
I’ll let you know how the project goes. The group presentation of findings is tomorrow. Assessment/grading shortly after.
Voila.