Thoughts on Contact Improvisation

Thoughts on Contact Improvisation is a stratified text, including excerpts from Steve Paxton’s interview with Folkert Bents, which was originally published in “Theatre Papers” (1982) and was further selected, edited and commented for this issue by Rossella Mazzaglia with a specific contribution by Paxton himself. As a result, the historical source is maintained and recognizable, but it is also enlivened and updated. The main themes Paxton accounts for are: the pedestrian movement in choreography, a definition of improvisation and an investigation of the ways it operates from a psycho-physical, an aesthetic and a pedagogical standpoint, its relation to life and to the actor’s techniques