Come connect with your bodies, with our bodies, with hearts and with gravity, with senses and with levity...
Cozy Contact Improvisation Jam
Celebrate birthdays, spheres, ellipses, revolutions, transformations, and other spiralling shapes.

Matt hosted w/yoga nidra/guided meditation warmup, review of various CI movements/concepts, lab to explore w/rotating partners, round robin/jam, closing circle.

Our new jams will creatively experiment with a variety of possible shapes (see below). All jams will be by donation, starting at $0, and welcoming to dancers of all levels. Donations for our not-for-profit events go toward hard costs such as studio rental and website hosting.

Please come as you are able and know that we only dance when we dance together. Your presence is important. We encourage everyone to arrive on time and stay through the closing circle.

New, Creative Jam Format
With the spirit of experimentation, the rotating facilitator will creatively tweak the format of each jam, to see what resonates and what's possible. Each jam will continue to have a designated facilitator, opening circle check-ins, guided warm-up, closing circle sharing, time for unstructured movement, and work within our shared Jam Guidelines. We will always have someone available to work with newcomers (or others) who want focused guidance into contact improvisation.

Some jam variations may include:

• Labs: We can explore specific skills or aspects of dancing through experiential workshoping, dialogue, and support to intentionally explore new edges together.
• Round robins: A dynamic witnessing circle in which we all learn through the friendly dialectic of observing and being observed.
• One-on-one's: Dancers are paired and we practice co-learning through giving, receiving, and asking for feedback.
• The Underscore: A light framework we've practiced a few times in the Co-op, to help us focus on the shape and flow of our shared experience within a jam.
• Somatic research: Using visual forms such as writing or drawing to iteratively record, analyze, and share our experience of the dance.
• Blindfold jams: We create a safe container to explore the dance through sensory curation.
• Contact Improv 101: To welcome curious friends and solidify foundational skills.

We need all of us together!
The Cville CI Co-op functions because of the input of each of us in the community. We give as we are able and receive a fabulous community of local dancers and events out of our shared efforts. We need others to support the ongoing health of the co-op and those of us organizing it. We could use help with:

• Outreach: Share social media events, forward emails, post to calendars you're aware of, invite friends.
• Facilitate a warm-up: Guide a CI or related somatic warm-up to help move the group toward dancing.
• Studio space: Provide access to alternate, financially reasonable studio space, should McGuffy be unavailable.
• Childcare: Occasionally offer childcare during select events so that parents can be accessibly included in dancing.
• Rideshares: Offer rides to/from jams for those who need one.
• Planning: Our last meeting had Matt, Emily, Megan, Brad and Ken. Come join our next one!

Let us know if you are up for any of the above and we will coordinate!

With yes, and...

Megan & Ken
writing for the Cville CI Co-op

The Underscore brings awareness to the states that occur in the practice of contact improvisation. It follows the stages of arrival, development, and resolution that naturally tend to occur at contact improv jams. By naming the elements and flows of encounters with self and other, we are able to become more resonant with each moment and possibility. After the initial "assembly" of verbal check-ins, the score is danced as an open, focused jam until the final "harvest" time of sharing reflections of individual experience.

The Global Underscore happens simultaneously around the world on the summer solstice each year. Through this shared practice we grow the connectedness of the community in both practice and awareness.

A "talk through" overview of the underscore will happen at the beginning of the event. There are no rules or choreography to learn. All are welcome with the intention to dance with focus from your deepest self.

Open to movers of all experience levels. The event is by optional donation ($5-15 suggested), towards our not-for-profit Co-op's expenses (primarily venue rental).

The exquisite art of C.I.. Falling one inch at a time into the bliss of freedom and abandon that starts with the smallest release and leaves you breathless and exilerated for more. Is there more? Yes, each level of release opens up another territory of exploration. The form of C.I. reveals itself to the student rather than an accumulation of techniques or steps where truly every student becomes their own teacher. The class will build up from little falls to larger ones so that safety is never an issue, stop when you need, go on as you wish, learn to float, trust in the floor never being farther away than an inch, softly softly softly finding home again again and again.

After opening circle, Megan & Ken will lead this all-levels class, which will include time for free movement. We'll wrap up around noon, and then share a closing circle together until 12:15pm. It's great if you can stay for the whole experience, but you are welcome to depart as needed.