Editing Contact improvisation (section)

===== Styles =====
Following the first performance of ''Contact Improvisations'' in New York in 1972, the participants scattered to different parts of the [[United States]] but soon began to teach the practice.{{r|Kourlas}} The syncopated, risky, raw and awkward style of the first performances gave place rather quickly to a variety of aesthetics within the form.

One of those aesthetics was the development of smooth, continuous, controlled flow of quality in the late 1970s and early 1980s, running parallel with the opposite trend of interest in conflict and unexpected responses, including previously avoided eye contact and direct hand contact.<ref>Novack, 1990 op cit p. 156-8.</ref> Says Nancy Stark Smith,

<blockquote>Within the study of Contact Improvisation, the experience of flow was soon recognized and highlighted in our dancing. It became one of my favorite practices and I proceeded to "do flow" for many years-challenging it, testing it: could we flow through ''this'' pass? Could we squeak through ''that'' one, and keep going?<ref>Nancy Stark Smith, "Back in time", Contact Quarterly, vol.11/1, Winter 86, p. 3</ref></blockquote>

Regardless of those aesthetic choices, the central characteristic of contact improvisation remains a focus on bodily awareness and physical reflexes rather than consciously controlled movements.<ref>Novack, 1990 op cit p. 152</ref>  One of the founders of the form, Daniel Lepkoff, comments that the “precedence of body experience first, and mindful cognition second, is an essential distinction between Contact Improvisation and other approaches to dance.”<ref>{{cite journal|last=Lepkoff|first=Daniel|date=Winter–Spring 2000|title=Contact Improvisation|journal=Contact Quarterly|page=62}}</ref>  Another source affirms that the practice of contact improvisation involves “mindfulness, sensing and collecting information”<ref name=":3">{{cite book|title=Contact Improvisation:Moving, Dancing, Interaction|last=Kaltenbrunner|first=Thomas|publisher=Meyer & Meyer|year=1998|location=Aachen (Germany)|page=93}}</ref> as its core.