Introducing Steve Paxton and the differing definitions of improvisation

Before looking at how dance practitioners use improvisation it was important to me to look at the founders of improvised dance as we know it in our training today.  I explored the background of improvisational dance and contact improvisation.  Up until the 1960’s the western world was not used to seeing any sort of improvised or pedestrian movement in a dance concert.  Thanks to dance makers such as Steve Paxton, Barbara Dilley, Simone Forti, Nancy Topf and Lisa Nelson audiences today are exposed to improvised movement.   Between 1959 and 1965 Steve Paxton was a member of Merce Cunningham’s and Jose Limon’s companies, both of them architects of modern contemporary dance.  During this time in New York he established and coined the term ‘contact improvisation’ as a method of improvised dance.  In the above video I am particularly interested in the section in where he speaks about how modern dance looked in the late 1950's.   'It was about 50 years old and most of the pioneers were still alive' he speaks about how it was politically and socially relevant.  It is also interesting to hear about how Merce Cunningham was viewed skeptically by the modern dance world at that time when he was first established (watch from 22minutes).

Steve Paxton here defines contact improvisation as they invented it. 

‘Contact improvisations are spontaneous physical dialogues that range from stillness to highly energetic exchanges. Alertness is developed in order to work in an energetic state of physical disorientation, trusting in one's basic survival instincts. It is a free play with balance, self-correcting the wrong moves and reinforcing the right ones, bringing forth a physical/emotional truth about a shared moment of movement that leaves the participants informed, centered, and enlivened.’ (early definition by Steve Paxton and others, CQ Vol. 5:1, Fall 1979).

In Melinda Buckwalter's 'Composing while dancing' (2010) Steve Paxton speaks on improvisation taking a form.

'The relation between form and improvisation is intrinsic. In normal life, plans (envisioned forms of action) are the primary motivator of many tasks, interwoven with moments when unexpected events require intuitive or reflexive responses. Sports, for example, often have rigorous rules defining what is to be done and how it is to be accomplished, yet rely on improvisation to soar beyond definitions into the unforeseen, improbable moments which bring the crowds to their feet and a collective roar to their throats.' (Paxton, S taken from 'Composing while dancing' Buckwalter, M 2010).

Most significant and thought provoking for me was Paxton's experience of improvising to the Goldberg variations by Bach in 1986-1992 (Watch the above video from 58 minutes). In an article which I found in the New York Times, Siobhan Burke reviews Paxton's 'Selected Works' a selection of four works displayed in 2014 at 'Dia:Beacon' in New York.   In the article she speaks about the Goldberg variations that 'essentially had no structure, no rules. “Except for the most general one,” he [Paxton] clarified: to do it differently every time."'   Below I have found a reworking of this piece.  On viewing it I questioned how Paxton's work in improvisation is often for a purpose for performance as opposed to being strictly internal.  Although he, or his dancers, are creating in real-time it is affected by the external motive of creating a piece for audience.

This purpose behind improvisation is essentially contrasting to the view of Maxine Sheets-Johnstone (The Primacy of Movement, 2nd Ed. 2011).  

'Whatever the framing rules might be that act as a constraint upon movement, the aim of the dancers is to form movement spontaneously. It is to dance this evening’s dance, whatever it might turn out to be. In view of the uniqueness of this evening’s dance — as of all this evening’s dances — the common aesthetical question of ontological identity does not arise. In other words, being the only one of its kind, this evening’s dance is not measured against or viewed with respect to other performances nor is it measured against or viewed with respect to a score.' (Sheets-Johnstone, 2011 pg.420)

Now this is interesting and could be argued to be a conflicting view in regards to the Goldberg variations.  Like much of Paxton's work these improvisations to Bach's music were viewed by an audience.  They were also ofcourse affected and inspired by the music, which in turn would affect audience perception.  Furthermore the dancer uses alot of codified movement - movement which is not pedestrian and is a clear product of past training.  This could be thought of contrasting with Sheets Johnstone's view of improvisation as unaffected from the outside and as a mode of thought: 'thinking in movement'.  However, as Paxton points out in the video 'the body is a repository and one of great scope', so therefore I believe it is very difficult to not move as a dancer once this has been learnt.  So though in this case affected by the music, in my view this dancer and Paxton improvise as a way of thinking in action but also as a way to create choreography and a performance.

Biography:

Booth, S (2014) 'A choreographer drawn to change' NY times [found online: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/arts/diabeacon-celebrates-steve-paxtons-choreography.html?_r=0]

Buckwalter, M (2010) Composing while dancing Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin P

Paxton, S (1979)  Contact Quarterly CQ Vol. 5:1, Fall 1979  [Found online: http://contactquarterly.com/contact-improvisation/about/]

Sheets-Johnstone, M. (2011) The primacy of movement. 2nd Edition.  Amsterdam: John Benjamins Pub.