Nancy X Jonathan
Vickiana Sconyers
Internationally known dancer, editor, writer, organizer and a collaborating founder of Contact Improvisation, Nancy Stark Smith, died on May 1st after an extraordinary life of fearlessly exploring new ways of making art, breaking gender norms, and communicating the ephemeral body-mind states of experiences of dance. She was in the initial group working with Steve Paxton, who originated Contact Improvisation, along with Nita Little, Daniel Lepkoff, Barbara Dilley, Mary Fulkerson, and Nancy Topf, among others. Influenced by the ground-breaking dance-theater experiments in improvisation of the Grand Union and Judson Dance Theater, she ignited a new revolution after the first public performance of Contact Improvisation in New York City in 1972 by propagating the work world-wide in a myriad of ways.
Contact Quarterly had approached me about distilling and publishing the weblog I kept when I taught Paris Opera Ballet the Trisha Brown dance Glacial Decoy in 2003. It was initially an avalanche of words. Within them, Nancy saw the potential for a compelling story of how ballet dancers could embody many of the things that contacters embrace: gravity, momentum, 360 degree potential for movement.
She danced on the page; CQ gives voice to a world community of CI artists, teachers, explorers. My understanding of the form is deeply tied to her magical ability to unify a room of people, inviting everyone to dive in, smiling, her long braid another limb, her body beaming a brilliant and deep joy of dancing with others. I will always be inspired by her tireless and bountiful ability to give and receive, to be curious and open, and to live her understanding of dance and life as one. Thank you to this extraordinary teacher, artist and human being.
It was the summer of 1987 or 1988. Nancy Stark Smith was guiding participants in a dance workshop session through Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. I was in a class among sweaty young things ambulating and motoring around independently yet together, like molecules of air inside a balloon. I remember the room was huge and bright, with a ceiling so far above our heads that I felt both immensely free and completely dwarfed.
For more background on the work of Nancy Stark Smith see:
Stark Smith website: www.nancystarksmith.com
Contact Quarterly: www.contactquarterly.com
Global Underscore: www.globalunderscore.com
Nicole Bindler is a dance-maker, Body-Mind Centering practitioner, writer, and activist. Her work has been presented at festivals, conferences, and intensives throughout the U.S., Canada, Argentina, and Europe, and in Tokyo, Beirut, Bethlehem, Mexico City, and Quito. Recent projects include teaching about consent culture and disability justice in contact improvisation; somatic research on the embryology of the genitalia from a non-binary perspective; and collaborations with Diyar Theatre in Bethlehem, Palestine. www.nicolebindler.com
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