WHY

Steve Paxton found his way into the contact improvisation world by starting a two week study that involved 17 students and colleagues when he became interested in what other movements are considered dancer and how dances are made. He wanted to explore the communication between two or more bodies that are in physical contact and their relationship to the physical laws such as gravity, momentum, and inertia. He helped form Grand Union, and improvisational group which included both Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer, and it was with this group he came up with the idea of contact improvisation. He brought to the stage a whole new way to explore two or more bodies dancing together as a unit with one single mind. His goals were to have these dancers move as one whole and just explore each others physical beings, which is exactly what contact improvisation is about. With this new concept in dance, it was this that made Steve Paxton who he is today and the creator of something that is on a level of its own, in dance.