Steve Paxton: MATERIAL FOR THE SPINE

In 1986, dancer Steve Paxton began examining the spine he had observed in the practice of Contact Improvisation, a duet movement form he had instigated in 1972, in which the torsos of the dancers are especially interactive. This 4 hour DVD-ROM immerses us in this artists world for the first time, to experience the logic and invention at the core of Material for the Spine. During four collaborative years with Paxton, these original audiovisual essays, motion capture sequences, and extracts from lectures, classes, and performances have been realized to present an overview, the details of the technique, and the exercises and forms that constitute it.
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"is a system. It attempts to examine the spine of Contact Improvisation. I began it in 1986, in NYC for a workshop at Movement Research. I was interested in alloying a technical approach to the improvisational results which had appeared in the bodies of Contact Improvisers. In allied martial arts, such as Aikido or Tai Chi Chuan, there is an attempt to make the central mass and thus the spine elusive. In Contact Improvisation the spine is given to one's partner. However baring injury, the spine and some of its musculature work almost invisibly. Via exercise, ideokinetic imagery, and specific examples I wanted to bring to consciousness the subtle sensation, the moments when usage reveals operations of the skeleton, the muscular connections available between pelvis and fingertips, the soft energetic support of leverage which I take to be chi or ki..... It is all to bring movement to consciousness"