A little of history
Even 10 years ago only a few people knew about Contact Improvisation. It appeared in Belarus thanks to Alexand?r Girshon. ?? ??m? from Moscow to Minsk in 2004 for holding a psychological training “To Live Dancing” in which elements of Contact Improvisation were used. First participants of the training, who became interested in Contact Improvisation, soon went to Kazantip, a seashore in Crimea. At that time there were classes and jams hold by Angela Dony and ?atia Velichko which were invited as coaches. Teaching this form of a Dance during the festival in Kazantip occurred to be an impulse for developing of Contact Improvisation in Minsk. Halina Zhilinskaya, one of those who was inspired, recalls that they gathered together at her apartment, moved apart all furniture and danced the way they could. The first steps in developing of Contact Improvisation in Minsk belong to different people; substantive contribution into it’s formation brought Halina Zhilinskaya, Olga Dvornikova and Alexey Konstantinov; Irinika Basalayeva joined later. They rented dance halls, conducted classes and jams. During the period from 2005 till 2010 an interest and desire to develop Contact Improvisation in Belarus has been changing – sometimes it became stronger, sometimes - weaker. Alexey Konstantinov went to Moscow to take part in a teacher’s laboratory and then he went to Freiburg International Festival of Contact Improvisation. Most of those who were inspired by Contact Improvisation taught each other but also they were taught by the first invited teachers such as Masha Grudskaya and ?atia Velichko who were teachers of Contact Improvisation in Moscow at that time. Due to Olga Dvornikova and other people’s enthusiasm Stephen Batts and Karl Frost came to Belarus with their master classes in which only a small amount of people took part, mostly those, who were developing Contact Improvisation or those who were practicing it. Alexander Naporko and Viktoria Ignatenko came back from Vilnius where being students of EHU they got to know Contact Improvisation. They joined the community of people dancing and teaching Contact Improvisation in Minsk.
Alexander Naporko, 30 y.o., a teacher of Contact Improvisation:
I personally, got in Contact Improvisation because of my interest to all new things and by my girlfriend’s offer for what I especially grateful to her. I was skeptical, because what we were doing had nothing with a dance from my point of view at that time. However, when I was asked to do some simple things in a different way, by applying other principles of the body, I started to think. Later I realized that Contact Improvisation was the way to adapt ourselves, both in space and in a new movement. Accordingly, all other movement practices, whether it's ballroom dancing or snowboarding, are accepted by a body much easier. Moreover, Contact Improvisation affects a social side of life, and maybe even more than physical one. My favorite thing when I am in a big crowd of people is to imagine that I am on a Jam that has just started and we create an atmosphere of a dance and soon enter the stream. I started to look at each person in a different way, realizing that I knew absolutely nothing about her or him, and it would be interesting to know. It is remarkable that there are non-verbal ways to do it.
Veronica
“I have always been keen on sports and when I was a schoolgirl my teacher implanted an interest for football in me so being a student of Belarus Physical Culture University I took part in Belarus Women’s Football Championship. But gradually my interest to football subsided and later I realized the reason I hadn’t wanted to go deeper in it.
I heard nothing about Contact Improvisation when it started it’s developing in Minsk. I first got to know this form of a Dance in 2010 when I lived in Moscow. At that time I was looking for my destiny, for my way in life so I went to take part into dance therapy induction training where I obtained grounds of Contact Improvisation. There for the first time I realized how many drawbacks physical culture and sports had. Taking first steps into Contact Improvisation I fell in love with this Dance as I felt harmony in myself, with other people, with the Universe. Later I found out that my body could do everything it had ‘forgotten’ and now it remembered it again! After my first class and jam hold by Angela Dony I woke up in the morning and wrote down all exercises. I felt I found what I had been looking for all my life – a contact with myself through Contact Improvisation. Class with Danya Elraz influenced me so immensely that I made a decision to be a teacher of Contact Improvisation. After that I took part in a week’s training for beginners and Angela Dony workshop for teachers of Contact Improvisation. I was touched by Angela’s phrase that those whose body is ready for a Dance (sportsmen and dancers) should prepare their consciousness as well. Since some time, dancing Contact Improvisation, I realized how right was she.”
Alexander
What about development of Contact Improvisation in Belarus, to my mind, there are a few things to mention. Like in many countries, this young dance was not taken seriously, I mean in global meaning. There is no one to blame, certainly not Steve Paxton as the one of the CI founders. But nowadays many theaters and dance groups learn it and use it; and many performances are based on Contact Improvisation. In Belarus there is a difficulty with the expression of thoughts through the performance. After all, there is much unsaid and leaves much for interpretation. Many people are wary of unknown and incomprehensible utterance of the body. An Average Belarusian does not want to deal with his/her own “self”. Why? Perhaps, this is a characteristic of consciousness of Belarusian people. I don’t know. I think Contact Improvisation is reached by those who grant the ability to recognize themselves in new ways, go out from closed frames of the social sphere at least for a time of a jam or a class and dive into the stream of improvisation.
Veronica
The desire to be a teacher of Contact Improvisation grew and strengthened in me. I wanted to share with people all I knew. I started to teach Contact Improvisation in Minsk in the beginning of 2011 after my coming back to Belarus. Since the time that I am back I made my own vision of Contact Improvisation developing in Belarus. Those who are interested in self-knowledge and self-development come to dance Contact Improvisation. Those who are awoken or who is ready to be awake, those who realize that usual stereotypes of the way of life such as “studies/work, home” don’t work anymore and that there is something else they came into this world for. I live and often meet people who are afraid of being in contact with their own body and other people’s bodies so far not everyone is ready to learn dancing Contact Improvisation. There are a great variety of offers to occupy oneself with fitness, different types of a dance, sport but this approach often helps to train only body while Contact Improvisation enables to keep balance between body and awareness. So, for example, yoga is a great technique but it concerns a man himself while Contact Improvisation includes interaction between me and my partner and it gives an opportunity to obtain communicational skills through a Dance.
Contact Improvisation in Belarus develops slowly but constantly. We hold classes and jams every week, master classes during trainings relating to work with body for people to obtain opportunity to get to know about Contact Improvisation. Today Contact Improvisation is taught in Minsk and in a small town which is near by - Molodechno. My teacher Angela Dony once said that a Dance or a jam is a small model of a world and I completely agree with her. I am a teacher at school and at my work I see that children have their own space where they teach to create their own world through a game. I consider Contact Improvisation to be a Dance of Joy. When adults start to dance Contact Improvisation they obtain a possibility to let their body and consciousness feel the same joy as kids do. Dancing Contact Improvisation people can get to know themselves and other people better, can experience a feeling of unity and find more harmony in themselves and in the world.
I have an interest and desire to teach Contact Improvisation and show people in Belarus this form of a Dance. During Freiburg International Festival of Contact Improvisation I was among 250 other people, dancing in one space. Free and beautiful we created a new and unique dance, in which every movement and every touch was a real joy. And I believe that if there is more people dancing Contact Improvisation there will be more free and conscious people who enjoy life.
