With this document we hope to share our humble reflection regarding CI’s historical course, in particular with regards to a meeting and exchange of personal histories which took place last August at the Freiburg Festival. Our vision of CI and our way of interpreting and studying it are conditioned by the context of the university where we work but also by the geographical and social context of the city in which we live and, of course, by the personal and familial circles in which we inhabit and from which base we construct our identity and our body.

The Freiburg Contact Festival, which held its 10th anniversary in 2009, marked a milestone in the history of Contact Improvisation, in particular in terms of the reinforcement of the relations between America and Europe and also within the heart of Europe. For the history of Contact in Spain, which has been at an almost-exponential phase of growth in recent months, we believe that it was also an extremely significant meeting. In August 2009 Freiburg received about 270 participants (including teachers) of which nearly forty were Spaniards, meaning ours was the second largest contingent after the Germans. We are not interested in competition but the figure was striking in comparison with previous editions where Spanish participation was minor.

In the Freiburg Festival there are, amongst many other dynamics (Intensifs, Classes, Laboratories, Jam sessions etc) the activities called History Talk and the Study Labs (In the labs you have the possibility to bring in or try out your own wishes, ideas, interests … in movement or discussion. (..). The study labs are announced and organized by the participants. ).
The organizers of the Freiburg Festival have taken the time to register events and participants from each year since 2000 in their archives and website, without doubt a way of making history. Furthermore, a time slot is reserved for History Talk which is viewed from a different perspective each year. In 2009 the main theme was the actual history of the Freiburg Contact Festival, for which a type of round table of discussion was created and lead by Barbara Stahlberger, Ka Rustler, Nina Martin y Keith Hennessy. Barbara provided the autobiographical starting point to explain the idea which came out of the meetings in San Francisco and the creation of the Freiburg team with Benno Enderlein and Eckard Müeller. Ka Rustler offered the history of CI in Germany in relation to other European pioneering nucleuses like those of Amsterdam or Dartington. Nina Martin facilitated the comparative debate between European CI and American CI and Keith Hennessy energized the participation of the other attendees at History Talk. As a matter of fact, we concluded proceedings with an open dynamic of questions without answers (15 minutes) and another in groups of six to eight people where we aimed to respond to the question `What do I like and not like about CI´? And because we had sat with some other Spanish speakers and a translator to follow the talk, we coincided with a small group of people from the Basque Country, Madrid and Castilla to accomplish the last activity.

This final time of reflection, open to all participants, (where it was clearly demonstrated that history is constructed from personal histories), plus the reflection provided by the small group of Spanish speakers , encouraged us to try and define our Study Lab, an idea which we had timidly hatched over the days of the meeting, unsure of what interest our `historical preoccupation´ may possibly hold for the people immersed in our dance; a Study Lab, ours, which risked being labeled as separatist - aiming as it did to tackle the history of CI in Spain, in the context of a very international festival. In reality any CI event, however local it may be, will always be cosmopolitan.

Regarding the Study Lab, in which about twenty `contactors´ took part we are going to describe two aspects. Firstly, the dynamic generated, the physical encounter and staging of temporary space and secondly, an approximation of the study of the written data which we saved, completed and later revised. From this small pilot study it is not our aim to drawn a conclusion with respect to the history of Contact Improvisation in Spain, it is simply one of the points of reinforcement that we have to build on any initial reflections.

1. Study Lab. Saturday 14 August, 2009, 5pm to 7pm.
From the dining hall tables we walked towards the shores of the lake, to a clearing in the forest we had chosen to be able to sit and also dance.
When we arrived some time was given to Esther Forment, one of the facilitators of the Spanish group, who had informed us of her wish to share a small experience regarding the perception of time and speed: 1’ from movement-improvisation to maximum speed, a 1’ at minimum speed, 1’ of a pause. Comments arose with respect to the experience of these small solos in the natural surroundings.

Later Teresa proposed a small dance in trios with unknowns people: two danced and the third observed the duo and then roles were reversed - the constant being the question `How does the other dance? Where does it come from? What does it tell me about the history of the dancer? What kinds of techniques or experiences are on their foundation?

Afterwards a guessing game was played whereby one by one we commented on what we had discovered or sensed about the dance of the other two members of the trio while we watched or while we danced. Whether or not anyone was `right´ was left up in the air, until the next step.

On a small piece of paper each of us wrote a small history.
Name and origin
1. Date of first contact with Contact Improvisation (not necessarily in practice, the first time one saw or heard of CI, for instance.)
2. Three or four people who you feel have influenced you in your way of dancing Contact: your most influential teachers from Contact or other styles, other people who are, in some way, in your dance …
3. Three or four disciplines, techniques, material, bodily work (artistic or not) that exist in your dance, the `material´ with which you dance, in which you find support…

We then freely put each paper in a place within the improvised map previously drawn up and marked arrows to indicate other spaces from where our dance originated and we synthesized our history.

Time was running out but we wanted to give each participant a moment to explain; some left while the majority of us stayed, eager to continue chatting and getting to know what was happening in other parts of Spain, make possible bonds or common bridges, etc.

2. Analysis of the data.
Concerning the first question – that of the person and his or her origin, the data allowed us to identify some open paths, some points of communication, some entries and/or exits – people who go out in the world to learn, people who teach or vice versa. Showing where one `lives´ is not an easy task in such a nomadic community as that of the teachers and dancers of CI.

The choice of one’s place of origin was relevantly irksome due to members’ distinct feelings of identity with respect to this place. Previously, in the initial, welcoming circle formed to introduce ourselves, as each of us stood up and somehow became visible, we had to decide which place to say - `Where was I born? Where do I live? Where do I work? Where do I dance´? After one’s name, the first piece of personal information to be shared, the origin one determines as his/her own is extremely significant and is of the person and of his/her dance.

On the cards we found, therefore, a double line of data: the place-context-culture where one learns and the body-technique-knowledge from where it is learned. Both determine different dances, create a malleable CI, changeable depending on the personal characteristics and of the contexts. That is how the physical and political geography is created and crossed by corporal or bodily geography.

2.1 Analysis of the data: places/contexts/cultures.
The history of the contact Improvisation starts in Spain during the 80s in a very select way. Some data from this start could be: the lessons from La Fábrica (Barcelona) organized by Toni Gelabert and Norma Axenfeld in 1980-1981, the workshops iniciated in Arlequí (Bayones) were regularly tought since 1984 with Bob Rease, and with Nancy Stark Smith from 1987 on. And the activities arranged in Área (Barcelona) in 1986 with Daniel Trenner, as the first contact teacher. At the same time since 1985 Susan Gray and Julien Meunié were teaching and organising contact improvisation activities in Mallorca and also in Barcelona, in the Büge danse studio.

After, with a late development all through out the 90s, we believe it is from the year 2000 on when CI stars to develop in a bigger and more powerful way, not only as an artistic tool, but as a way of social interaction.

Beneath we point out some sugested references in the Study Lab, which is the main topic of the article , trying to show this partial instant or picture from Spain Contact Improvisation reality.

Barcelona
A priori we considered the hypothesis that one of the first channels of entry of CI in Spain was via Barcelona. The attendees of the Lab who came from there acknowledged that in 2000 they had discovered a rising discipline in which a select group of people became involved in the formation and organization of events and jam sessions and who were later responsible for the diffusion of CI in other communities like Madrid, León or Valencia amongst others.

At the moment in Barcelona there is a vigorous effort being made to consolidate and to highlight, on a national level, the regional initiatives which, although scattered, are responding to the growing demand for CI in recent years. It is forecast that in October, 2010 the first Encuentro de maestros y organizadores de Contact Improvisation de España [Meeting of Teachers and Organisers of Contact Improvisation in Spain (EMOCIE)] will be held in Barcelona.

The analysis of this data from Barcelona shows their members in a very professional light and sees the practitioners of CI constantly involved in the teaching of dance and/or creative stage performances – as opposed to what has generally happened in other regions.

Madrid
In the origin and evolution of CI in Spain, Madrid is undoubtedly the other grand initial nucleus. Outwardly more silent than in Barcelona, CI in Madrid in its early years was clearly linked to a type of center for stage performances and also for techniques related to personal growth.

The creation of a virtual web – which currently has more than 200 followers – by a young practitioner in December, 2006, marked a growing interest for the discipline and made clear the need to centralize information with respect to the eye-catching number of events, which have proliferated in Madrid in recent years.

According to the data obtained here, CI Madrid is currently undergoing a great expansion which is demonstrated by the number of stable workshops, classes and jam sessions and particularly by the wide range of participants. Indeed, in the Lab we were able to listen to both dancers, who use CI as a tool in their professional artistic development in contemporary dance, circus acts and the like and amateur practitioners who enjoy the practice of CI – in its bodily and social aspects in their free time – and who come from a wide range of professional backgrounds, including dance, administrators of dance schools in traditional institutions and other backgrounds seemingly unrelated to dance such as health, transport and engineering amongst others.

San Sebastián
We have received information about specific training away from the Basque Country (France and the United Kingdom) and budding jam sessions. In fact, in the Basque Country, CI has been present in contemporary dance in the training of dancers and creative artists with successful professional careers abroad. However, its social development via jam sessions is more recent – they have been mainly set up for the past 5 years in Bilbao- and at the moment, cautious; the attendees are doubts and curiosity about how CI will be accepted via these methods. In a region with such an enormous cultural identity, to which the foreigner does not always have easy access.

León
In the case of León, an academic program, courses and CI workshops in the old Instituto Nacional de Educación Física (INEF), currently integrated into the Faculty of Science of Physical Activity at the University of León (ULE), have been going on for a decade but the feeling is that, at present, there has not been a major turning point since 2007.

The increased impact of CI in Leon, we believe, can be associated with two main causes. On the one hand, the involvement of MUSAC – the Museum of Contemporary Art in Castilla and León – in the organization of events related to CI. These have, in turn, allowed for a meeting of minds of people and institutions from varying contexts: from the university, academic perspective – in the cooperation between MUSAC – ULE in training activities – to recreational or social activities which include specific groups in society, such as teenagers or disabled people – to the artistic, in relation to dance, music or the audiovisual arts to name a few examples.

On the other hand, in León, just as it is in Barcelona, the organization of jam sessions has been definitive in the process of spreading the CI word. In both cities training activities schemes had been held in a conventional manner, years before the jam sessions , but the development of these open meetings of dance have lead to an increased visibility of CI and subsequent expansion.

Zaragoza, Huesca.
The data obtained from the attendees from Zaragoza and surroundings provided a clear link between the birth and distribution of CI, and with the participants in the workshops and choreography samples of Trayectos: danza en paisajes urbanos, a festival which is looking to grow, to consolidate and to promote contemporary dance in Aragón. In the last three editions of the festival, other stages/venues from towns near to the backbone of the northeastern part of the peninsular which is the Pyrenees have been incorporated. In 2009 Trayectos celebrated its sixth anniversary and here we find a clear connection with the period of development of CI in Spain, which becomes more and more visible from the year 2000.

Ibiza
The island has proven to be a great breeding ground from which CI has mushroomed in a few years, thanks mainly to the organization of the Ibiza Contact Festival, which has grown under the umbrella of Freiburg with the support of participants and some teachers since 2008. The relationship between Ibiza and Barcelona is clearly beneficial, as is its direct connection with other points of the mainland and even more so with other parts of Europe.

Away from the dynamic of the Study Lab, in conversation and later correspondence, some participants of the Freiburg Festival gave us news of other active centres, such as Valencia, Andalucía and Badajoz.

Finally, thanks to the flyers which are on offer at the Freiburg Festival to spread the CI word, festivals which are on the rise and more established ones are shown together and we have received information about festivals in Fuerteventura , Granada , and others like the Nomad in Catalonia .

Another significant nucleus of data collected is provided by the group of foreign locations which are connected by travel and/or the receiving of teachers: with regards to Europe relationships have been confirmed with France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Holland and Italy and in America there are direct and indirect ties between Brazil and Argentina, which have their own connection with the USA, a direct one which is stronger than that of Spain’s.

2.2 Analysis of the data: experiences/techniques/bodies
A wide range of techniques and bodily experiences were cited in relation to participants’ practice of CI and we have classified them into five permeable groups: dance (contemporary, classical, butoh), other arts (theatre, music, circus), the technique/art of improvisation (performance/happening…), martial arts (aikido, taekwondo, capoeira) and therapeutic techniques or personal development. Some of the techniques indicated may be situated in more than one group, particularly those techniques used in Body mind Centering, Danza Vivencial, Danza Terapia, Danza5ritmos and Movimiento Auténtico – all of which could also form part of the group of dance and yoga techniques. Due to their oriental origin they could be positioned near the martial arts group but also close to the therapeutic techniques.

Moreover, references to the actual body and to personal and intimate experiences and motivations arose like one’s relationship with animals, nature, maternity, child-rearing or amorous games with one’s partner.

Although the absence of some techniques and arts may be detected and may be some little surprises like classic dance, we believe that this sample constitutes a balanced approach with respect to the universe of relations which characterizes CI. Each one of the participants is generally nourished on more than one bodily technique or by other arts and experiences allowing them to specialize in their practice of CI.

From our geography we understand CI as a practice and a knowledge which is born and is constructed in meetings and in travel - in the meetings of the bodies of the dancers, of their cultures and of their histories and techniques which nourish them. We believe the journey is not only a concept intrinsic to technique – the point of physical contact in movement – and of the philosophy - availability and openness towards any space or direction – but that it is equally important to be visible in training and creation - due to the trans-disciplinary nature of CI - in the actual community which tends to be nomadic or at least with a tendency to travel and discover distinct geographies.

Teresa García San Emeterio tgars@unileon.es and María Paz Brozas Polo mpbrop@unileon.es

Both are lecturers in the Department of Physical Education at the University of León where they teach Corporal Expression, Acrobatic Activities and other similar material. Both are also co-creators of the improvisation collective Armadanzas, formed in 2005 and of the Classroom of Corporal Creation of ULE in 2007. Paz Brozas began her training, research and organisation of CI in 1997, activities all of which intensified from 2007 onwards with the cooperation of Teresa. In 2009 Teresa García decided to study the growth of CI in relation to contemporary dance in Spain for her PhD.

Authors addresses:
Teresa García San Emeterio/María Paz Brozas Polo
FCAFD-Universidad de León
Campus de Vegazana S/N
24071 León (España)
Telephone number: 00 34 987 293046 (Paz) or 295463 (Teresa)
Paz mobile: 00 34 655894758 Fax number: 00 34 987 293008