How can I keep the rigor, physicality and playfulness of Contact Improvisation alive while also cultivating spaces of mutual consent, safety, and inclusion?

Touch has always played a fundamental role in shaping my identity. For more than 20 years of teaching Contact Improvisation (CI), I have approached the form as a playground; an environment where students can take risks, ignite their imagination, find joy in exchanging and supporting weight, engage with physical forces, and become comfortable navigating disorientation and trust. Recently, however, I have witnessed a significant shift in how students enter this exploration of touch and proximity. They are no longer as open or available as they seemed when I first began teaching. The #MeToo movement and the COVID-19 pandemic have profoundly reshaped how we engage with touch. What once felt like an organic, playful exchange now requires intentionality and careful negotiation. I can no longer imagine CI as a neutral space, because, in fact, it never was. Reflecting critically on the somatic disciplines I teach, I have come to recognize how deeply CI’s legacies are entangled with imperial, patriarchal, and colonial frameworks. As a privileged cis-hetero woman of color, I am navigating the complexity of teaching a form that continues to carry dominant white, cis-heteronormative perspectives.

My students now arrive with vastly different cultural backgrounds, trauma histories, and safety expectations, all of which shape their comfort with touch. Designing a CI class that is flexible and welcoming for everyone, without compromising the form’s core principles, has become a significant challenge. Yet I believe touch teaches us a great deal about ourselves: it reveals our fears, self-image, survival mechanisms, and belief systems. I trust that cultivating comfort with touch and proximity is essential for all human beings, and especially for dancers. Touch is a vital source of pleasure, knowledge, and communication, capable of deepening empathy and nurturing meaningful interaction.

This conviction motivates my desire to critically examine how traditional CI pedagogy addresses, or fails to address, consent, power, and cultural dynamics. I aim to explore pedagogical practices that effectively desexualize touch, reframing it as listening, empathy, and mutual support. At the same time, I strive to build a consent culture that actively engages with power dynamics, racism, and heteronormativity. By integrating alternative frameworks for touch, I hope to create safer, more inclusive spaces for all students.