This article appeared in the May 21, 2003 Cambridge Chronicle.

Jumpin’, jammin’ and jostling

By Susie Davidson

CORRESPONDENT

There’ll be a whole lotta movin’ going on at Radcliffe Green this weekend at the 12^th annual May Jam. In a flourishing finish to Dance Month, participants will get touchy-feely to the extreme during the weeknd of contact improvisation at the Rieman Center in Radcliffe Yard, 10 Garden St., on Saturday and Sunday, May 24-25. Hosted by local dance honchos Max Gautier, Niege Christenson, Patrick Crowley and Gene Broadway, the moveable fest is held each Memorial Day weekend.

Though tough to neatly define, contact improv, which has existed as a form for about 30 years, is characterized by weight-sharing moves of heavy-duty physicality. “We ‘fall up’ using momentum and gravity and find ourselves ‘flying’ on shoulders, or over someone’s back,” said Gautier, who added that contact can also be extremely subtle, for a long period of time. “It is based on what can seem like paradoxical tenets,” she said. “If you release your muscles, you will feel lighter to the person you’re draped over. It’s counter-intuitive to our rational minds, and yet the body can find movement pathways the mind cannot fathom.”

“Imagination, perception, physical skill building, and embodied composition intermingle in a safe, fun environment,” said Crowley, who teaches the genre at the Dance Complex, Brookline Community Center for the Arts, the Fells in West Medford, and every Tuesday evening, along with Gautier and Broadway, at the YWCA in Central Square. “One's weight exchange with a moving partner is the source of improvisation with the physical forces - mass, gravity, and momentum.” He says the process can encompass awareness, rolling, falling, even being upside down.

Sounds a little loony, but a dozen years ago, adherents and devotees, , wanted more, and ever since, the two-day event has attracted over a hundred bump-and-grinders who hail from not only the Cantabrigian contingent, but as far away as Montreal. Contact Quarterly, a magazine published in Northampton, chronicles the New England scene.

“Many of us have become friends with dancers in other cities that host large jams, and the May Jam is a chance to renew these friendships both on and off the dance floor,” said Gautier. The group holds other events on occasion; this past October, a two-day jam was held at the Cambridge Friends School on Cadbury Road near Porter Square.

Longer jam fest such as this typically include classes and other addendum. Warm-ups precede each day’s session; a dinner, improv performances and live music will be featured on open-to-the-public Saturday evening, although in general, music is not a part of the act. Rather, each dancer, duet, trio, etc., tends to find their own internal rhythm. “Adding the music can change the focus, and a lot of dancers enjoy that variety,” explained Gautier. In addition, the evening dance is open to those not attending the whole jam, which brings in dancers from the Boston/Cambridge scene who may not be contacters per se.

“The form is innately egalitarian,” said Gautier. “It’s a form where the process of personal exploration is what feeds the development of the form.” No rules, no layouts, no steps facilitate another kind of unlearned, yet skillful proficiency. “We work with the natural capacity of the body in its connection to the earth,” she said. “And amazing things happen.”

Admission to the May Jam, held at the Rieman Center (Radcliffe Yard), 10 Garden St., Cambridge, is $45, which includes Saturday evening’s dinner. For further information, please call 781-275-9727 or 617-320-9792, email joyfuldanseur@yahoo.com or visit www.geocities.com/contactimprovboston. For information on Crowley’s contact improvisation classes, email pganesha@aol.com.