Caught Falling

by David Koteen, Nancy Stark Smith

The inside-out of dancer/Contact Quarterly editor Nancy Stark Smith’s life as seen through the kaleidoscope of her thirty-six year involvement with Contact Improvisation. The book includes Q&As between the authors tracing the history of the dance form; photos of dancing and living; life stories; anecdotes from friends, colleagues, and family; and a description of Stark Smith’s Underscore. The Underscore is a framework for practicing and researching dance improvisation that Stark Smith has been developing since the early 1990s. It is a score that guides dancers through a series of "changing states" from solo deepening/releasing and sensitizing to gravity and support, through group circulation and interaction, Contact Improvisation engagements, opening out to full group improvisation with compositional awareness, and back to rest and reflection.

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Maralee]

ah to get to live in Nancy’s brain is the most wonderful gift. there is so much gold in this book- the 4 pages of notes that i took are filled with my favorite nuggets.

“i’ve felt home when i was in the same room as my dancing pals, my next of skin.”

i feel so grateful for contact, the people it has brought me, and the places it will continue to take me.

first book read for my thesis✅

[Christine]

Anyone who has ever danced Contact Improvisation and loved it, you will love this book as well.

Contented summer afternoons spent paging through it, reading, thinking, writing, dreaming. Dashing off to practice my handstand. Returning. I feel closer to CI's history and life through Nancy Stark Smith.