Best Practices/ETHOS

WCCI aspires to create a rich and deeply immersive body/mind dance experience in community. We value safety, sensitivity, embodiment, and inclusivity. We foster freedom and expertise in our movement practice, as well as subtlety and inner stillness. In the spirit of improvisation we hold up physical play, spontaneity and authentic self-expression. We aim to cultivate strong and various CI skills that will serve the jamming community as well as the professional dancer. Contact Improvisation by nature cultivates kind awareness of others alongside awareness of self, we therefore hope attending to these teachings serves human culture and the unceded, ancestral land of the Coast Salish People, including the, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations that we are grateful to live work and play on.

 

We value transparency, self-responsibility, and communication (both somatic and wordy).

 

Our events are for all experience levels, genders, sexual orientation, skin colour, ages and those with different physical abilities and neurodivergence. The Sfu facilities are fully accessible with wheelchair access and disability gender-inclusive washrooms.

 

BUILDING SAFE SPACE

WCCI is committed to attending to both physical safety and emotional safety. Contact Improvisation can be hugely acrobatic and intense physically and dancers need to take full responsibility for their own safety. Awareness of “Landing Gear” needs to be cultivated and commitment to staying within skill levels while gently pushing at edges is where the learning (and fun) lies. As well being aware of self, dancers must be aware of other and strive to meet their partner at their skill level. This is a drug and alcohol free space.

 

Emotional safety has become a question held carefully in the contact community. We understand there are many streams of inquiry branching off of the main trunk of Contact as taught by Steve Paxton and Nancy Stark Smith. While these practices are fascinating, we are solely engaged with the source material and will not be exploring “Touch and Play” or any Neo Tantric practices. We are working in conjunction with the SFU School for Contemporary Arts and are grateful for the use of their space. We adhere to their ethics code and respect their mandate. We are committed to intimacy and growth and experimentation in the somatic world.  This is a space of creative inquiry and study and to that end needs to be an impeccable and safe container to explore for everyone. There have been a number of litigations within the contact community over the last few years that bare deep consideration. WCCI is committed to helping establish best practices within the community and creating an intelligent compassionate conversation around consent and sexuality. If you experience any unwanted sexual advances and need support, we will support you. We have a panel of trained helpers with various skills who will be wearing WCCI T-shirts and they will be available to talk one-on-one over anything that comes up.

As well we will be having lunch-table conversations on the first and second day that engage the question of consent and sexuality and gender and inclusivity. This will be headed up by allies from the trans community.

 

  • Wear loose comfortable clothes. No zippers, big buttons or shoes in the studios to save beautiful floors

  • No eating in the studios. There is a lunch room with tables and couches to relax and eat in

  • Make sure your body is clean and wear no scents

  • Cover cuts with Band-Aids

  • Wear no jewelry

  • Self-screen for illness. Don’t come to class with a cough or fever or runny nose

  • There are no cameras or recording devices allowed. We will providing an opportunity for exploring filming in the little studio on the second day if you are interested

  • The dance floor is a quiet non-verbal space… don’t let that feel oppressive of course, but be aware of others

  • Refrain from touching your fellow dancers off the dance floor. No unwanted tickles or hugs. Respect folx’s personal space even though you may have shared deep physical intimacy on the dance floor understand that has no personal implications off the dance floor.

  • If you come with a partner refrain from romantic touch on the dance floor.

  • Your eyes should be open and your “spider senses” activated

 

Contact Improvisation can only be the wonderful safe exploration of sensuality if we are all coming from the commitment to keep it free of sexual behavior. Kathleen Rea from “REAson de’etre” in Toronto has been a wonderful leader from within the contact community who has pulled together a guidebook helpful to beginners and festival folk. We encourage participants to explore her work in the include the link here.