Updated: 2025-05-05 04:36 EDT

2026 ORCJ Details

Three days of Contact Improvisation on the lovely fourth floor at 400 Jarvis St. in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (We dance in the same building as the Canadian National Ballet School, a few blocks south of Wellesley St. E.). The building has multiple beautiful dance studios with huge windows and grand pianos in every room. Possibly the largest contact improv jam in North America, with over 200 people to dance with (2025). We are especially welcoming to new people, non dancers, people of all sizes, ages, shapes, mental and physical abilities. The venue is completely wheelchair accessible. We are LGBTQ welcoming.

ORCJ Daily Schedule of Jams, Rooms, Events, and Classes

Dress and Hygiene Guidelines for dancing CI

Come ready to move in contact with and close proximity to other people:

• Avoid wearing clothing with buttons, zippers, and snaps: these hard objects don't feel good sliding across the floor or other people. Avoid slippery clothing: sharing weight is helped by a little friction.
• Leave rings, especially sharp rings, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and other jewelry at home. Even smooth rings may be bent if a finger ends up under a descending foot.
• We dance in bare feet; please keep toenails and fingernails short or mask them with tape.
• Please do not wear scents, oils, or perfumes. Please do minimize your own body odours and the odours in your clothing. (If you handle pets or animals, please keep your CI dance clothes separate.)
• Some people prefer to wear knee-covering pants and elbow-covering shirts to facilitate having their arms and legs sliding on the floor. Dance knee pads are also recommended for extended floor work. Some people cut the heels and toes out of thick socks to give their ankles and feet some added padding and sliding ease. (Some people just avoid extended floor work!)
• For the safety of all, please be fully present in our dance space. Our CI is a substance-free practice. Don't dance under the influence of alcohol or other decision-impairing drugs.

Call for community assistants and volunteers

This is your volunteer-run, community-run dance jam. Please help us make it happen. Contact: ontjam@contactimprov.ca

Help with Billeting/Housing in Toronto

Can you offer billeting/housing/floor space for our out-of-town dancers? Billets often bring their own sleeping bags and pillows (unless they arrive by air); the jam feeds them lunches; all you need to provide is a floor or sofa. Please contact us at ORCJhousing@contactimprov.ca if your living space has a floor for a CI dancer or two or three.

Help your Community CI Jam

We're organizing the 2026 Ontario Regional Contact Jam, in Toronto.

We invite all interested and committed community contactors to join in the creation of another awesome contact dance experience.

We're looking for help with all kinds of sub-projects: flyer design, advertising and promotion, billeting, set-up and clean-up, and all kinds of stuff we haven't thought of and you have.

We'd like to invite members of the contact improv community throughout Ontario and neighbourhood to help us pull it all together. If you've got an idea of how you can contribute, please let us know. Contact one of us, and we'll get you hooked in with the group. EMail a Human: ontjam@contactimprov.ca

Contact Improvisation

What is Contact Improv?

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