Vision

Over-Arching Vision

 

To nurture a collaborative culture amongst the Ontario contactimprovisation community that embodies the spirit and principles of contactimprovisation.

We envision a growing, resilient, self-organizing networkand association of vibrant, innovative, mutually supportive communities, whocontinue to share and evolve the form of contact improvisation in Ontario.

 

WHY?

Purpose of the 2009 OntarioRegion Jam

 

v    To inspire more dancing and collaboration on andoff the dance floor.

v    To create an opportunity for connections anddances amongst people from different geographical areas, giving people a senseof being part of a larger CI community.

v    To evolve the practice of CI by sharing skills,experiences, questions, reflections and desires for the form.

v    To expand our sense of what’s possible in theform and in the CI community.

v    To extend the underlying practice of CI to ourcollaboration on all levels.

v    To offer an opportunity to experience the effecton one’s body, mind and spirit, when one contact dances for two and half days!

 

HOW? 

Concept of the 2009 OntarioRegion Jam

 

Organize a weekend-long contact jam that:

 

             I.     is designed to support people to enter and explore thedance and connect with the CI community in new ways through various structures(such as the facilitation of workshop/warm-ups, musical accompaniment, informalperformance, sharing of food, skills-sharing structures, healing and creativearts areas, planned and spontaneous dialogue.)

          II.     offers people an opportunity to try out co-creatingwhat they want to experience in the Ontario CI community.


Principles of Contact Improvisation that guide us: 

 

  1. Notice what is happening.  Start here.
  2. Sense the whole and share the space
  3. Everything is interconnected, complex, and constantly changing.
  4. Take care of yourself.  Listen to what you need and trust what you deeply want.  This enriches the dance. 
  5. Focus on, and magnify what you deeply want that is already happening.
  6. Listen to your environment and others as an extension of yourself.
  7. See everything that happens as an opportunity for learning, and see everyone, including yourself, as being in a learning process.
  8. Everything each of us knows, is based on our ideas of how things are.
  9. There is a power in speaking from your own experience.  When you speak of someone else, it is your experience of them that you speak of.
  10. No one is in control.  We are all response-able, and impact what happens.
  11. Look for the ways to have the most effect and get the most of what we deeply want, using the least amount of energy, while appreciating the autonomy and equal participation of others.  What wants to happen?  Where is the leverage in the system?
  12. There are no right or wrong steps.
  13. Embrace the unknown.


Overarching Longer-Term Vision - OR WHY ARE WE REALLY DOING THIS?

To nurture, promote, and build a thriving contact improvisation community in the region of Ontario...

...we dream of an organization, and intentional, live-in, community centre, with the resilience to spread the practice of the form and sustain the people who love to do that.

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Vision for the Ontario Region Contact Jam 2009

PURPOSE:

What is most important to us?  What do we value?   What do we most want for this jam?  To emerge from this jam?  What experience do we want to have and want other people who attend it to have?  (It might help to think about other jams and similar events we have been to)
What experience do we want to have in the process of coordinating it?  What experience do we want other people who are helping to create it to have? 



CONCEPT:

A weekend long contact jam.



PRINCIPLES AND VALUES THAT GUIDE US:

cultivating awareness, a spirit of improv, curiosity, connectedness, play,
response-ability, ecological awareness, drawing on local resources,
growing and evolving the form of contact improv,
appreciation,
embracing mistakes as opportunites to learn and get creative...
basically embodying the form of contact improv in all our interactions :)

Getting sleepy... Time to turn in... thoughts?