i started this while the sunday jam was without a home, and though we seem to have landed nicely, the material still seems revealing of our process.

Washington DC has a valuable creative movement resource, a Sunday Contact Improvisation Jam, and we are looking for a new home. We feel, from what we understand of the Dance Exchange, that there is some common ground that might be welcomed. In particular, we have been discovering how to make our contact improvisation jam more accessible to a broad range of people. It is our success with that, and the extraordinary container we've created for improvised dance, that i want to describe.

The DC Contact Improv Jam has been held weekly on Sundays for over twenty years. During that time our attendance has fluctuated, and we have struggled to identify and support people interested in joining. It is only lately that we've come to some confidence about our handle on this issue, with some valuable discoveries.

In the course of trying various things, including structured warmups, informal lessons, and other guidance, we experimented with a score that nancy stark smith has been developing, the _underscore_. A few of the regular jammers were acquainted with it, and our reasons for trying it were as much out of curiousity as from expectations of particular benefits. In practicing it our jam has changed in significant, positive ways.

One of the most noticable results is a distinct increase in the continuing return of relative newcomers to CI. They typically report that they found themselves getting involved more easily than at other jams. All reports are that this is not at the expense of experienced jammers, who also report a rich experience, with a greater tendency to ensemble, ease and engagement than in a typical jam. (Of course, some jammers may not favor this kind of mileu and, rather than speaking up, just not show up. This report is all from anecdotal evidence and attendance trends.)

This response might be expected with any addition of any suitable structure, and is valuable in any case. The bonus, here, is that the underscore practice seems to help all of us orient to the common ground of CI, between the extremes of a technical and a personal focus. The underscore draws its participants' focus, in both explicit and implicit ways, to the phenomenon and diversity of connection in improvisation, whatever the particulars of the connection. This focus, and the way it's fostered, seems to help, a lot.

Over time, as we have continued this practice, we have noticed some changes in the character of our regular, non-underscore jam sessions. Dancers interconnections tend to be more "permeable", shifting more fluidly and retaining personal momentum as their situations change. Duets seem more easily both found and released, in their time. Ensembles tend to more commonly coelesce and carry across various groupings in the room. The art of finding and playing with various connections, and not just being in particular dances, seems to have more room to grow, and with it the vitality of the jam as a whole.

For practical results, attendance at our jam has been more consistently solid, for a more sustained period (ramping up, essentially, since we instituted our practice of the underscore). We generally have between 10 and 20 attendees, in contrast to a common attendance of 4 to 10 in the prior, sparser times. The age cross section has widened dramatically, with undergraduate and graduate college students mixing with seniors in their 60s and 70s, and everything in between. This discovery of comraderie in the improv across boundaries - of age, ability, occupation, and dance focus, which so commonly separate us in everyday life - is rare and yummy, something to be valued.

During the last few months, before we lost our studio, we were starting to branch out to other structures and leaders. It was exciting to see how our group took to these structures, as well. I realized that we've nurtured a collection of improvisors that are eager and able to enter a score and reliably expect to enjoy exploring it together. I believe that the group's tendency to confidence is a testimony to the environment we have fostered. I'm hoping that we can find a new residence where we can continue this growth, in an place where they might appreciate and benefit from it as much as we would from having a secure home in which to continue.

Ken Manheimer, http://myriadicity.net

[This document's current version is http://myriadicity.net/Sundry/DCJamsValue ]