While it’s no secret that Buffalo harbors a thriving and innovative dance scene, it can be easy to underestimate the range of interesting performances taking place around the city. Recently, the Buffalo Contact Improvisation Community has been drawing attention for their off-beat and enthralling work staging events where multiple dancers collaborate in the moment, with no set choreography and, often, little prior contact between the performers.
As the Contact Improv community in Buffalo has begun to thrive, it has self-organized towards assuming a role in shaping the conversation about dance through the world. In an event they are calling Now Practices, a group of now more than 20 dancers will be training for 5 days in sites across Buffalo to prepare for a massive performance on the final night of the gathering. Brandin Steffensen and Zena Bibler, both from Brooklyn, NY, have been brought on to facilitate participants from Western New York, Boston, Rochester, Indiana and California. In describing the event, Nancy Hughes, a local dancer who is helping to organize the intensive, mentioned that “one goal is to survive.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgX4fIaqLi4&feature=youtu.be
The performance is being called “NOW The Show,” and will take place at Wasteland Studios in 700 Main St. at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, December 7th, 2013. Tickets can be purchased at the door for $20 or pre-sale at brownpapertickets.com under Now the Show. Additionally, the event has a kickstarter up to help defray the costs of housing and feeding all of the participants. The pitch video has some samples of Contact Improv, and there is more information about the philosophy of the Buffalo Contact Improvisation Community and the mission of the event.”
Photo credit: Anna Miller