Steve Paxton’s Lecture in Japan

"Steve Paxton’s Lecture in Japan"

by Yukihiko YOSHIDA

Steve Paxton, the inventor of Contact Improvisation, had lecture in Tokyo. The lecture was held in Waseda University and many dancers and dance scholars gathered. Paxton lectured American Dance History briefly and demonstrated his DVD, “Material for the Spine” and his dance technic, “Contact Improvisation”
In 1964, Paxton came to Japan as a member of Merce Cunningham Dance Company and met AIKIDO. As beginning, they met this sport by chance. For example, Company members went to see Japanese boxing at that time. After this encounter, he taught how dancer thorw another dancers to the floor. At that time, he used the primitive technic of Aikiko as beginning. He learned knowledge from Orient as well as Merce Cunnigham, Martha Graham and Ruth Saint-Denis; American dance pioneers. In 1972, he founded Contact Improvisation. The original members are only 17 dancers.
At 1975, he came to Japan again as a member of the exhibiton;”Dance Now”. This exhibiton was one of representative project in Japanese post-modern dance. Trisha Brwon and Grand Union also performed. This technic got popular with this event in Japan. In this year, 2009, he came to Japan thrid time and has toured around here.
Recently, in Japanese dance hisotry, dance scholars has reviewed post-modern dance. This lecture is a part of those phenomena.