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Historical Events that Impacted Contact Improvisation Essay example

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Historical Events that Impacted Contact Improvisation

Dance has evolved greatly throughout the centuries. It began with ballet and has led up to contact improvisation. This form of dance begun in the early 1970's and was started by a man named Steve Paxton and a group of postmodern dancers from New York City. Contact improvisation is a partnering form of dance and known as the art of moving spontaneously with a group or another person. This form of dance does not require the exact set of traditional skills of other dance form, it doesn’t have a technique that could be studied, and it is practiced in order to accomplish the highest potential. Contact improvisation came at a great time period, which of course was the 70's. The …show more content…

Although the Watergate Scandal was an important event during this time period I don’t think it greatly affected contact improvisation.

Another important historical event that occurred during this time period was the end of the Cold War. In 1975, under President Gerald Ford the US joined the USSR and thirty-three other countries to sign the Helsinki Accords that each member of nations vowed to respect human rights and boundaries. I think the whole end of the Cold War greatly affected this dance. I think by using contact improvisation it sort of represented people’s feelings better by being able to interact with each other. So by using contact improvisation I think the dancers were able to get their point across to the audience better. Therefore, the end of the Cold War was probably very important for contact improvisation and expressing yourself.

Finally, the Vietnam War was another important historical event going on in the 1970s. When Nixon was president he sent American troop strength in Vietnam. He also set up a program of Vietnamization, which was decreasing the number of U.S. troops, offering only advice and assistance. The U.S. troops eventually returned from Vietnam but the U.S. did not stop with its involvement in Vietnam. Nixon then extended the war into Laos and Cambodia, there is secretly authorized bombing in order to

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