Turning a CI Jam into a Class

This past Sunday at Awake, I hosted a Contact Improv Jam, where I offered to facilitate an intro, and the rest of the 2 hours would be an open jam. A Contact Jam is when the dance floor is open for dancers to be free to connect, dance on their own, and do a multitude of things. An intro usually consists of a circle, some warm-up exercises, and ideally sets a tone of safety, love and togetherness moving into the jam.

On Sunday at Awake in Uvita, we held our weekly ecstatic dance at 11:11am and the jam was at 2:30pm after lunch.

Of the folks who showed up to contact after ecstatic, 90% were pure beginners who wanted to try contact for the first time. They weren’t prepared for an open jam, and so I quickly had to turn the jam into a class.

Normally, I prepare a class flow, where one exercise leads to another and slowly builds momentum into a crescendo. In this case, I intuited what exercise would help based on how they were jamming. That happened several times: they would jam, I’d teach them something new, they’d jam some more, and I’d teach again. There was something unique and open about the class flow, but ultimately I prefer my fully prepared classes for their structure and continuous engagement of the partcipants.

In the end, I will know to prepare a full class next time in case a group of beautiful, eager beginners shows up to a jam.