Contact improvisation. Une bibliographie franco-américaine

Abstract

This bibliographic article proposes to draw up an inventory of the publications dedicated to the contact improvisation, an experimental form of movement initiated in the United States in 1972 by the choreographer and improviser Steve Paxton. From the beginning, under the impulse of her first practitioners - especially Nancy Stark Smith and Lisa Nelson, who founded the magazine «Contact Quarterly» - contact improvisation is the occasion for a major literary production, between dancers who seek words to describe their experiences. In this bibliography, one will find a reference to the various magazines, articles, books that emerge from their shared words; as well as a mainly Franco-American selection of academic publications dedicated to this form of dance, from the doctoral thesis of Cynthia Novack dedicated to contact improvisation and the American culture of the movement until the explosion of dance studies (anthropology, comparative literature, physiology, philosophy) devoted to it today.