Piloboli

Well, long time since I posted. Here's the skinny:

Went to my 9th Burn, Burning Man 2008. It was great. One of my absolute highlights (in addition to fornicating in the middle of the open desert) was kicking it wild style with the Contact Improv kids. It was a rocky start, but once we were in flow, we were in FLOW. I literally just closed my eyes and followed my body (and the body of my partners) through a rollicking flow of inversions, wrestles, lifts, crawls, rolls... you name it! 20 minutes later I left the floor completely out of breath and I hadn't even realised the exertion I was putting into the practice. I talked with the people, especially Renee, and he explained to me some of the fundamentals of the form.

I left Center Camp resolved to begin a Contact Improv community in Atlanta. Upon arriving back home, I followed my classic "Shoot! Aim! Fire!" routine, and emailed several people and my favorite yoga studio asking for space and time to gather. Of course, 2 hours later, after a little google research and some emails, I found out that there already is a *thriving* contact improv (CI) community right here.

Better yet, I found out that there was to be a 3-day workshop with Matt Kent, choreographer for Pilobolus, beginning in just 5 days! I signed up immediately.

Matt was the first person I met upon walking into the backstage door of Atlanta Ballet. And he quickly clarified to me that this was a dance workshop, not contact improv. No matter. It was awesome! And to me, it *was* contact improv, because, aside from like two times that we were gifted 10-15 minutes to synthesize a "piece", all the activity was improvisational and immediate. What's more strange is that out of 30 participants, I was the *only* male! Fine. I've been to the Hoop Convergence. I can handle the estrogen :)