Contact Improv Jam -Winter/Spring Session
-Community Supported Contact-
Contact Improvisation is dance/sport/art form involving an open-ended exploration of movement by listening with our bodies through a moving point of contact. It is a meeting point of physics, meditation and playfulness investigated within the body and in dialogue with another.
As you engage the practice of contact improv, you may learn: ease of movement, comfortable ways for your body to share and receive weight, how to cultivate awareness and listening with eyes, ears, and skin, and how to be authentic to your own dance while moving with others. No prior experience required. Witnessing and observing are welcome elements of this practice. We also offer contact improv class series each year in the fall/winter. "...dancing with somebody in an unplanned and spontaneous way, when you're free to invent and they're free to invent and you are neither one hampering the other - that's a very pleasant social form." ~Steve Paxton "Contact Improvisation is an open-ended exploration of the kinaesthetic possibilities of bodies moving through contact. Sometimes wild and athletic, sometimes quiet and meditative, it is a form open to all bodies and enquiring minds." ~Ray Chung 
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February - May, 2026
1st and 3rd Wednesdays 6:30-8pm Starts Feb 18th Currently organized by Amanda Franz and Sarai Hinkley, and hosted by them and other community facilitators WELCOME BACK CONTACT COMMUNITY! We are delighted to be hosting contact jams again! We'd love to weave you in to how we are currently thinking about the jam space. Contact Improv in central VT has a long history, being held by many beloved community members over the years; we began holding Contact Improv at The Everything Space in Dec 2014, when Sarai Hinkley started up a weekly jam, and Amanda Franz, supported by Abbi Jaffe, continued to organize and coordinated with a multitude of vetted practitioners and movement educators to support hosting weekly jams, until 2019 when the Covid-19 pandemic hit and contact was not safe or possible. Since then, various other community members have revived the central VT CI scene, including a jam hosted at Blossom Wellness Center (thank you Joanie, Tom, Jamie, and others!). Many organizers have run into challenges in hosting jams, which is why the current organizing team is looking to experiment with new ways of organizing that lay the framework for a more generative and sustainable CI community. We love this form, and it's challenging to sustain a jam. It's challenging to sustain a jam because of numerous factors, including small population size, inconsistent attendance, high rental costs, inability to adequately compensate organizers/hosts, need for various skills/insurance/etc for hosts/organizers- (including navigating harm in the community as it arises, as well as doing the back-end work to create structures/agreements that mitigate and attend to harm), and the personal impacts of hosting on one's jam experience. We'd like to invite you into a new experiment of sustainable jamming. From Feb-May, 2026, we are hosting a jam through a COMMUNITY SUPPORTED CONTACT model. We are inviting you to commit to the jam, physically and financially. We are inviting folks to show up. We know not everyone will be able to make all the jams, and we will continue to welcome folks who drop-in. But we want your support in reviving this community. We are hoping the time container of Feb-May will support this commitment. We are inviting you to think of yourself as an engaged CI Community Member. To read and commit to the agreements, as we collectively work towards making the community safer and more accessible. To help us create culture and vision ways to continue to evolve the jam, and the organizing/hosting of the jam. We are inviting folks to financially support the jam, through a "membership based model": tiered monthly payments. We need the community to support this to make it viable for the long haul, so that is can continue to exist (so that we can offer the gift of being able to drop-in). We are committed to navigating the balance of accessibility and sustainability, so drop-ins, cash payments, and NOTAFLOF will still be an option, while it does exist. We are inviting you into this experiment of community holding jam, and we'll see how this iteration works to better meet the needs of the organizers and the community. We would love for you to join us. (Thank you to all the known pre-2015 organizers: Mikey, Jaqueline, Amanda, Abbi, Amy, Jamie, and Sarai. If you organized jam space pre-2015 and weren't mentioned, please reach out. We'd love to know your story and add you to the known lineage!)
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Community Roles and Accountabilities
As a community, we have co-created roles and accountabilities for the jam host, community members and new community members.
Feedback
We are here to co-create long term community relationships over time.
As organizers, we know that feedback loops are a necessary part of every system. Feedback loops are found in nature, in our bodies and in our social structures. Often unhealthy systems have destroyed or not listened to the feedback loops that were present. We value your opinions, perspectives and wisdom.
Options for feedback: You can fill out the feedback form linked below, make a comment in the comment box at The Everything Space, speak with the jam host on a Wed night, email Abbi or Amanda and/or the jam host, or ask to speak with one of us on the phone or in person.
As organizers, we know that feedback loops are a necessary part of every system. Feedback loops are found in nature, in our bodies and in our social structures. Often unhealthy systems have destroyed or not listened to the feedback loops that were present. We value your opinions, perspectives and wisdom.
Options for feedback: You can fill out the feedback form linked below, make a comment in the comment box at The Everything Space, speak with the jam host on a Wed night, email Abbi or Amanda and/or the jam host, or ask to speak with one of us on the phone or in person.
Community Evolution Forum- currently on pause-
Contact Improvisation is a movement practice that can radically change ones' relationship to touch and interpersonal connection, which are two basic needs of human existence. While this is exciting and offers profound potential, it can also naturally have challenges.
The Montpelier CI Organizers and general community are committed to continually evolving the jam space to create a safer and more inclusive container. We do this through feedback loops, discussions, language, jam structure, personal inquiry and remaining in dialogue if something challenging comes up.
Please join us to evolve our community through our next Community Evolution Forum- a facilitated event to grow together.
All voices, every body welcome and wanted.
The Montpelier CI Organizers and general community are committed to continually evolving the jam space to create a safer and more inclusive container. We do this through feedback loops, discussions, language, jam structure, personal inquiry and remaining in dialogue if something challenging comes up.
Please join us to evolve our community through our next Community Evolution Forum- a facilitated event to grow together.
All voices, every body welcome and wanted.
Contact Improvisation and Social Justice Network
The Everything Space is dedicated to the intersection of somatics with social and environmental justice.
We are a part of a wider network of contact improvisers that are dedicated to social justice.
We are a part of a wider network of contact improvisers that are dedicated to social justice.
Learn More
Kathleen Rae's Contact Improv Consent Culture: Building of consent based culture within which to practice the art of contact dance improvisation
Richard Kim's Contact Improvisation Blog: Evangelizing, de-mystifying, supporting, and opining about my favorite post-modern art-sport
Richard Kim's Contact Improvisation Blog: Evangelizing, de-mystifying, supporting, and opining about my favorite post-modern art-sport
"I went to Contact Improv tonight for the first time. I'm not an athlete or a real dancer but it was a fantastic experience. Only the accomplished dancers did lifts or acrobatics. The rest of us established a point of physical contact and kept it moving. It was a hot evening and I was afraid it would be nasty but... it was incredibly sweet and thoughtful. No music but the sound of our feet." -Delia Robinson, age 65, after attending a contact improv jam at The Everything Space
