189
Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices
Volume 6 Number 2
© 2014 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/jdsp.6.2.189_1
Malaika Sarco-ThoMaS
Falmouth University and University of Malta
touch + talk: Ecologies of
questioning in contact and
improvisation
abSTracT
This article explores the potential of the touch + talk score to act as a framework in
which to articulate and open up dance practitioners’ questions underlying the prac-
tice and performance of contact and improvisation. Guattari’s model of three ecolo-
gies is used as a reference point from which to identify how a practice of questioning
is significant to improvisational modalities in dance as well as wider practices of
relating to social, mental and physical spheres of thought. I suggest that negotiat-
ing contact with another through physical and verbal questioning can be a route
towards articulating our emerging understanding of current improvisation practices
and makes visible the ethical practice of encountering another.
coMMEnT
When I believe I know where down is, I am always wrong!
Only gravity has that information.
If I am not asking gravity for the direction of down, my idea cannot be correct.
In this work knowledge can only be a question!
What a relief!
(Lepkoff 2008)
kEywordS
ecology
touch + talk
walk + talk
transversality
Levinas
dialogue
Guattari
ethics of touch