K.J. Holmes

K.J. Holmes:Contact/Improvisations: “What is my body doing when I am not conscious of it?”                                                                              (Steve Paxton)

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These classes are to honor practices devised by dancer Steve Paxton (1939-2024).  We will artfully enter the basic principles of the form of Contact Improvisation which he initiated in 1972, and his Material for the Spine, begun 1986.  “Forms for sensations and sensing” (Steve Paxton), these classes will offer students the opportunity to deeply enter the basic study of the physics and ecological forces dancers experience as they move in relationship with each other and themselves.  We will engage with the body in spherical space to improvise in solo, duo and with the class as an ensemble.  As we deepen into the discipline of practice, we will evolve the process as tools for dancing to witness how we make sense of being HERE.  Playing with the chronosphere and spirals of time, space and weight, we will explore what Steve has said: “Dance is the art of taking place.  Improvisation finds those places.”  Sources will include several of Steve’s writings as well as what we discover in our practices together in this living art form.

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 K.J. Holmes has been practicing Improvisational forms as process and performance since 1981. These practices have deeply informed her journey as an independent dance artist as well as an actor, vocalist, writer and teacher.  An avid improviser and creator of solo/duo and ensemble work, she has studied with the early pioneers of contact improvisation including Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith and Daniel Lepkoff, has collaborated and led work with and of Simone Forti and Troupe, and was a member of Image Lab performing the Tuning Score of Lisa Nelson.  Other collaborators include poets Julie Carr and Edwin Torres, dancer Karen Nelson, drummer Jeremy Carlstedt, trumpeter Roy Campbell, Jr., actor Keith Biesack, and the Feel Trio (violinist Ramsey Ameen and poet/writer Fred Moten).  Her influences include Body Mind Centering ® and the work of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Ideokinesis with Andre Bernard, Meisner acting work with Terry Knickerbocker, voice and singing with Richard Armstrong, Barbara Maier Gustern and Samita Singha, among others. K.J. is a certified Yoga teacher through her studies with Sondra Loring, and a certified Ayurvedic Holistic Health Counselor through her studies with Dr. Naina Marballi. She teaches at NYU/Experimental Theatre Wing and Movement Research in NYC, as well as traveling nationally and internationally teaching, performing and creating, most recently at La Manzana de Paxton in Mazunte, Mexico and at the Montreal Annual Contact Improvisation Jam.   K.J. has performed in the work of Steve Paxton, filmmaker/artist Matthew Barney, dancer/writer Karinne Keithley Seyers, music video of Mitski, Miguel Gutierrez, Xavier Le Roy, among others, as well as developing her own solo and group work. She is currently conducting a new ensemble piece, Blu/print, that began Fall 2023 with a grant from the New York State Choreographers Initiative through the New York State Dance Force and with the mentorship of composer/instrumentalist Henry Threadgill.