Panel 2: Where Are We Now?

Janet Adler guides a conversation with Bainbridge Cohen, Stark Smith, and festival curator Andrea Olsen. How did 'not knowing' guide us from the beginning of our journeys? How does ‘not knowing’ guide us now?

Biographies

JANET ADLER has been teaching the Discipline of Authentic Movement in solo and group retreats since 1969. She founded and directed the Mary Starks Whitehouse Institute (1981), the first school devoted to the study and practice of Authentic Movement and Circles of Four (2013), an international post graduate program which guides people who wish to teach the Discipline of Authentic Movement. She has created two award winning films: ”Looking for Me” (1968) which is about her work with autistic children and “Still Looking” (1988) which is about the evolution of her work in the discipline.  
 
Inner Traditions International published her books, Arching Backward: The Mystical Initiation of a Contemporary Woman (1995) and Offering from the Conscious Body: The Discipline of Authentic Movement (2002). Many of her essays appear in two volumes of work concerned with Authentic Movement, edited by Patrizia Pallaro (Jessica Kingsley Press 1999 and 2007) and in Ins Nichtwissen Eintreten: Discipline of Authentic Movement, edited by Anke Teigeler (Reichert Verlag Wiesbaden 2018). Janet received a doctorate in Mystical Studies in 1992. She has been an interfaith hospice chaplain since 1999. ​

BONNIE BAINBRIDGE COHEN is a movement artist, researcher, educator and therapist, and the developer of the Body-Mind Centering® approach to movement, the body, and consciousness. An innovator and leader, her work has influenced the fields of bodywork, movement, dance, yoga, body psychotherapy, childhood education, and many other body-mind disciplines. In 1973, she founded The School for Body-Mind Centering ® . She is the author of the books, Sensing, Feeling and Action, Basic Neurocellular Patterns: Exploring Developmental Movement, and The Mechanics of Vocal Expression, as well as numerous videos on embodied anatomy, embryology, dance, and working with children with special needs. Bonnie teaches in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. www.bodymindcentering.com
​

ANDREA OLSEN, dance artist, author, and educator, is a Professor Emeritus of Dance at Middlebury College. She is author of a triad of books on the body: Bodystories: A Guide to Experiential Anatomy, Body and Earth: An Experiential Guide, and The Place of Dance: A Somatic Guide to Dancing and Dance Making with colleague Caryn McHose, along with numerous articles and chapters in anthologies.  Recent projects include continuing the Body and Earth: Seven Web-Based Somatic Excursions film project with Scotty Hardwig and Caryn McHose (http://body-earth.org) and performing “Awakening Grace: Six Somatic Tools.” She is visiting faculty at Smith College fall 2019. (http://andrea-olsen.com).

NANCY STARK SMITH danced in the first performances of Contact Improvisation in 1972 with Steve Paxton and others and has been central to CI’s development as dancer, teacher, performer, writer/publisher, and organizer. Nancy has traveled extensively throughout the world teaching and performing Contact and other improvised dance work with many favorite dance partners and performance makers, including musician Mike
Vargas. In 1975, she co-founded Contact Quarterly, an international journal of dance and improvisation, which she continues to co-edit and publish. Nancy’s work is featured in several books and films, and she has been developing the Underscore, a long-form dance improvisation structure, since 1990. Her first book, Caught Falling, came out in 2008. She continues to explore the bodymind states that are generated while dancing, the life cycle of form as it manifests in improvisation, and how any of this research can be communicated in performance and in print. She graduated from Oberlin College with a degree in dance and writing. www.nancystarksmith.com

Pre-show Slideshow

Slideshow Credits

Janet Adler, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Nancy Stark Smith, Contact Quarterly

I. Janet Adler 

Image from Looking for Me film, 1970

Drawings of Janet Adler by Rosalyn Driscoll, l979-80

Mary Starks Whitehouse Institute, l981 // Edith Sullwold, Janet Adler, Sarah White, Heidi Ehrenreich, Nora Riley, Rosalind Foz, Carolyn Sadeh (three are absent: Frances McKaig, Gwen Jenkins, and Delyte Frost)

Mary Starks Whitehouse Institute, l982 // Wendy Elliot, Anne Gosling-Goldsmith, Daphne Lowell, Rose Mitchell, Gwen Jenkins (from 1st group), Mary Ramsey, Susan Schell. (Absent: Joan Haefele Miller)

 Janet Adler 2016, Kiva Studio, Galiano Island, BC. Photo by Dirk Pueschel  

II. Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

Summer Intensive, Northampton, MA, 1987 // Photos by Robert Tobey

Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, 2016 // Workshop Tokyo, Japan // Photo by Basha Ruth Cohen

III. Nancy Stark Smith

Nancy Stark Smith and Steve Paxton, 1984 // Naropa Institute, Boulder, CO // Photo by Bill Arnold 

Nancy Stark Smith and Steve Paxton, 1980 (print 2019) // Lisa Nelson, Daniel Lepkoff, and Christina Svane in background // Performing contact improvisation with Freelance Dance // A.P.E. Thornes Marketplace, Northampton, MA. // Photo by Stephen Petegorsky 

Steve Paxton, 1978 (print 2019) // Photo by Stephen Petegorsky 

Andrew Warshaw and Stephen Petronio, 1978 (print 2019) // Contact Improvisation, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA // Photo by Stephen Petegorsky 

Nancy Stark Smith and Andrew Harwood, 1984 // New Studio, Northampton, MA // Photo by Bill Arnold 

Karen Nelson and Andrew Harwood, 1984 // A Cappella Motion Workshop, Smith College Crew House, Northampton, MA // Photo by Bill Arnold

Nancy Stark Smith and Steve Paxton, 1977 (print 2019) // Art Gallery, Provincetown, MA // Photo by Stephen Petegorsky

Nancy Stark Smith, 2007 // Underscore, Helsinki, Finland (left to right: Mirva Makinen, Ronja Verkasaio, Ulla Makinen, (hidden: Liris Raipala, Sini Haapalinna), Ville Johansson, NSS. // Photo by Raisa Kyllikki Karjalainen 

 IV. Contact Quarterly

Nancy Stark Smith and Lisa Nelson, 1980 // Cover of Valley Advocate, July 1981 // Elizabeth Street apartment, Northampton, MA // Photo by Robert Tobey

Nancy Stark Smith and Lisa Nelson, 1984 // Working on Contact Quarterly at pop-up production office // Fitzwilly’s Building, Northampton, MA // Photo by Bill Arnold

 Nancy Stark Smith and Lisa Nelson, 1980 // Working on Contact Quarterly // Elizabeth Street apartment, Northampton, MA // Photo by Robert Tobey

Contact Quarterly Editors and Contributing Editors Group, 2019 // (after a 24 hour gathering to discuss CQ's future) // Mad Brook Farm, VT, May 2019. // Back row (left to right): Lailye Weidman, mayfield brooks, Meredith Bove. // Front row (left to right): Karen Nelson, Nancy Stark Smith, Lisa Nelson, Melinda Buckwalter. // Photo by selfie 

Contact Quarterly Cover // Vol 44#2, Summer/Fall 2019 // From "Somatic Costumes," by Sally E. Dean // Photo by Luna Perez Visairas