Contact Improv, Part I

I was sitting in the dentist's chair the other day, having my teeth cleaned for the first time in 5 years. (Note to Django: this is just the beginning of the subjects on which I will suggest you do as I say, not as I do.) I remembered, too late, that -- hearing about my reasons for avoiding the dentist -- my new dentist encouraged me to bring my iPod. She said it'd helped lots of other people block out some of the less comfortable sounds, if not smells and pain. I could hardly imagine even good music mitigating my discomfort, but I'm writing now to tell you that the combination of the bad radio and the ceiling tiles sent me off on an unanticipated mental journey -- and that worked a nice distraction.

It was the bad radio station that got me (silently) complaining toward the ceiling tiles. But it was the ceiling tiles that got me thinking. They weren't your usual acoustic tiles, with evenly spaced holes all over. They had multi-colored and unevenly dented spots, ones that looked like garden eels had peeked out in one direction or another and then thought better of it, leaving a little impression and stain as a proof of the visit. The garden eel impressions reminded me further of the leafy and weedy sea dragons I had just seen at the Academy of Sciences, which -- wow -- was powerful enough to transport me all the way back to my first few years in San Francisco.

Have you ever seen a leafy or weedy sea dragon?

I came to San Francisco in 1991, on the run from a broken heart. I think I had been here all of once prior to moving, so it's fair to say I had no idea what I was getting into. And it took me a couple years to love the place. I remember very clearly the first time I realized I actually did. I was on an airplane, about to land at SFO, and the whole of me began to happily hum: I'm home.

Back then, San Francisco was a much easier place to be broke and relatively aimless. It was just after the big earthquake and just before the dot.com boom. Rooms in shared houses rented for $250/month, and there were more people walking the street wearing their hearts where you could see them -- on their sleeves, waists, boots, hats, skin. I wasn't really one of them (yet.) But I was an admirer. (Still am.) Somewhere between my time in love with the polyamorists and the free jazz movement, I developed a serious crush on the contact improv dancers. I never really learned to do it myself, but the idea of it lives in me and bubbles to the surface all the time these days.

In the most literal terms, I contact improv dance with Django all the time, but it's the figuritive terms that compel me -- and keep me up at night. How can we stay in touch and fluid at the same time? How can I always be a dynamic home base?