We Rise and Fall Together | Contact Improv | Nathan Dryden | TEDxSaltLakeCity

Contact Improvisation is a dance form that evolves from spontaneous communication between moving bodies in physical contact. Touch, weight, momentum, balance, and flow give it a continuously emerging shape. It’s researched, taught, and performed across the world by dancers from the very birth of the form in 1972: like Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith and Lisa Nelson. And carried forward by new generations of “contact-ers“. Contact Improv is open to all curious minds and bodies around the globe. From professional and social dancers, differently abled bodies, and people all ages, shapes, colors, genders, and identities, to non-human dancers like dogs, foam rollers, and trees. Contact Improv gives us all the freedom to explore connected movement and learn how to be human together. Choreography and Performance: Nathan Dryden in collaboration with Cole Lehman, Jasmin Stack, Joaquin Galvan, Nancy Carter, Kiera Lucich, Yasin Fairley, Dat Nguyen, Cheryl Neufville, Nora Lang Music Performance: David Bower Nathan Dryden embodies a lifetime of wisdom gathered from studying, teaching and performing dance professionally around the world. He completed his MFA in Modern Dance at the University of Utah – with a thesis that illuminated the practice of passive sequencing as a way to bridge the steps between improvisation, setting choreography and final performance. He’s gathered a group of friends from different disciplines to share his love for contact improvisation dance and show how it can teach us all to listen to and move with each other in an ever-changing world. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at