A hidden world: Local filmmaker reveals passion for little-known dance form
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As an environmental and public policy attorney, Sanford Lewis has spent 25 years working to bring greater accountability to corporate practices, whether urging companies to improve their environmental stewardship or advocating for greater shareholder rights and input. He's also produced a number of public-policy videos on issues such as sustainability and the threats posed by industrial chemicals.
But Lewis, 56, has another passion in his life: contact improvisational dancing, or contact improv for short. And using his experience behind a camera lens, Lewis, who lives in Shutesbury, is putting together a full-length documentary on contact improv, with a focus on how being part of the dance experience has affected the lives of several local dancers.
"Most people don't know about contact improv, and I'd like to change that," Lewis said in a recent interview at his home, where he was reviewing some of the footage that he's been accumulating for the past year and a half for "Contact Improvisation: An Intimate Dance." He's been filming contact sessions around the Valley, primarily in Northampton, but also in Plainfield and Deerfield.
"It's a dance form that's a little difficult to describe because there are several different elements to it," Lewis said. "But it's a story that has a lot of richness to it, a lot of depth, that I think will be appealing."
The simplest definition of contact improv is that it's an improvisational, free-flowing dance form in which, yes, dancers are encouraged to make contact in various ways. Started by American choreographer Steve Paxton in 1972, it might loosely be called a type of postmodern dance in which participants explore ways their bodies can move and come together.
"It's a dance form that connects people," said Lewis, who began taking part in contact improv sessions about 20 years ago when he lived in Boston. "It's built around empathy and trust, paying attention to what people are doing around you, and there are elements of meditation and martial arts to it. It's also about self-acceptance - being comfortable with who you are allows you to feel comfortable doing this with other people."
Lewis says physics and even metaphysics also come into play. Contact dancers will often roll across each others' bodies on the floor, or one partner will lift another up across his shoulders, back or chest. Dancers learn how to fall gracefully, Lewis says, how to maintain balance in unusual positions and how to trust that another person won't let them fall.
The dance can be either simple or acrobatic and a little risky, depending on the skill level of the people involved, he says.
Contact improv is also a democratic experience, Lewis says. Professionally trained dancers as well as those who have barely danced at all take part, usually in "jams" or open sessions where people of all ages gather. Dancers may move alone, or several may move together. "It's about being in the moment and letting that movement just develop on its own," Lewis said.
In one sequence in his film, Tristan Evans of Greenfield and Heather Heinz of Williamsburg dance with a Conway resident, Eugene Williams, who uses a wheelchair; Williams moves his arms and upper torso with the two in a slow, gentle sequence.
"The idea is not to worry about what it looks like," Williams says in an interview in the film. "My body is broken, but I can still do this."
Mix of people
Lewis, who attends local contact improv sessions regularly, like those at Dance Spirit in Northampton, began filming other contact participants in the Boston area about 10 years ago when he was living there. He set the film aside for several years while he was busy with his legal business. But a few years after moving to this area in 2004 and getting involved in the local contact improv scene, he began thinking of revisiting the project.
"I started by talking to other filmmakers in the area about what it would take to do this well," he said. "Basically, what everyone said was 'You really need a story, something that you can follow over a period of time.' So I began thinking about following several people who were doing this, filming them dancing and exploring what the experience meant to them."
With a laugh, Lewis says he was also told he needed a more professional camera. "I thought about it, and I said to myself, 'I'm 56 - don't I deserve a better camera?' " He purchased $10,000 worth of equipment and assembled a team of advisers, including Christopher Seward, a veteran film editor who has worked on the Michael Moore films "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Sicko" and numerous TV documentaries.
And through word of mouth, the Internet and other means, he found 12 beginning contact improv dancers willing to be filmed.
"It's a real mix of people," Lewis says. "Some have no dance experience at all, some have done other kinds of dancing. Some are yoga teachers and do this as extension of that work ... it's a uniquely Northampton film, a look at a hidden world."
Lewis has shot 200 hours of film and has begun the task, with the help of Seward, of editing it down to a 100-minute documentary; he may consider breaking the film into three 52-minute segments, based on feedback he gets from potential broadcasters. But he needs more funding - and outside help.
"I have a pretty busy day job," he points out. He figures the total cost for finishing and distributing the film will be over $100,000. He's considering putting his legal work aside for a while to work full time on the film later this spring.
Through a Facebook page [www.facebook.com/contactimprovonscreen] and a Kickstarter campaign, he's raised over $12,000, money that will go to hiring staff to transcribe interviews, edit and do other production tasks. He's had help from local college interns as well as his panel of advisors, but he wants to use professionals for the finish work and to help pitch the film to the broadcasting world.
He hopes to show "An Intimate Dance" at festivals and screenings, including the Sundance Film Festival, which has an August submission deadline.
What Lewis says he most wants to convey with the film is his belief that contact improv offers a joyful way for people to be "in touch" and become more peaceful, both physically and emotionally.
Neil Martineau, the father of one of the dancers Lewis profiles, Lisa Martineau Shaw, sums up that idea during an interview in the film: "It's too bad we can't gather together all the gangsters in the world like Moammar Gadhafi, and have them come and spend a week here, because they could leave without wanting to murder anyone."
Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.
