The Glasgow Jam

Recently Kerkyra K asked in our WhatsApp group if people could recommend some good reading material on CI. What followed was a treasure chest of reads suggested by various TGJ community members. First  John F  mentioned  Contact Quarterly  which has historically been the go to place for writings about contact improvisation and has dedicated lists of  resources  and  recommended books . John F   also recommends Caught Falling by David Koteen and Nancy Stark Smith the art of waiting by Martin Keogh Jo D  recommends Sharing the Dance by Cynthia J. Novack Inclusive Dance by Katy Dymoke Riccardo V recommends Somatics of Contact Improvisation by Michele Marchesani Taken by surprise:a dance improvisation reader  edited by  Ann Cooper Albright & David Gere Resistance and Support: Contact Improvisation @ 50  edited by  Ann Cooper Albright and Carolyn M recommends Contact Improvisation by Cheryl Pallant Danc...

We have developed and published a new version of participants guidelines for our classes and jams. Please make yourself familiar with them before attending any of our events. The link is  https://theglasgowjam.blogspot.com/p/participants-guidelines.html

Alasdair S took the initiative to get a new batch of  The Glasgow Jam t-shirts based on the existing design with TGJ's logo by Dominic Snyder on the front / " TheGlasgowJam " on the back. A few similar t-shirts that from the past have been figuring around the community. Ali ordered 25 dusk coloured t-shirts from Out of the Blueprint , a  Social enterprise eco print studio in Leith. Penny C kindly collected and brought them to Glasgow a few weeks ago. Many have already been sold to community members but some are still available. The cost is £18 per t-shirt and sizes available are XS, S, M, and L. Below is Riccardo V wearing a t-shirt front and back for your preview and enjoyment. If you would like to order a new t-shirt, please email theglasgowjam@gmail.com or ask Alasdair S or Riccardo V at one of our next events.

After repeated suggestions from Penny, Alasdair sets us up with other contact improvisation communities in Scotland, including the Edinburgh CI community, to put together and keep up-to-date a calendar of dance improvisation and contact improvisation events across Scotland. You can find our new Scottish CI Calendar at:  https://theglasgowjam.blogspot.com/p/scottish-ci-calendar.html  

If you have never done Contact Improvisation, you can get the feeling of what it is through this beautiful video our jammer Kieran Shannon put together. Rigour, awareness, presence, play and lots of fun!

Hello Everyone, Welcome to the post-winter era! As the snow finally stops falling, we hope that the only falling that happens for a while will be of bodies in the jams (along with rolling, flying, and ALL THE MOVES!) as we all start to come back to life a little more each day...;-) We had a fantastic workshop with Tony Mills in March. The clarity and precision of Tony's approach helped unravel the mystery of the hips in CI and helped us to fly. Super big thanks to Tony and to everyone who came ;-)  And we have more attractions coming our way. First of all, the upcoming jams, with an exciting variety of locations and practitioners! As always please note the times and locations as these do vary. Here's our schedule leading up to the summer break (July/August): JAMS: 28 April (Saturday) 10.30-14.00 CCA / Theatre: Special BIG Jam with Nina Enemark and sound by Zoe Katsilerou. There will be more space to move so join us in spreading our spring wings and spread...

‘TO BE THE APPLE’ ‘When an apple fell on his head, Isaac Newton was inspired to describe his three laws of motion. These became the foundation of our ideas about physics. Being essentially objective, Newton ignored what it feels like to be the apple.’ These are the opening lines by Steve Paxton in the film  Fall after Newton  which we watched together this month. It was great to be reminded about the original curiosity behind the development of Contact Improvisation. It was also very inspiring to watch the birth and development of this form, mainly through the bodies of Nancy Stark Smith and Steve Paxton. So January is already behind us… the first jam of the year with  Monika  and a great two day workshop with  Nerea  and  Zoe  are also already in the past. Beautiful work, great discoveries and fun…. Thanks girls ;-)   We are moving on towards the light… We have more exciting opportunities coming up. Here is what’s...

Dear Jammers, We,  Nina Enemark   and  Monika Smekot,   are very excited and honoured to be writing to you as the new co-directors of  The Glasgow Jam. Big Thank You to co-founder of TGJ  Penny   Chivas  and co-director  Laura   Gonzales  who put their hearts into taking care of this special space. Thanks for your dedication, perseverance and creativity. We wish you all the best and look forward to continuing to dance together! We also want to join Penny and Laura in thanking outgoing board members  Rosina Bonsu  and  Ron Montgomery  for all their support for the jam over the years. We are very pleased to welcome  Emilia Sosnowska  as a new member of the board, joining  Sheila McCubbin  and Emmie McKay. *************   We have been quite busy recently finding our feet in the new roles and are excited by the wind of change coming to The Glasgow Jam. This year we wou...

Dear Jammers, Well... How to begin... And how to end ... Laura and Penny are stepping aside from the running of @TheGlasgowJam, and the jam this month is our last. For Laura, this represents the work of the past two years, and for Penny, the last four. While we are looking forward to other projects (and to continue dancing), we would like to acknowledge all the support the community (that is, each one of you) has offered us to make the jam happen, and most importantly the dancing and playing that has taken place as a result. We would also like to warmly thank past and present board members over this time: Kim Simpson, Lindsay Keenan, Rosina Bonsu, Ron Montgomery, Sheila McCubbin, Emmie McKay as well as, of course, Tom Pritchard, who, together with Penny, is one of the founding directors. We also thank our facilitators, who have led us brilliantly, creatively and safely into jams. We are very grateful to Dominic Snyder for our logo, which we wear proudly on our t-shirt...

Dear Jammers, Well, in some sense, the end is upon us, and in another the start is drawing close. We are currently preparing to change jamming hands to Monika Smekot and Nina Enemark... so do stay tuned in for celebrations and also beginnings. Dominic Snyder has also had a fantastic exhibition at The Glad Cafe, selling several pictures at the opening... but if you missed it - it's now packed up. There are but three jams left with Penny and Laura at the helm. December 17th will be Penny's last jam after FOUR years of running with both Tom Pritchard and Laura Gonzalez so sure to be a lively one! Also in December, Penny is off to Tehran, Iran to volunteer teaching a two day CI workshop, and then into the first women's capoeira event in this country. There is an Indiegogo campaign if you'd like to help, or even share on social media (although writing "Dance" everywhere on Facebook would not be overly helpful - "movement" is a more appropriat...

Dear Jammers, As some of you may be aware, we (Laura Gonzalez and Penny Chivas) recently made the decision to step away from directing the work of @TheGlasgowJam.  We would like to publicly thank everyone who has supported us during these years, Four for Penny and two for Laura. We would also like to offer our appreciation to Monika Smekot and Nina Enemark who are stepping in and up to guide the direction of @TheGlasgowJam from January 2018. Whilst there will be time over the next few months to both celebrate the achievements of @TGJ and welcome in this change of dancing hands, we make this public now so that 2018 can begin to be shaped and directed by these two capable dancers. Stay tuned! This month, we had a fantastic 3-day workshop with the internationally renowned theatre maker, mover and all round wonderful practitioner Nicolas Nuñez from Mexico. Those of us who were there know how life changing it was and we hope to work with him again sometime. We also opene...