Dance review: ‘SMALLER’ is a lovely ode to Steve Paxton

At Performance Works NW, contemporary dancers and a musician honor the spirit and memory of a pioneer of Small Dance and Contact Improvisation.
Performers Karen Nelson and Nica Portavia in SMALLER. Photograph Photograph courtesy of Performance Works NW.
Performers Karen Nelson and Nica Portavia in SMALLER. Photograph courtesy of Performance Works NW.

We entered the space to a warm, orange-lit theater as dancers moved and socialized in the space. A musician in the upstage right corner warmed up on a mandolin while audience members chatted, greeted each other, hugged, and settled in. Artist Patrick Gracewoods sat at a small table, watercolor-painting and documenting the figures he witnessed on stage. Performer Karen Nelson set out a stool topped with “creatures,” small dark figurines, as she introduced the other performers.

SMALLER, which took place on January 17 at Performance Works NW, is a dance improvisation duet between dancers Karen Nelson and Nica Portavia, with live music. The dance, in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist musician Evan Strauss, is named for The Small Dance query, “Can it be smaller?,” from Steve Paxton. Paxton is known as the father of Contact Improvisation, a postmodern dance practice that explores movement possibility through improvised touch, shared weight, and proprioceptive awareness.

Steve Paxton performing with Grand Union on October 6, 1975. Photograph from Walker Art Center Archives.
Steve Paxton performing with Grand Union on October 6, 1975. Photograph from Walker Art Center Archives.

Steve Paxton was raised in Tucson, Arizona, and began movement with gymnastics. After a brief stint at the University of Arizona, he accepted a scholarship to the American Dance Festival at Connecticut College in 1958. There, he studied with José Limón and encountered Merce Cunningham’s work for the first time. Paxton relocated to New York and studied with the dancemakers, signing up for a dance composition workshop at the Cunningham studio in 1960 alongside Yvonne Rainer and Simone Forti. He joined the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 1961 and was inspired by Jon Cage’s Buddhist practices, later forming his walking dances based on research there.

“How we walk,” Paxton explained in a video interview with the Walker Art Center, “is one of our primary movement patterns, and a lot of dance relates to this pattern.” Paxton then joined improvisational dance group The Grand Union, which developed from Yvonne Rainer Dance Company in 1970. There, he was joined by Trisha Brown, Barbara Dilley, Douglas Dunn, David Gordon, Nancy Lewis, and others.

While many dancers that participate in Contact Improvisation are trained, Paxton was adamant that the untrained body should be celebrated in dance, and he created many pieces based on this notion. One, called Satisfyin Lover, included a series of sitting, walking, and standing motions. It was originally reviewed by Jill Johnston in The Village Voice for a piece that has since gained much notoriety:

“The fat, the skinny, the medium, the slouched and slumped, the straight and tall, the bowlegged and knock-kneed, the awkward, the elegant, the coarse, the delicate, the pregnant, the virginal, the you name it, by implication every postural possibility in the postural spectrum,” Johnson wrote, “that’s you and me in all our ordinary everyday who cares postural splendor. […] Let us now praise famous ordinary people.”

Paxton continued to create works through the ‘60s, later teaching a residency course at Oberlin College in 1972 that included “the small dance,” instructing his students to notice the tiny dance of existence that lives within the body whether one believes they are still or in motion; the small dance is always there. Paxton made additional work through the ‘80s and ‘90s, including the iconic Material for the Spine movement study, and passed away at Mad Brook Farm in Vermont on February 20, 2024, at 85 years old.

At Performance Works NW, SMALLER, performed by Nelson, Portavia, and Strauss, offered a lovely ode to Paxton and his work. Wearing casual pieces including dark parks, a pink layered tank top, a beige button-up, and a navy T-shirt with hair tied in variations of top knots, the dancers moved barefoot as a low bass tone rang out. They began on the floor, rolling through an X shape and exploring head-tail connections.

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From the start, their expertise in bodily control and knowledge of Paxton’s theories was clear in the slow and meditative movements. As the bass continued to find its hum, the dancers crossed paths, connecting to find touch points until they sat side by side, eventually laying on one another.

There is a display of trust and safety as the dancers release into each other, the music plucking in the background. Their movements changed slowly, shifting smoothly like tectonic plates, yet were unpredictable like the dismount of a bird. In a standing moment, Nelson placed her hand on Portavia’s heart and the two began to shake, inspiring chuckles from the audience.

Steve Paxton at MCAD on October 6, 1975, during a residency at the Walker Center. Photograph from Walker Art Center Archives.
Steve Paxton at MCAD on October 6, 1975, during a residency at the Walker Center. Photograph from Walker Art Center Archives.

Another moment of fun occurred when the dancers found their way to Strauss and seemed to sit or climb on his back. Nelson then placed a hand on his stomach as he began to play a large wind instrument. There were rises and falls in the athleticism of the dance— re-sets and restraints, punctuations and windstorms of momentum. As the music sped, oftentimes so did the dancers, exerting themselves and breathing heavier until they smiled, sat, collapsed, and rested.

The work was physics in motion for the performers, creating hypnotic, satisfying, and comforting scenes for the viewer. Toward the end, the musician played a cacophony of sound, incorporating a tape recorder ticking and parroting to break stillness and silence. The music faded out, marking the end of part one.

Nelson addressed the audience again in a friendly and casual tone, explaining that part two would include a series of videos of Steve Paxton and his work. “I think we are doomed to have a look at what we do…” began the text in the first video, “Fall After Newton,” with Nancy Stark Smith (1987). Excerpts that followed included “Chute” with David Woodberry (1979), “Goldberg in Vemont” with music by Glenn Gould and camera by Cathy Weis (1988), “Material for the Spine (Sitz Bones and Knees)” with Emery Blackwell from Diverse Dance Performance Research at Hanna Barn (2000), and “PA RT” with Lisa Nelson, text and voice by Robert Ashley, and camera by Penny Ward (1983).

Each video displayed the prism of humanity that Steve Paxton brought to his practice. He has a vibrancy and curiosity that are clearly communicated through the recorded video format, and the individual pieces display delicacy, athleticism, beauty, humor, connection to nature, and consequence of action. In one of the videos he is seen interacting with a series of trees whose roots are about to give way in a forest. He stands, jumps, and pushes on them, addressing them like old friends. Paxton and his dance partners are seemingly always rooted in somatic practice — listening to the self and open to learning.

When the videos concluded, Gracewood, who drew throughout the performance, stood and hung more paintings along the white curtain downstage left. Strauss began playing and tapping a banjo. Shortly after, Linda Austin joined the dance, meeting with Nelson, Portavia, and Erik Ferguson of Wobbly Dance, to continue the improvised performance.

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They were playful, Austin opening the front door to hang her body outside, then moving along the curtains. The performers interacted with vocal cues such as “brake,” engaging in a give-and-take relationship as Nelson held on to Ferguson’s chair, pushing and pulling as she moved behind it. Here, there was a break with time and space, as well as a fulfillment of it.

Later, the four performers participated in a writhing, poppy section of movement while donning sunglasses. They understood the soundscape and reacted to it in this way, while maintaining their sense of humor and following their internal rhythms. When the dance ended, they stood, holding each other in a group toward the center of the stage. The beauty of this moment was the lack of clarity between finding an end and choosing an end — and whether the musician or the dancers had initiated it. Time hung in the air, and the moment floated by.

Nelson then invited audience members, participants in the Contact Improvisation community, to join in “Standing,” or The Small Dance. Barefoot individuals stood from their seats and walked to the stage. Audio of Paxton directing the exercise began.

Almost imperceptibly, the standing evolved into a contact improv jam, many bodies melding and sharing weight. A quiet cacophony of bodies, limbs, pairings, holds, and lifts filled the stage until Nelson instructed the dancers to find a final ending.

Amy Leona Havin is a poet, essayist, and arts journalist based in Portland, Oregon. She writes about language arts, dance, and film for Oregon ArtsWatch and is a staff writer with The Oregonian/OregonLive. Her work has been published in San Diego Poetry Annual, HereIn Arts Journal, Humana Obscura, The Chronicle, and others. She has been an artist-in-residence at Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, Archipelago Gallery, and Art/Lab, and was shortlisted for the Bridport International Creative Writing Prize in poetry. Havin's dance background is rooted in classical ballet, Graham technique, and Gaga Movement language, and she is the Artistic Director of Portland-based dance performance company, The Holding Project.

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