The development of Contact Improvisation was inspired by a dance performance created by Steve Paxton in January 1972. Called Magnesium, it was performed with 11 students at Oberlin College and combined inner-focused movement and athleticism including wrestling and falling, jumping and rolling.[3] Over the following summer, Paxton explored this movement vocabulary further, rehearsing with a group of dancers, including Nancy Stark Smith, at the John Weber Gallery in New York City and gave the first Contact Improvisation performances which reportedly had 'a powerful emotional and kinesthetic effect on audiences.'[3]
The dance form subsequently saw a development of movement qualities from the risky rawness and danger of the initial experiments, to a period of smooth, continuous controlled flow in the late 70s and early 80s, followed by an interest in conflict and unexpected responses including previously avoided eye contact and directive hand contact.[4]
In 1975, the dancers working with Steve Paxton considered trademarking the term Contact Improvisation in order to control the teaching and practice of the dance form, largely for reasons of safety. This idea was rejected in favor of establishing a forum for communication, and the newsletter consequently created became the journal Contact Quarterly.[5] The journal reached volume 38 in 2013, and continues to be published by the nonprofit organisation Contact Collaborations, incorporated in 1978.[6]