is an activist for relational intelligence through improvisational dance practices that began with the emergence and development of Contact Improvisation (CI) in 1972, a path provoked by Steve Paxton. Nita has remained on the cutting edge of this practice, training generations of Contact Improvisation practitioners and teachers worldwide, and now is the only remaining teaching member of the initial core of Contact Improvisation pioneers.

As a performer, choreographer, and dance theorist, Nita Little received her PhD in Performance Studies in 2014. She returns to international touring invited by dance companies, festivals, conferences and universities to teach, lecture, and compose emergent events. Her writing investigates ecological actions of attention and the creative potentials present in entangled relations. She directs an international network of dance research ensembles – the Institute for the Study of Somatic Communication (the ISSC).

This workshop will take contact dancers into materials at the forward leading edge of Nita’s work in the physical and relational practices that support extraordinary levels of communication in Contact Improvisation as it moves beyond duets and into more complex formations. She is working now, on what that will be and will produce a description in time.