setGO is a Contact Improvisation research and performance ensemble founded in 2016 by dancers Shura Baryshnikov, Aaron Brando, Bradley Teal Ellis, Paul Singh, and Sarah Konner.  The group shares a love for whimsical, whole-hearted, virtuosic improvisation; they have been dance-making together since 2009. 

In a time when we are increasingly detached and technologically dependent, what type of communication humanizes us? What kind of communication establishes and reinforces bonds rather than isolates us? When we practice Contact Improvisation, our primal faculties are on display, which can remind us of the pure essence of human communication. Each dancer is relying on their own body, the most complex operating system we have access to, using the body as a human landscape and exploring movement in the relation to earth’s physical laws as well as a partner. We believe that CI challenges our overwhelming acceptance of media ecology, offering a respite from our dependence on virtual information. Contact Improvisation is analog versus digital. It is subversive in a time with so much digital dependence. The practice of Contact Improvisation provides an opportunity to zoom into the ecology of the body and then out to experience composition, community, and culture. We are simultaneously negotiating shared choice-making with another human, creating new languages and mode of communication with every dance. When examining the etymology of the word communication, we learn that it literally means “to make common.” With this non-verbal language, we build community through communication. 

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