Nita Little

Nita Little is a dance activist for relational intelligence, a purpose which began with her participation in the emergence and development of Contact Improvisation (CI). Specializing in dance improvisation as a choreographic, performance, and research form, Little shapes dancer’s physical attention in order to investigate the technical and creative potentials of embodiment. As one of the founders of CI (1972), she worked and toured with Steve Paxton. She continues to be significant in the development of this form worldwide. A performer, teacher, choreographer, scholar and theorist, Little is based in Seattle, USA and is invited to teach and lecture on five continents worldwide. With a PhD in Performance Studies, her writing investigates ecological actions of tactile attention and the creative potentials present in entangled relations. In 2016 she initiated a global project, The Institute for the Study of Somatic Communication (ISSC) populated by dance researchers working collaboratively in ensembles together with researchers from a wide variety of science and humanity based disciplines. Their collective purpose is to investigate actions of physical attention, extended cognition, and the concurrence of presence toward developing expertise in non-verbal communication.