The DC Sunday Contact Improv Jam
What, When, and Where
The Washington, DC Sunday jam is a gathering to practice Contact Improvisation (CI). It happens every Sunday at St. Marks Episcopal church↗︎ on Capitol Hill, from 2:00 to 4:30 on most Sunday afternoons and from 1:30 to 4:30 on the first Sunday of each month. It's been happening almost every Sunday since around 1982 (at various locations over that time).
Everyone with a genuine interest in CI is welcome to the jam, regardless of prior experience.
Jam attendance costs $10, to cover dance space fees and other operating costs. (Bring cash or use the PayPal box in the page header, above.) Our event insurance requires that all participants sign a liability waiver.
- See the Home / Status page for current jam status
- Pay jam attendance in cash at the jam or online using the page header PayPal box, above (accepts credit cards and PayPal).
- See What Happens at a Jam and Our Monthly Underscore for a glimpse of what we do, and Contact Improvisation for a bit about the practice.
- See Sunday Jam Past for a little more background.
- See our Related Activities list for local CI-related activities
Location
The jam happens in the second-floor dance studio of St. Mark's Episcopal church↗︎:
Note: the address is South East. There's a different church at 3rd & A, NE.
- The church has a small parking lot and substantial nearby on-street parking.
- The church is around ½ mile walk from the Eastern Market metro station [Google Maps↗︎] and 1 mile from the Union Station metro.
The space has a soft, marley-covered floor. It has an adjoining dressing room for clothes and shoes, etc. The bathrooms are on the floor below and basement.
See our Contact Us page for a map and repeat of the above information.
Time
- On the first Sunday of each month the doors open at 1:30 for an Underscore. If you're new to the Underscore, please be there at 1:30 to attend the talk-through. If you're familiar with the talk-through, please be there by 2:00 for the opening circle. See Our Monthly Underscore.
- On the Sundays other than the first one of the month, the doors open at 2:00.
On these non-Underscore Sundays, being there at the start is still valued but not required, and people might trickle in between 2:00 and 3:00.
- A yoga group convenes in the dance space at 4:30, so we need to be done and clear of the space before then.
Jam Logistics
Checking the Current Jam Status: the Status Note
We keep the Status Note on the home page up-to-date with the status of the upcoming jam. We post (very rare) time or venue changes or outages there, as soon as we know about them.
Keeping Tuned In: the DC-CI Mailing List
We use the dc-ci mailing list↗︎ to share notifications about contact improv in the DC metropolitan area. Subscribe to receive emails about venue changes and special events. All members can post, but conversation is held to jam and local dance topics. See our mailing list guidelines page for details, including self-service subscription instructions. Membership is by moderator approval, but nobody is turned away if they're considerate and genuinely interested in contact improvisation.
Jam Etiquette
Contact Improvisation is based on mutual cooperation rather than control. Good dances as well as general jam wellness and safety depend on respecting each other's boundaries - please read.
The regular Sunday jam is open to all and loosely organized. It is not a class, but you can become acquainted with the practice by dancing with us and asking questions. See What Happens at Our Jam for info.
The first Sunday of each month is special - a good opportunity to get acquainted with the jam. We conduct a more organized session, called the Underscore. For the Underscore sessions it's important that people previously unfamiliar with it attend an orientation talk, just after 1:30. In general, the score depends on everyone arriving and ready by 2:00 for the opening circle. For more details, see Our Monthly Underscore.
While the first Sunday Underscore is a good opportunity to get acquainted with the jam, anyone interested in practicing CI, or just seeking a glimpse of it in practice, is welcome to all sessions. You don't need previous experience to join us, just considerateness and curiosity to explore contact improvisation.