Nancy Stark Smith

Nancy Stark Smith first trained as an athlete and gymnast, leading her to modern and postmodern dance in the early 1970s. She danced in the first performances of contact improvisation in 1972 and has since been central to its development, traveling extensively to perform and teach contact and other related improvised dance work. She cofounded Contact Quarterly dance journal in 1975 which she continues to edit and produce. Her first book, Caught Falling, was released in 2008.

Mike Vargas began studying music in 1959. He started specializing in music for dance in 1978. He works as a freelance composer across the USA and internationally, performing, teaching, recording, and improvising. For the past 9 years, he has been working around the world with Nancy Stark Smith.