A dancer, scholar, and a 2019-2020 John Simon Memorial Guggenheim fellow, Ann Cooper Albright is professor at the Department of Dance at Oberlin College. Simone Forti: improvising a life is her latest book. She is also co-editor, with David Gere, of Taken by Surprise: Improvisation in Dance and Mind. She is a veteran practitioner of Contact Improvisation, has taught workshops internationally, and facilitated Critical Mass: CI @ 50 which brought 300 dancers to Oberlin from across the world to learn, talk and dance together in celebration of the 50th anniversary of this extraordinary form. Encounters with Contact Improvisation is the product of one of her adventures in writing and dancing and dancing and writing with others, as is the new collection Resistance and Support: Contact Improvisation @ 50.
