Chris Aiken

Chris Aiken has devoted his dance career to the practice, performance and teaching of dance improvisation and contact improvisation. He has collaborated extensively with Angie Hauser, Andrew Harwood, Kirstie Simson, Ray Chung, and Peter Bingham as well as with Steve Paxton and Nancy Stark Smith. His work seeks to connect the ecological with the poetic, linking what we have come to understand through science, design, aesthetics, dance making and the study of collaboration and community building. In addition to touring internationally, Chris is an Associate Professor and MFA Director in the Department of Dance at Smith College and the Five College Dance Department.