by In the early 1970s an Arizonan ranger came to Devon as a guest teacher at Dartington College of Arts. Steve Paxton brought the latest developments in post-modern dance from New York, where he was a founding member of the influential Judson Dance Theatre, and developed a dance form known as contact improvisation.
On his repeated visits to the UK, particularly at the Dartington dance festival, founded in 1978, members of the UK contemporary dance scene flocked to see him. “There used to be this huge escape from London every Easter, dancers going down to Devon,” recalled Mary Prestidge, a dancer and member of the X6 Collective.
X6 invited Paxton to his warehouse studio in London, where in 1978 he recorded a duet, PA RT, with his collaborator and life partner Lisa Nelson. “I think that moment was life-changing for a lot of people,” Prestidge said. “We were all just completely blown away by it.”
Paxton, who died at the age of 85, was humbled by his achievements – the kind of artist who could be idolized in world dance circles, but who would still sweep the studio before the morning class. However, his influence on contemporary dance was profound.
More than creating a dance style, it inspired new ways of thinking about movement. “It was an idea to question the elements of dance,” he said in an interview with Artforum magazine in 2012. “I started doing choreographic ploys. I wanted to work with an element of people who were not impressed, a technical movement.”
Paxton’s early works took the artefact and technique of classical and modern dance to include pedestrian movement: sitting, standing, dressing, eating, smiling and especially walking. His most famous work, Satisfyin’ Lover (1967), is for a group of between 30 and 84 performers who walk across the stage, stopping to stand or sit according to a written score. Critic Jill Johnston described “the incredible range of bodies, any old bodies of any of our lives” in a work that was decidedly fair.
That same spirit of anti-elitist openness was evident in contact improvisation, a form in which two dancers play with pushing and pulling each other’s weight, rolling and falling, exploring balance and gravity. It was a dance like a stream-of-consciousness conversation, the dancers tuning into and responding to each other in the moment, rather than adhering to pre-ordered steps, influenced by Paxton’s background in gymnastics and acrobatics.
“Isaac Newton saw the apple fall,” said Charlie Morrissey, who began working with Paxton in the late 1980s. “But Steve wanted to ask the question, how does that apple feel as it falls.” Not in the storytelling sense, but acute physical and sensory awareness. “What I’m teaching is to get people to look at what’s happening,” Paxton said.
“Dance refocuses our focused minds on very basic existence, and on time, space, gravity,” Paxton later said. “It seems to me that this is a reminder of nature, of our nature, and therefore it serves us in our physical drums. It’s a wake-up call to urban areas that have been killed, an encouragement to companies where ordinary people work.”
Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Steve was the son of Catherine (née Hamilton), a bookkeeper and English instructor, and Douglas Paxton, head of security at a university in Tucson.
He first trained in gymnastics, and first took dance classes to improve his tumbling. He later studied ballet, modern dance and martial arts and, after dropping out of the University of Arizona after a year, attended the 1958 American Dance festival at Connecticut College, where he met the choreographed by Merce Cunningham and José Limón.
Moving to New York, he danced with Limón in 1959 and then with the Cunningham company from 1961 to 1964. During that time he participated in a composition class in Cunningham’s studio under the direction of musician Robert Dunn, alongside Yvonne Rainer, David Gordon, Deborah Hay and others, whose first performance, in the basement of Judson Memorial Church in July 1962, was a pivotal moment in 20th century dance. Judson’s group soon expanded, and artists included Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs, Meredith Monk and Carolee Schneemann.
Paxton co-founded the improv group Grand Union with Rainer and others in 1970, continuing to question and challenge the nature of dance and performance. He was “contrarian” according to Morrissey, “but in great ways”. Those who knew him spoke of his intensity and sharp analytical mind, but also of his great sense of humor and calm presence.
In 1970 Paxton moved to rural Vermont, to Mad Brook farm, an alternative community of artists. He built a wooden studio attached to his house, with maple floors and many windows overlooking the mountains, and grew his own food in the garden. But he continued to perform and teach internationally.
In 1986, in Totnes, Devon, he founded Touchdown Dance with Anne Kilcoyne, working with visually impaired students. That year he also started researching Material for the Spine, a detailed analysis of the movement of the spine, which aims to “bring the light of consciousness to the dark side of the body”.
Despite his interest in untrained movement, Paxton himself was a remarkably skilled dancer, his movement often economical but full of detail. From 1986 to 1992 he performed the Goldberg Variations, improvising on Glenn Gould’s Bach recordings. In 2004 he and Nelson created another duet, Night Stand.
During his career Paxton received three New York Dance and Performance awards (known as Bessies) and was awarded the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement in dance at the 2014 Venice Dance Biennale. His work was perhaps radical. , but ultimately, as he once said with characteristic modesty: “The pleasure of movement and the pleasure of using your body is perhaps the main point, I think. And the pleasure of dancing with someone in an unplanned and spontaneous way, when you are free to compose and they are free to compose and no one is disturbing each other – that is a very pleasant social form .”
He is survived by Lisa and his sister Sherry.
• Steve (Steven Douglas) Paxton, dancer, choreographer and teacher, born 21 January 1939; he died 20 February 2024
