Starting with the Monday Jam

The San Diego Monday night jam has been supported by various dancers and professional teachers with a longstanding CI practice, for over 15 years. These have included Anya Cloud, Justin Morrison, Jess Humphrey, Emily Aust, Tim Richards, Leslie Seiters & Ron Estes, among other guest artists.

First initiated sometime in the late 90s by Lower Left, one of San Diego’s few post-modern dance companies, and hosted at the former Sushi Performance & Visual Art venue, downtown, after a long hiatus Justin Morrison, Leslie Seiters, and Ron Estes, collaborated to restart the weekly Jam following their relocation from the bay area to San Diego. For a short time thereafter it was hosted at San Diego Dance Theater and soon moved to Stage 7, in North Park, where it thrived, in the small back studio, for around 10 years.

During COVID, we took a break. Anya Cloud moved to Boulder, CO. Once we were permitted to re-open venues, Justin Morrison resumed a masked and open-air jam. Later, the pre-jam class was also resumed, taught primarily by Justin, and occasional guests.

As of Jun 12th, 2023 activities moved from Stage 7 to The Light Box Theater, at San Diego Dance Theater in Liberty Station.

In April 2023 Justin suspended indefinitely the CISD class and jam, citing a lack of Custodian and community support for its production, and the termination of our lease for Monday night with San Diego Dance Theater. Although attendance remained strong, the event relied almost entirely on the efforts of Justin and a few, sparse volunteers. Read more about this here in an open letter to the community and Jam Custodians about why the CISD produced class and jam were suspended.

Who’s In Charge?

Previously the Monday Jam was maintained by a collective of “Jam Custodians” who saw to collecting fees, maintaining the space, and welcoming and assisting visitors with understanding the Jam Guidelines and Registration process.

Efforts were made to make the jam management and operations as transparent as possible. For this purpose, a Trello Board was maintained and made publicly available with ongoing notes, meetings, and references to our process.

Connecting with Us: All the Socials

Primary communication is carried out on the Contact Improvisation San Diego Facebook Group, which is a public and open forum to discuss and promote San Diego, Baja MX, and adjacent contact-related events. Join Now

We maintain an Instagram account with weekly updates posted at @contactsandiego

There is a TikTok account also @contactsandiego that we intend to update soon with fun excerpts from video recordings taken from the weekly Monday Jam. Note: we need help with this and social media management in general so if you’d like to volunteer to share the fun, contact us!