Chisa Hidaka, MD began practicing contact improvisation (CI) in the 1980s, when she was a dancer performing for several independent choreographers including Pooh Kaye, Mark Dendy, Bill Young, Sally Silvers, Marta Renzi and others. Venerable CI and dance improvisation teachers have included Nancy Stark-Smith, Nina Martin and Cynthia Novack. Chisa has taught CI and facilitated the Underscore through Movement Research and independently in NYC since 2017. She previously served on the Board of Earthdance where she facilitated jams and other CI events. With a background in orthopedics research, she has worked at the Hospital for Special Surgery since 1995, and taught Anatomy at her alma mater, the Barnard College Dance Department, since 2007. Her mischievous dancing is deeply informed by over a dozen years of underwater dance improvisation in the open ocean with wild dolphins through her Dolphin Dance Project (www.dolphin-dance.org).
