Mark Young
🇨🇦Lasqueti Island, Canada
About
Mark Young began his Contact Improvisation journey in Toronto in 1997, alongside studies in Taoist Tai Chi. That year, a car accident left him with a fractured skull and a brain injury that erased his memory of his name and background, along with his balance and use of his left leg; a team of over 40 doctors and therapists was stunned by how much his recovery accelerated once he returned to Contact. He went on to study Steve Paxton's Material for the Spine under Karen Nelson and Nancy Stark Smith, with spiral movement as a focal point, and trained with first-generation Contact Improvisation figures including Karen Nelson, Alito Alessi, and Nancy Stark Smith herself. Struck by the resemblance between CI and Tai Chi in their shared emphasis on bone alignment, muscle relaxation, and spiral movement, he founded Leviathan Studio on Lasqueti Island, British Columbia, in 2010 — a dance studio purpose-built for in-depth Contact Improvisation study and teaching.