Analytic post-modern dance uses a factual, objective, down-to-earth style that emphasizes choreographic structure and movement. The way the dancer’s body moves is more important than the meaning of the dance. Often, analytic post-modern dance calls attention to the workings of the body in a scientific way, focusing purely on the physicality of a dance. Dances are then defined as ordinary movements such as tasks and everyday work.

Steve Paxton’s contact improvisation focuses purely on the way the dancers’ bodies move against each other. The dancers use physical contact in order to explore the physical workings and movements of the body. Dances revolve around spontaneous and improvised moves that explore different and new ways to balance and move in concert with the other dancers. This follows directly with the definition of analytic post-modern dance to explore the body’s workings in a purely scientific way. Paxton displays the human body as an exhibit, a machine rather than a vehicle of meaning and metaphor in a spiritual or meaningful way as most dance seeks to. Paxton’s contact improvisation doesn’t seek to mean anything or symbolize anything. It makes no statements about politics, art, or religion. It seeks merely to display the versatility, flexibility, and improvisation of the human body in concert with other bodies.