Among the many features that are part of 33 Hawley, the Northampton Community Arts Trust building that was finally completed in early January following 10 years of construction, there’s probably nothing more important to dancers than the floor of the Workroom Theater.

The art center’s biggest performance space — 3,800 square feet — now has what’s known as a sprung floor, with built-in give to absorb impact and lessen the chance for injuries to dancers, while also enhancing performance possibilities.

It took a special effort by over 125 donors to help complete the purchase of that $84,000 floor and put it in place — and now over 60 dancers, movement artists, choreographers, and others are poised to celebrate its installation over the first weekend in May.

But the “Build-a-Floor Celebration Festival,” which takes place at 33 Hawley May 2-5, is not just about the sprung floor. A wide range of events — workshops, classes, performances, and talks — will also recognize the late Nancy Stark Smith, a pivotal figure in Northampton’s dance scene beginning in the mid/late 1970s and in the world of Contact Improvisation dance.

The busy weekend, overseen by A.P.E. Ltd., will also honor Steve Paxton, considered the founder of Contact Improvisation, a contemporary style that’s built around dancers exploring different physical relationships and pushing the boundaries of balance and support with each other.

Paxton, who died in February at age 85 in New York, was a huge mentor to Stark Smith, who before she died in 2020 had become one of Contact Improvisation’s biggest exponents, teaching the form to people all over the world. It was a style that experienced dancers and newcomers alike could practice, an egalitarian element that greatly appealed to Stark Smith.

“There are multiple levels to this event,” said Andrea Olsen, a longtime Northampton dancer and teacher who’s one of the principal organizers of the May 2-5 celebration. “Honoring Nancy and Steve is one of them.

“We also want to recognize the donors who helped us finally get (the sprung floor),” Olsen said.

In fact, Olsen notes, the Workroom floor is informally known as “Nancy’s Floor” because the fundraising was done in her name, in part because she had long been one of the biggest advocates for creating a first-rate, safe performance space for dancers in Northampton.

In turn, the successful fundraising effort for the sprung floor — Olsen says it’s the largest of its type in New England — led to 33 Hawley receiving significant federal and state grants for completing overall renovations at the arts center, Olsen added.

The floor was also funded through a matching state grant; the price included what’s called a “Marley floor” that can be installed as needed for certain dance and performance uses.

Kathy Couch, a co-director of A.P.E. and a longtime dancer, choreographer and lighting designer, notes that Stark Smith was also the co-editor of Contact Quarterly, an international dance journal for Contact Improvisation that connected dancers well before the internet came along.

Couch recalls how she’d often see Stark Smith at a local dance event, then run into her later in a bar or club around town “and she’d be working away, editing the next issue of ‘Contact Quarterly.’ She was so committed to her work — just incredible energy.”

Past and present

The Build-a-Floor Celebration Festival has also been designed to explore and celebrate other aspects of the city’s dance history over the past four-plus decades, in part by pairing younger and older dancers for some events.

The main performance, “Transmission,” which takes place May 4 at the Workroom beginning at 7 p.m., will feature “seven decades of older and younger dancers, lighting designers, and musicians,” as program notes put it, in a range of duos, solo dances, and small ensembles.

Olsen, for instance, who’s in her 70s, will be dancing with Maya LaLiberté, a Northampton and New York dancer who’s in her late 20s and previously danced at Smith College as a student and at Northampton’s School for Contemporary Dance & Thought (SCDT).

“We wanted to make that cross-generation collaboration a big part of the festival,” said Olsen.

Another collaboration includes Couch, who’s designed the lighting for the May 4 performance, working with two local teens, Emrys Maxner and Ruby Aiken, on that effort.

The teens in turn have connections to the region’s dance and arts community. Emrys Maxner is the daughter of Molly Maxner, Couch’s fellow co-director of A.P.E., and Ruby Aiken is the daughter of Chris Aiken, a Smith College professor of dance and a longtime Contact Improv dancer.

Aiken, who’s part of the May 4 performance, was also a good friend of Stark Smith and in the 1980s studied Contact Improvisation with her.

As he told the Gazette at the time of her death, “She was so gracious to allow me to go from being her student to her peer. She treated me as an equal, and that in turn created in me a real love for Northampton.”

Other events at the 33 Hawley festival include a master class led by Cameron McKinney, a New York choreographer whose work fuses elements of American and Japanese culture; he previously studied with Stark Smith and Olsen.

And Lisa Nelson, a former Northampton dancer who co-edited Contact Quarterly with Stark Smith, is returning from New York to lead a workshop; she was the longtime partner of Steve Paxton.

In addition, Olsen says Historic Northampton has helped the city’s dance community document its history over the past couple of decades in particular. To build on that partnership, a group dance performance takes place May 5 in Historic Northampton’s restored Shepherd Barn, which dates to 1805, with music by Valley percussionist Tony Vacca.

The museum “has made some really important contributions to some of our past events, so we wanted them to be a part of this one,” said Olsen.

She and other organizers have big hopes for the Build-a-Floor Festival, and they believe the word has gotten out.

“We have people flying in from Europe to be part of this,” Olsen said. “There’s a lot of history and spirit and connection to celebrate — as well as the future.”

More information on the festival can be found at apearts.org/build-a-floor-fest.html.

Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.