This term can be defined as a piece of art that is created without preparation. It focuses on a wide range of art forms such as music, drama, dance and many more. It is usually referred to creating or composing something on the fly. There is a common misconception that improvisation is random or that it not thought of. However, I believe there are certain factors that aid and influence the manner in which an improvisation can come about. Some of the factors include the mood in which the composer is in, the environment and even the audience present.
According to Goldman’s I Want To Be Ready, she addresses a more specific form of improvisation which is contact improvisation. It focusses on self-readiness, which basically implies on an individual preparing themselves at any time to provide an act. It widens the range of physical possibility within the realm of dance as it leads to the innovation of new dance styles. Goldman furthermore says that the show “only began to come alive when I decided to allow myself to improvise” (26). This clearly shows that she felt as though the energy and life of the show was vibrant when she decided to break off from her choreography and decided to let her soul follow the music. This allowed her body to flow with the music, which felt more natural and hence created a better performance. Moreover, she also argues that improvisation offers a physical practice in which dancers’ ready themselves for a range of possible situations. And this increases their skill-set as performing artists.
Personally, the word improvisation resonated with me as soon as I read about it. I believe life is basically a form of improvisation. We as humans tend to react on the spot to different situations, despite the fact that the same scenario is even brought to us in a different context, we would still react to it differently. Looking at dance, when I play music, I generally tend to dance to it, and usually the dances I do follow any choreography. I focus myself on the music playing and thus move my body to the music. Whereas when I choreograph a performance, the fact that the steps are so rigid, so structured, I usually have higher tendencies to mess up when performing it. I believe this is because I use my mind to make me dance since the steps follow a chronological order. The likeliness that my mind misreads the next move happens so often. Hence, I definitely vouch for improvisation in dance because I feel a dancer is able to connect with his body in that moment specifically. This is a very crucial aspect of dance that is extremely rare, but once an individual is able to reach such a level, I believe that is the beauty of art.
Golman, Danielle. "Bodies on the Line: Contact Improvisation and Techniques of Nonviolent Protest" I Want To Be Ready: Improvised Dance as a Practice of Freedom. 94-111. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2010.
Hi Waseem,
So improvisation. It’s not merely go with the flow or dancing however you want to the music. Improvisation responds to the conditions of dancing (or demonstrating) – which bodies are in the room beside you, the size and space of the site, the political conditions of movement (there are so many cultural conventions) but it does so from “being ready” which means that one learns, over time, how dance and choreography navigate those conditions. You don’t just do whatever you want to the music even when you improvise – you bring a knowledge of a number of dance moves you might have done before, an awareness of how your body works kinesthetically — improvisation calls upon all those habituated knowledges so that when you break away from formalized choreography, you know how to respond to the conditions at hand – that’s how you’re “ready.”