
This article is written by Maja Dekleva Lapajne and Norbert Sven Fö, two performing artists who have been considering improvisation as their key area of research and work for more than twenty years. Improvisation also happens to be one of our greatest passions and frustrations. Maja’s background is based in theatre improvisation, while Norbert’s background originates from dance improvisation, although we have intertwined the two fields in a variety of ways over the past years, adding clown improvisation and sound-voice-music improvisation to the mix. Since 2014, we have been collaborating in a performative and writing practice entitled Life.Refabricated., which is dedicated to the exploration of artistic improvisation. In addition to regular stage encounters, we are slowly writing a book bearing the working title Improvisation, Revolution, Love. This text is derived from this book-in-progress.
Over the years of working, creating, collaborating, discussing, performing and observing in the fields of theatre, dance and clown improvisation, we have witnessed numerous attempts to define improvisation. We have witnessed the desire to tame this irrepressible method, this phenomenon, this art form, this very heart of creativity or even world-view approach to creation and existence.
The danger of trying to come up with an ultimate definition of improvisation is that we might ignore its basic premise – exploration, creativity, discovery, invention, questioning. In this trap, the attempts to reveal more about improvisation among creators and theorists have leaned towards elimination, towards talking about what improvisation is not. This allows us to, rather than rigidly defining improvisation and thus limiting it, leave a wide enough space for different approaches and manifestations, while at the same time coming further than seeing improvisation as almost everything or anything.
This time the two of us have decided to write about what improvisation is. It is not our aim to provide a complete list of definitions, but to reveal that improvisation covers a variety of things, and that it can cover many things that we have not considered so far. Each definition allows us to use it, learn something new, open up new fields of research, see new concepts or even find new ways of improvising. This way improvisation is no longer just anything, it is this and it is this and it is this. However, it is also something unimaginable, something that has not yet been put in words, something that has not been practised yet. Each of the following paragraphs within this article will provide one definition of improvisation. So, let’s start with the first one already at the end of this paragraph: improvisation is something that is constantly being invented.
Part of the constant reinvention revolves around the ongoing observation of the state within oneself, one’s surroundings, between one and one’s surroundings. Observing the state of being means noticing thoughts, emotions, weight distribution, depth of breath, the architecture of the venue, changes in light, the positioning of chairs, the creaking of the floor, who is coughing in the audience, what we have brought to this temporary community, how many kilometres away a war is raging, how many of us have access to medical assistance, what the weather is like, how anxious we are about climate change, how we perceive love. The situation is constantly changing and, at the same time, observing the situation raises the question of what we are going to do with it. This creates a space for emergence, a space for invention, a space for rebirth. Improvisation is working with what there is.
Improvisation is emergence.
Improvisation is bringing a moment to life. It is composing music that emerges from the multitude of sounds and silences that are already present. It is the construction of a stone statue that has been there all along, however, the top layers had to be removed for it to become obvious. It is to put on display the unspoken pink elephant in the room. It is to add the missing piece of the puzzle with great precision. It is to perform stage gestures that reveal what is already among us. It is the feeling that something is in exactly the right place, that it happened at exactly the right moment. That it was actually already there, it was just a matter of noticing and making a tiny movement, a precise gesture, a turn of attention, a quick catch of a thought, a gentle opening of a feeling, a simple stating of the obvious. Improvisation is helping the moment to come alive, to reveal itself in all its content. It is a surprise and at the same time it is not a surprise at all. It is recognition.
Improvisation is making an event out of a moment. A moment becomes an event when it invents its documentation.
Improvisation is the catalyst of what is between us. A catalyst allows chemical reactions to take place under conditions that require less energy than the same conditions would require without a catalyst. Improvisation is a place of heightened attention. This attentiveness attracts the surrounding situations, themes and spaces to join the field created by improvisation. An impulse arises from the tiny touches between the different spaces, and this propels the entire situation in a direction where all these spaces are present and connected at the same time. If this were to happen without improvisation, it would take a lot more energy and time.
Improvisation is a meeting place. It gathers everything that is within us, between us and in contact with us: fragments, themes, ideas, events, feelings, movements. Improvisation also detects and gathers what we bring unconsciously. It gathers and connects, while remaining open to different ways of connecting, without encapsulating the whole. Improvisation is permeable, it keeps evolving, it is constantly breathing, it is alive.
We usually talk, write and think about improvisation as an unsustainable thing. We honour the fact that it is alive, that it happens in the moment and that it disappears the moment after. The fact that it is unrepeatable makes it precious. It is the sense of transience that enhances the pricelessness of the moment. Improvisation is constantly dying, passing, disappearing, in which the vividness of the moment and life itself stands out even more.
Let’s see what happens if we state the opposite. Improvisation is sustainability. First of all, because there is no pretending that things, events or lives can be repeated. Improvisation does not hide an ever-present transience. And secondly, because improvisation is the transformation of a moment into an event. Improvisation is working with what is there, and to do so, we need to – first of all – uncover and acknowledge what is there. It is not about bringing an existing product from another place and time and inserting it into our lives, ignoring what is here and now. Improvisation is about revealing and playing with what is already among us. It is about acknowledging the ground we are standing on and opening the door to whatever can grow from it. Improvisation is bringing moments to life, calling out loudly that they exist. And that we exist. In this way, improvisation leaves endless traces, touching and co-creating our fleeting lives and the lives yet to come.
Improvisation is unrepeatable and full of repetition. Something in improvisation is repeated, otherwise it would not be recognised as improvisation. At the same time, it expands and densifies through repetition, and through this it gets embedded in time. Improvisation feeds on revisiting spaces, gestures, sounds, movements, words, modes and relationships. With each repetition we gain a deeper insight, a wider field to play with and new meanings. At the same time, it is repetition that produces difference. Repetition lets us know that we have been somewhere before and that we will be somewhere else one day. Sometimes improvisation repeats that which is not yet fully processed and played out, that which is still unexplored, that which is potent for cognition. Re-visiting is what makes the question Where else? possible.
Improvisation is what keeps going. Improvisation is continuation.
There is a trap in every move and in every decision. Thus, there is a trap also in writing about improvisation affirmatively. Writing affirmatively about improvisation can be seen as a glorification of improvisation, an ideological praise of improvisation that is supposed to infuse the entire life. Moreover, such an approach can also suggest that the two of us are masters of improvisation, and that every improvisational act we do enacts at least one of the given affirmations of improvisation. Of course, this is not the case. Our decision to write affirmatively comes as much from countless failures, vulnerabilities, insecurities and doubts as it does from full-blooded wonderful experiences, masterful gestures and sparkling flows. It comes both from sometimes extremely short and at other times prolonged encounters with these definitions of improvisation. Affirmative writing creates a polygon in which definitions can be tested, rejected, confirmed, contradicted and experienced in numerous ways. In trying them out we can fail over and over again, fail better each time, or perhaps realize we no longer need them, or maybe even find new definitions as we practice. Improvisation is practice.
Improvisation is intangible but touchable. Just because something is not graspable it does not mean that it is not there. You can touch it and you know, you feel, that it is there because you are in contact with it. Tangible means that you know the thing to the extent that you can hold onto it, you know its shape, its overall size. Grip is functional, and as such it often reduces touch to its usefulness. Improvisation cannot be limited by functionality, it cannot be instrumentalised. If we do instrumentalise it, it slips away from us. We are left with an empty shell in our grip.
Improvisation is nomadism. It is constantly moving between different territories, yet it belongs to none. It is committed to the path it creates as it moves from one territory to another and to the creation of the path itself. A path that emerges with each successive step. It has an orientation, but no direction nor goal. The orientation determines the direction at any given moment, but the direction and the goal do not determine the orientation.
Improvisation is the inscription of nomadism into the sedimentarity.
Improvisation is a question mark at the end of every sentence, at the end of every word of that sentence, at the end of every letter of every word of that sentence. Every definition of improvisation also raises the question of the consistency of that definition. Improvisation lies in a space in between, however, the definition brings us to an end, even if this is a temporary one. The question of whether it is really as we claim, creates a space in between, a suspension, a drift that drives improvisation. Fitting into categories and genres, reproducing existing social relations, stopping at current understandings of the world – none of this is close to improvisation. Improvisation is questioning.
Improvisation is resistance. Improvisation resists goal orientation, it resists productivity. It resists achievement. And overachievement. It resists perfection. It resists autocracy. It resists hierarchy between the different roles within an artistic work – director, choreographer, dramaturge, lead actor, supporting actor, performer, author. It resists the hierarchy between the performers and the audience and thus social hierarchy in general. It resists control. It resists single-mindedness and a one-dimensional understanding of life. It resists censorship. It resists the existing social order. However small a box we put improvisation in, however much we try to regulate it with rules, it will always create mini-spaces of freedom and small cracks, through which we can breathe and get in touch with something else.
When the two of us attend improvisational events, performances and festivals as performers or spectators, we admit to ourselves that most of the performances don’t touch us. In practice, we achieve and unpack rather little of what is otherwise sparking in the idea of improvisation. A lot of conventionality creeps into impro events, and the more we try to venture into completely open improvisation, the more we get caught up in unquestioned habits and conventions. Improvisational events are often failed attempts and we rarely see the wonderful blossoming of the improvisation’s potential. Improvisation is an utopia.
Improvisation is admitting the obvious.
This writing is a dialogue: between the two of us, between the two of us and what we have written, between the two of us and our readers. Dialogue opens up a space in-between, in which nuances are more important than extremes. A space where things are made meaningful, layered, unfolded, grown, made visible. Improvisation is a dialogue. It is fed by contact and connections. This text is created in dialogue with you, the readers. Now. Improvisation is a dialogue with the now. It also incorporates the clumsiness of our attempts to translate Slovenian word games concerning the word “now” into English. Right here, right now. This very gesture. We are also in dialogue with the expert language, which we know as experts by experience, experiential experts. With the acquired knowledge of expertise comes a language that is not necessarily an academically theoretical language, but an improvisationally theoretical language. Improvisation is a theory of the now and of being in dialogue with the now. Improvisation is correspondence. You choose a correspondent, a penfriend – the world, a co-performer, a friend, a text, a reader, and you send a proposal to the chosen correspondent. Let’s say right here, right now. We invite you, the reader, into a dialogue, we invite you to observe and question the presently proposed definitions of improvisation.
Improvisation is tenderness and teasing.
Improvisation is contact. It takes place within the space between everyone involved. Everybody present has an influence on the course of the improvisation. The improvisational event is different because of each person who is present. Improvisation is closeness. Everyone involved comes closer as we witness exploration, not-knowing and discovery together. It may seem that sometimes closeness is linked to similarity. It might seem that the greater the similarity, the greater the closeness. Sometimes we want to become similar to others for the sake of getting close, for the sake of connecting, for the sake of belonging, for the sake of not being far away and alone. But closeness is not merging, it is not sameness, it is not oneness. Closeness is the closeness of differences. Everything and everyone are welcome in improvisation. We don’t need to be in a certain state, nor do we need a certain background, nor do we need to neglect, hide, silence or put aside a part of ourselves in order to experience an improvisational work of art. Improvisation invites the audience into the experience with their whole being. It is constructed with all of our particularities, oddities and vulnerabilities. It accepts all parts of us, the socially acceptable and the outcasted ones. Improvisation is a collective admiration of the wonders of life.
Improvisation is co-creation and coexistence.
Improvisation is inclusivity. Improvisation happens in the willingness to include what is happening in and around oneself. We often want to cover something up or erase something. For example, stage fright, the fear of exposure, the shame, the moment I need to adjust my pants, the dissatisfied spectator leaving the room, the overthinking, the desire for control, the urine leaking when I jump, the falling in love, the doubt, the use of proven tricks, the failure, the singing out of tune, the loss of contact, the disorientation, the passion. However, improvisation does not erase. Improvisation is ineradicable. It records everything and feeds on everything. Even what we want to hide, even what we are not aware of, even what we intended to do but didn’t. Of course, writing is different from live stage action. We have deleted a lot of words in this text, some because of typos, some because we have considered that something doesn’t belong in this text, others because we censored ourselves and deleted parts of the text we considered stupid, inappropriate or completely meaningless, and some because the two of us writing this text disagreed, or because we felt vulnerable. And yet we have the feeling that whatever we erased, still exists somewhere. Improvisation inspires us in a way that this text is also a permeable membrane through which readers can catch a glimpse of the erased.
We often say that improvisation is inevitable in life. But we could also say that improvisation is to play with the inevitable.
Improvisation is a precise working process with details. When it is meticulous and attentive, universes unfold in the details. The important themes and quivering situations don’t come from who knows where, from a completely external setting, or from the genius of a single performer. The details – the shy smile, the nervous footsteps, the smell of tired sweat, the way the spectator has arrived into the room and greeted us, the prolonged exhalation, the cramp in the neck, the voice cracking when a particular word is spoken, the hand moving minimally in the desire to touch, the sideways glance – are the doorways to the key current themes, if only we notice and attend to them. If we manage to explore them in slow motion. Without jumping quickly from one topic to another, from one idea to another, from one stage action to something completely different. Slowly, and with microscopic attention, we open the tiny doors of detail. This deceleration endows us with feelings, discoveries and insights at the speed of light.
When we move from one detail to another, we create a certain path. This path can consist of a jump, it can meander, it can be a flyover. The transition has to be organised. As we organise it, we take into account various details at the same time, their immediate circumstances, their perception by the stage partner, the spectator, the observer. We also organise the means of transition – this can be movement, language, sight, sound… The organisation of the path between the details is called improvisation.
Improvisation is trust. Trust in yourself, trust in your stage partner, trust in your impulse, suggestion, intuition, situation, feelings, trust in the world. All this is rooted in trust in micro decisions. There is no path, there is no goal, but there is a step. A step as a micro-decision that establishes a path and an orientation. It is a step and when we take this step, we have a path as well as an orientation. The path and the orientation can change with the next step. Even if only a little, for an in-between subtlety. And we walk further. When trust weakens, it helps if we ask ourselves: “What happens if I trust just a little bit more?”, so that it is not always that big all-encompassing trust. Trust is not hope. It is not about hoping that things will happen in improvisation. It is not about hoping that we will trust ourselves. It is not about hoping for a miracle, even though sometimes improvisation looks miraculous or even writing about it seems mystical, almost religious. Trust is work. Creating and nurturing a safe space, offering support, giving time, attention, sensitivity, and compassion to each other, building a relationship, experiencing and exploring, choosing love over fear, listening, responding. Hope is in someone else’s hands to realise. Trust is in ours.
Improvisation is a lively response. It is not just reacting. It is an active response, it is always buzzing, feeling, thinking, moving, playing, offering proposals. Something is always cooking on the stove of response. A passive reaction is not enough for improvisation. Improvisation is an engaged, lively response. At the same time this does mean that it is necessarily activist.
Improvisation is a pause in the happening, a pause in the world. It can take the form of an interruption. Let’s not go on with this logic of the world. Let’s replace it with another, let’s move into a more poetic one. Improvisation is holding our breath between inhaling and exhaling. The pause appears in the form of a crack. Silent bursts. Stillness. The moment we hold our breath because we can exhale it in so many directions. The pause that trips us on the path we have set out. The pause as a shift of attention inwards. The pause as a shift of attention outwards. The pause as an entrance into the parallel worlds beside us, which we only become aware of when we choose to pause. A pause is not necessarily a stop, stillness, it can also be a loud scream. A pause can be floating in the air just before hitting the ground. A pause as surrendering. A pause as sleep and dreams that hold the key to insights.
Improvisation is letting go.
Improvisation is following.
Improvisation is noticing and doing.
Improvisation is treating a mistake as a gift.
Improvisation is presence.
Improvisation is to build according to the plan that unfolds during construction.
Improvisation is listening.
Improvisation is listening to listening.
Improvisation is persisting in the state we are in until a change of state occurs in that persistence. Improvisation dies the moment we continue to persist in the state we are in, even when we feel that a change, an impulse to act, to move into another space, another state, has arisen from the space created by persistence.
Improvisation is a detachment that is not a retreat or an escape. We distance ourselves from the situation slightly, we move just far enough from it that we are still part of it and can observe it at the same time. When improvisation dresses itself in detachment, it allows itself to dance with themes that are otherwise difficult to deal with. It creates a playful distance that actually allows us to go deeper, further, as well as closer. It is as if we are dealing with a hot topic and holding it with the gloves of distance that insulate the heat just enough to be able to play with it. Such hot topics tend to touch us personally and are also pressing in our private lives. If the private and the personal remain indistinguishably fused together, performance becomes therapy. However, in artistic improvisation, we open up the personal as a great source of material and process it performatively. We put on the glove of distance in order to touch the personal more easily and re-fabricate it into the broadly accessible, the universal.
Improvisation is a practice in detachment as well as a devoted connection to the situation.
We receive an offer, an impulse, a suggestion from the improvising partner. We approach it from various sides, tasting it, smelling it, looking at it. Then we observe the journey of the received impulse down the throat. Maybe it gets stuck in the windpipe and we cough it up. Otherwise, it goes further into the stomach, the first observations are already materialising, the partially processed impulse is already transmitting, sending back new suggestions to the improvising partner. The impulse continues its way to the intestines, winding, flowing, bubbling, jamming, emitting substances, as we continue to bring our observations to the attention of our stage partner. The impulse moves on to the final part of the processing, in which fertilizer and not waste is produced. Improvisation is processing. It is a process and it is a product.
Improvisation is diving into infinity.
Improvisation opens up a space of infinite possibilities for the next step. This can often be unbearable. It is already a lot if we notice our (un)ease in this respect. It is a lot to accept that by choosing one, two, maybe three options, we give up all the rest. It is a lot to open ourselves up to the new possibilities that choice brings. Improvisation is a journey between the finite and the infinite. We can only touch the infinite by pushing ourselves away from the finite and returning to it. We launch ourselves into orbit with a rocket/sewing needle and a thread, temporarily overcoming the gravity of circumstance and weaving the sewing needle into one or two or three possibilities, which increase as gravity loosens. And then we drift back towards the known and the finite, enriching it with a thread that has touched something else, something different, a thread that has touched infinity. Improvisation is sewing the finite and the infinite.
Improvisation is the embedding of one universe in another.
Improvisation is a path that is known, just not to us today.
Improvisation is venturing into the unknown. Improvisation is exploring the unknown to make it known. Improvisation is a detailed exploration of the known so that it can become the unknown. Improvisation is playing with the known and the unknown.
Improvisation is a practice in which we confront the unknown. Even the most familiar unknown – death. How terrifying it is not to know. How scary it is not to know where we are going. It is full of anxiety and yet we live it every day. Not knowing is the equivalent of living. And where are we going when we improvise? We are going… here. To get to where we are. To be present with where we are and how we are. To feel, to experience, to see, to hear where we actually are. To be with all that we are, without exclusivity, without pretence, without hiding, perhaps with conscious hiding, without decorations and clothes, perhaps with full ornaments that draw out the essence of the moment. In Slovene, “here” and “am” are the same word. The spatial “here” and “am” as in I am. I am here, I exist. I will not be forever. But now I am alive!
Improvisation is a question: What else is improvisation?
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This article was published in Status Magazine in August 2024.
Authors of the article: Maja Dekleva Lapajne, Norbert Sven Fö
Translation to English: Maja Dekleva Lapajne, Norbert Sven Fö
Proofreading: Sunčan Stone
The article was originally published in Slovene in December 2023 in the 59th edition of the magazine Dialogi in Maribor, Slovenia.
Editor of this edition of Dialogi: Jasmina Založnik