Improvisation Might Be
This piece is a response to Improvisation Is by Maja Dekleva Lapajne and Norbert Sven Fö, an excerpt from their upcoming book Improvisation, Revolution, Love. In their writing (itself part of their 10+ year practice, ‘Life.Refabricated’), Lapajne and Fö explore possible definitions of improvisation, seeking to avoid boxing it in by delineating what improvisation is not. Instead, they use the tools of improvisation to illuminate the question in a passage that has the same sensation of lightness and committed follow-through that an improvised performance does. My thoughts jump directly from their work, and I highly recommend reading their article before this one, available at the following link:
https://refabricated.life/blog/2024/10/05/improvisation-is/
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Improvisation is what might be.
Improvisation might be the welling up of regret. Within every marble statue from which we strip away the layers in pursuit of its true form, there are one thousand other forms which are lost forever. When an improvised movement moment documents itself through speech, and we wish it had not. Like switching the basement light on, or shining a torch beneath your child’s bed, making a choice to steer the moment erases the monstrous shapes which could have been hiding there.
Improvisation might be the evasion of accountability. Precisely because it begins to fade as soon as it enters the world, the creators of improvisation need only stand behind the choices that we choose to remember. The mistakes are forgotten. The judgement we would receive in future for our antiquated social beliefs is dodged. Our artistic integrity flounders because we deny really being responsible for the strong choices.
Improvisation might be beginning.
Improvisation might be sabotage. Sabotage can be good if the dominant system is restrictive. Sabotage can be bad if the dominant system is yourself.
Improvisation might be theistic. It requires that there is something or someone: a god from whom the ideas drop, a greet tree from which we pluck only the ripe fruits that are deigned to be revealed to us, or a pantheon of ancestors, each one a past version of ourself. Otherwise, 1+1 must always equal 2, and practitioners know that 1+1 sometimes equals 3.
Improvisation might be a puzzle. A jigsaw with no image to guide us, a puzzle where each piece changes colour and shape whenever you take your eyes off it, bleeding like watercolours. A construction with pieces left over from another puzzle, and the nagging feeling that they have taken some of yours in exchange.
Improvisation might be anti-capitalist. Otherwise some of us would have figured out how to make money from it by now.
Improvisation might be undatable. “The improvised is that which eludes history”, which means we can only ever know for sure that it is old as the practice of the living practitioner who has been exploring the longest. Improvisation probably precedes writing, performing, and speaking. Probably.
Improvisation might be undatable. It just has no commitment!
Improvisation might be beginning again.
Improvisation might be the path of least resistance. Water improvises its path downstream, over rocks and around bends. Each individual droplet of water is on a unique journey, and is thrilled to not know where it will land next. But the river as a whole is predictable, and fluid dynamics is a known science. We are droplets on the path of least resistance.
Improvisation might be a socialist timekeeper. It heightens our awareness of the passage of time. It reminds us that each point in time is born equal. It demonstrates repeatedly how the privileging of some moments above others is subjective. It fervently but politely demands that we offer each moment in time equal attention. It sighs in resignation when we fail, again.
Improvisation might be the Great Library of Alexandria. It is a vast trove of knowledge, the exact amount unclear. The library was burnt down before we were born. The joy of improvisers is that our wisdom is etched into our bodies. The concomitant curse of improvisers is that our library burns down once every generation.
Improvisation might be lawlessness. It is the domain of outlaws. It is the feeling of bursting through the saloon doors, sending them swinging unpredictably as your eyes dart around the room looking for threats, unexpected allies, authorities. It is sleeping rough and scoring big.
Improvisation might be division. When half of the experience takes place internally, it presents an obstacle to sharing experience.
Improvisation might be beginning again, and again.
Improvisation might be elitism. It takes something integral to all people, something which babies do as naturally as breathing, and buries that with language and conventions. It smothers the subversive, or rolls its eyes at a familiar pattern employed for the first time by a new practitioner.
Improvisation might be a job interview. You know more or less what the questions will be, you know more or less what your responses will be, you know more or less how the energy in the room will feel. Yet you feel nervous.
Improvisation might be your flaky friend. You know the one: it’s so hard to get them to meet you somewhere. You never know if they’re running late and just around the corner, or if they aren’t coming this time. How long should you wait? They ring when you’re least expecting it. Can you afford to take this call now? But when they do drop in, the air is electric.
Improvisation might be beginning again, and again, and again.
Improvisation might be a gamble. Every decision is like rolling a six on a dice, and to prolong the high you have to keep rolling sixes. This is the perverse logic of gambling; that you can never bank a win. There is a bigger payout just ahead!
Improvisation might be planning. This seems counter-intuitive, but other disciplines do not have a monopoly on planning. Improvisation is planning on the fly, remapping on the run, peering over the edge of the cliff and quickly planning a route down. Improvisers may be the best planners of all.
Improvisation might be flight. We are asked to make art, or to be ourselves, or to be present. Fight, flight, freeze… We choose flight, running away from the responsibility of follow-through, from having courage in our own voice, from criticism, from vulnerability. It takes flight like a flock of startled geese: ungainly and uncomfortable out of its natural domain.
Improvisation might be a furnace which turns glass into sand. It takes a shifting, slippery moment and freezes it for observation. The grains may be fastened, but our gaze is still refracted through the shifting light of the glass. Furthermore, the fragility is baked in. The harder you grasp the moment, the more it cracks. Ultimately, you can never take it back, only break it into smaller and smaller shards which look a lot like sand but are not. The heat of observation is not reversible.
Improvisation might be beginning again at the end.
¹Lapajne MD and Fö NS, August 2024, proofreading: Stone S, Improvisation is…, Status Magazine. Originally published in December 2023 in Slovene in Dialogi 59th edition (ed. Jasmine Založnik) in Maribor, Slovenia. Accessed via https://refabricated.life/blog/2024/10/05/improvisation-is/
²Leigh Foster S, ‘Taken by Surprise: Improvisation in Dance and Mind’, in Cooper Albright A and Dere D, eds., Taken by Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader, Wesleyan University Press, Middletown CT 2003, page 4
