Moving in a landscape of an inter-disciplinary improvisation performance : ways of working and facilitating

Abstract

In this research I'm moving and exploring in a landscape of an inter-disciplinary improvisation performance. The research is structured by choosing one performance which functions as a documented snippet of an ongoing interdisciplinary improvisation practice and is a vehicle to analyse what sort of skills and knowledge enable and are developed in that specific ongoing practice. I map out the validity of those skills and knowledge in relationship to a dancer's know-how in a new paradigm of performing arts, as well as how to facilitate them and what sort of philosophical and ethical notions and issues arise in such a facilitation process. The mode of this thesis is practicebased art-pedagogical research. I'm proposing that the skills and knowledge that enable inter-disciplinary improvisation, and that are simultaneously developed in the practice, are a dancer's self–reflection and decision making process; a dancer's own research and awareness of senses and perceptions; the awareness of interaction of performer(s) and audience during a performance situation and the collaborative approaches towards learning and creating artistic work. These skills and knowledge share similar terrain with the skills and knowledge of a dancer in a new paradigm of performing arts, including the new paradigm of contemporary dance, defined by a performative shift. In addition to these, what can be specifically drawn from inter-disciplinary improvisation practice is a dancer's awareness of her/his inherent concepts that frame her/his perception in working situations, as well as discipline specific inherent working practices and terminology that are taken as a given, yet come up for discussion and reflection through inter-disciplinary work. I'm proposing that these skills and knowledge can be facilitated and developed through dialogical and critical pedagogical approaches that take in consideration notions of freedom, responsibility, artistic ownership, artistic integrity, as well as a notion of wider socio-political landscapes that the work exists in. In terms of practice based working methods that can facilitate this sort of skills and knowledge, there are many routes. One possible way are the inter-disciplinary working methods introduced in this thesis, that emphasize action-research based working cycles, working collaboratively both within a group, as well as in co-facilitating and approaching a facilitation process as a not-yet-known situation. This mode of working approaches a teacher as an active researcher and facilitator, who also engages in a process of self-reflection and dialogue.