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Improvisation and the Earth: dancing in the moment as ecological practice

  • Tamara Ashley
Research Output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding Chapter Peer-review

Open access

Abstract

In the chapter, I draw upon artistic practice research to discuss the construction of improvisation scores as a deeply site-sensitive, time-sensitive and person-sensitive process that leads to the construction of specific micro-relations that connect specific practitioners to specific places on the earth. These micro-relations manifest as mindful actions in the detailed cultivation of the earth as a score, where the artists can become concerned with the relational dimensions of their actions in terms of sustainability. I propose that the cultivation of mindfulness and explicit intention of each and every gesture as a contribution to the cultivation of the earth as score is where the ethical work of the artists resides. The chapter offers a broad, questioning and critical perspective on how the practices of improvisation might contribute to the development of a future dance ecology that is both sustainable and inter-connected. Dance improvisation is thus proposed as an activist and applied practice that enables the experiential examination of ecologically sensitive relations, and I assert that the future of the dance ecology is entwined with how we relate to and embody the places in which dance is made.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding Chapter Peer-review

Original language

English

Publication milestones

  • Published - 09/04/2019

Publication status

Published - 09/04/2019

Publisher

Oxford University Press, India, United States, United Kingdom

ISBN (Print)

9780199396986

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/624652

Host publication title

The Oxford Handbook of Improvisation in Dance

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