Abstract
Dance improvisation, as developed in the UK and the US in particular, has become associated with a number of tropes that apparently offer means of best practice. By attending to a few of these, I examine how they might offer insight into dance improvisation. This incorporates research into ways in which improvisation is a part of everyday life, as demonstrated most clearly in examples of infant movement and cognitive development. Taking Henry Montes and Marcus Coates’s dance film A Question of Movement as a case study example, I consider how their innovative way of dancing responses to life questions connects with the infant’s reliance on ‘thinking in movement’, a term offered by Maxine Sheets-Johnstone. Finally, I consider what dancers can learn from people living with chronic dementia-related diseases who forge ways to live in a perpetual present and, conversely, what insight dancers might offer through integration of dance improvisatory processes in caregiving.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | The Oxford Handbook of Improvisation in Dance |
Editors | Vida L Midgelow |
Place of Publication | Oxford |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Chapter | 3 |
Pages | 1-13 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Edition | 1 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780199396986 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2 Apr 2019 |
Keywords
- Improvisation, everyday movement, thinking in movement, infant development, dementia, life
- dance,