From Improvisation to Choreography: The critical bridge

Abstract

It is widely assumed among dance educators who train choreographers in the modern and/or post-modern dance traditions that such training best begins with improvisational activities. The literature on the teaching and learning of choreography is packed with improvisation exercises, all of which allegedly help students to explore movement and develop movement materials that they will later select, shape, and form into complete dances. Moreover, the practice of improvisation is assumed to put students in touch with their authentic selves, and help them to find their unique artistic 'voice' so that the dance works they create later on will truly be their own. Whether or not experiences in dance improvisation actually accomplish these pedagogical goals is questionable, yet the notion that it does accomplish them is rarely - if ever - questioned. Even if we go along with the assumption that improvisation leads students to become better choreographers, nothing in the literature explains sufficiently just how it does this. We believe that students learn to become choreographers through the development of critical consciousness; the ability to describe, analyse, interpret, evaluate, and imagine/implement revisions to their own and others' dances. The basis of this belief is that art-making is inherently critical. To make a work of art one must continually make aesthetic decisions. By itself, the exploration of movement concepts, and becoming comfortable with one's own movement tendencies and choices, does not foster the development in students of the ability to make good aesthetic decisions (even by the students' own standards of 'good'). What students need to complement their improvisation experiences is training in identifying and exploiting the full aesthetic and expressive potential of the movement material they invent and explore during the improvisational process. This means that criticism - both written and oral - is the bridge between the activities of improvisation and choreography. For improvisation to function well as a kind of pre-choreography training, it must be accompanied by training in criticism. The challenge is to provide the latter training without compromising the spontaneity of the improvisation activity. Criticism is not often discussed in the literature on teaching and learning choreography. Indeed, there is much ambiguity in the literature, and thus in choreography pedagogy, about the role of criticism in the choreographic process. Many authors acknowledge only obliquely the kind of influence that substantive criticism might exert on creativity, and there is wide disagreement in the discipline about how much time and effort should be spent on criticism in the dance-making environment. We will begin with a brief overview of the development of improvisation/choreography pedagogy, examining the historical and philosophic underpinnings of current practices in the field. We will then focus on the myriad opportunities for critical training to take place within the improvisation/choreography course, and provide practical suggestions for teachers who wish to develop students' critical and creative faculties in tandem. We will close with recommendations for overcoming some students' initial reluctance to engage in creative and critical activities.