Abstract

In this article, we inquire into Maxine Sheets-Johnstone and Michele Merritt’s descriptions and use of dance improvisation as it relates to “thinking in movement.” We agree with them scholars that improvisational practices present interesting cases for investigating how movement, thinking, and agency intertwine. However, we also find that their descriptions of improvisation overemphasize the dimension of spontaneity as an intuitive “letting happen” of movements. To recalibrate their descriptions of improvisational practices, we couple Ezequiel Di Paolo, Thomas Buhrmann, and Xabier E. Barandiaran’s (2017) enactive account of the constitution of agency with case studies of two expert performers of improvisation: a dancer and a musician. Our analyses hereof show that their improvisations unfold as a sophisticated oscillation of agency between specialized forms of mental and bodily control and, indeed, a more spontaneous “letting things happen.” In all, this article’s conclusions frame thinking in movement concerning improvisational practices as contextually embedded, purposively trained, and inherently relational.

Highlights

  • Throughout her work on movement as the ground of all mental activity (e.g., 1980; 1999; 2009; 2012; 2017), Maxine Sheets-Johnstone turns to dance practices to anchor her arguments

  • Insofar as “thinking in movement” is exemplified in artistic improvisation, we suggest that such “thinking,” rather than solely concerning a bodily driven spontaneity, has to do with mastering the suspension of control—that is, with an oscillation of agency

  • “a certain way of moving calls forth a certain kinetic world and a certain kinetic world calls for a certain way of moving,” and, as she sums up a few sentences later, “thinking in movement is an experience in which all movements blend into an ongoing kinetic happening: a singular kinetic density evolves” (Sheets-Johnstone, 2009, p. 34)

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Summary

Introduction

Throughout her work on movement as the ground of all mental activity (e.g., 1980; 1999; 2009; 2012; 2017), Maxine Sheets-Johnstone turns to dance practices to anchor her arguments. Focusing on how the dancer is caught up in a dynamic flow when improvising, she situates agency in kinesthesia—our sense of movement We find her notion of “thinking in movement” valuable and further applaud Michele Merritt’s linking of Sheets-Johnstone’s account to enactivist theories of agency. The article makes one negative and one positive contribution The former is a critical elaboration of Sheets-Johnstone’s one-sided notion of artistic improvisation and its connection to “thinking in movement”. Insofar as “thinking in movement” is exemplified in artistic improvisation, we suggest that such “thinking,” rather than solely concerning a bodily driven spontaneity, has to do with mastering the suspension of control—that is, with an oscillation of agency This oscillation, in turn, hinges on previous artistic practice, on an essential relation to one’s audience and co-performers, and on a sensitivity to the context in which one is embedded: what we call “poles of otherness.”

Sheets-Johnstone on improvisation and thinking in movement
Improvisation in dance
Improvisation in music
Agency and sense of agency
Interactional asymmetry
Normativity
Sense of agency
Methodology for studying the two cases
Kitt Johnson
Improvisational explorations of unknown landscapes
Torben Snekkestad
Improvisational techniques for “pulling the rug out”
In Conclusion
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