Improvisation Unfolding: Process, Pattern, and Prediction

Abstract

The main aim of this article is to argue the case for understanding improvising as a real-time emergent process grounded in collaborative action, while noting that talking about improvisation, bluntly put, is not the same as improvising. The ways in which improvisers respond and adapt to changing circumstances in the moment and over time, it is argued, connect directly to the discipline of process philosophy and involve pattern recognition and creation skills as well as the ability to predict the actions of conspecifics. The conclusion considers some benefits and challenges in approaching improvisation from a process-based and systems-theoretical perspective.

KEYWORDS:

• Bateson
• coordination dynamics
• emergence
• improvisation
• performance
• systems theory
• Whitehead

FUNDING

This material is based on work supported financially by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa. Any opinion, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and therefore the NRF does not accept any liability thereto.