Developmental passages to dance improvisation: an interpretive phenomenological study of lived and living conscious experiences

ABSTRACT

This article presents a phenomenological study on lived and living conscious experiences of improvisational dance. Six experienced improvisational dancers and one dance piano accompanist were interviewed individually, and shared the past-lived experience of improvisational dance. After the interviews, the six dancers agreed to perform solo improvisational dance, which was video-recorded and immediately followed up by another individual interview to comment on the current living experience, while watching the recorded video. Transcribed interviews were analyzed from an interpretative phenomenological framework, and three major themes were identified: (a) spontaneous-free expression as a definitive theme; (b) inhibitory self-conscious state of mind and emotion; (c) reaching the aspirational level of improvisation in synchronicity. The dancers in this research experienced improvisational dance as a break away from the dynamic tension between freedom and inhibition, guided by images and stimuli. When the dancers reached the aspirational level of improvisation, they felt that the mind and body were united at the individual level, and that the dancers were in harmony with other dancers at the group level. Developmental theories of self-conscious emotions and phenomenological theories of attention and consciousness were used to interpret participants’ experiences in developmental journeys towards free, spontaneous expression in synchrony.

KEYWORDS:

• Improvisation
• lived experience
• interpretive phenomenological analysis
• anxiety
• attention
• synchronicity

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to all participants. The authors’ thanks are also extended to Hiroyuki Fukuhara, Tomoko Kano, and Toshimasa Saito for their feedback on the research plan, Alexandra Kolb, Clare Green, Rebekah Wilson, Sofia Kalogeropoulou, and Terry MacTavish for their interest and support, and Julie White-Robinson for her graphic art.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Motohide Miyahara

Motohide Miyahara has been interested in the body mind relationships, and studied relevant academic disciplines, including psychology, health education, and the art and science of human movement in Japan and U.S.A. He trained as MA in dance movement therapy at Antioch University New England and as PhD in Kinesiology at UCLA. While working on his PhD in kinesiology, the science of movement, he kept up with the art of movement by performing in a ballet company, participating in a jazz project at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and taking a wide variety of dance courses at the Dance Department of UCLA. After completing PhD, he moved to Europe and conducted postdoctoral research concerning children with developmental disabilities in UK and Germany. He kept up with his dance training and performed in an opera in Berlin in 1995. In 1996 he relocated to New Zealand and served as the Director of the Movement Development Clinic at the University of Otago where he incorporated dance into his work with children with unique learning needs till 2019. He gave dance therapy workshops in Yokohama and Osaka, Japan in 1993, and in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2007, and initiated this study in 2017.

Brigit Mirfin-Veitch

Brigit Mirfin-Veitch is the Director of the Donald Beasley Institute (DBI). The DBI is an independent charitable trust, which conducts research and education in the field of learning (intellectual) disability and a Senior Research Fellow with the Centre for Post Graduate Nursing Studies, University of Otago (Christchurch).