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date: 06 December 2019

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter draws upon artistic practice research to discuss the construction of improvisation scores as a deeply site-sensitive, time-sensitive, and person-sensitive process that leads to the construction of specific microrelations that connect specific practitioners to specific places on the earth. These microrelations manifest as mindful actions in the detailed cultivation of the earth as a score, where the artists can become concerned with the relational dimensions of their actions in terms of sustainability. The chapter proposes that the cultivation of mindfulness and explicit intention of each and every gesture as a contribution to the cultivation of the earth as score is where the ethical work of the artists resides. The chapter offers a broad, questioning, and critical perspective on how the practices of improvisation might contribute to the development of a future dance ecology that is both sustainable and interconnected. Dance improvisation is thus proposed as an activist and applied practice that enables the experiential examination of ecologically sensitive relations, and the chapter asserts that the future of the dance ecology is entwined with how we relate to and embody the places in which dance is made

Keywords: improvisation, somatics, environmental change, choreography, site-specific, ecology, ethics, partnering, creativity, eco-art

Tamara Ashley

Tamara Ashley’s research investigates the practices of dance improvisation in the context of environmental change. Her work has included several durational site-responsive performances, including a thirty-one-day performance on the Pennine Way National Trail with fellow artist Simone Kenyon. She is particularly interested in the ethical dimensions of ecological dance practices. Tamara’s work also draws on her work as a yoga teacher and somatic practitioner, with a strong emphasis on encouraging rigorous practices of first person enquiry for cultivating well-being and human development. She recently served as a guest editor for the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices and chaired the Well-being and Mindfulness Group as part of the Climate Change Collaborations Conference. She directs the MA programme in Dance Performance and Choreography at the University of Bedfordshire.

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