A basic def. of improv: what would be required for composition or construction was not known beforehand and so had to be devised momentarily.
I like the idea, among others in this definition, of working in the "moment".
Annie Dillard once wrote about the length of time that is encompassed in the "present" moment before or after a past and future. I think she calculated it to be roughly 11 or 12 seconds. I wonder if while working in the space of improvisation, working in the zone of the creative experience if the momentary space is extended?
I’ve read too that certain elements of narrative construction lead to greater episodes of improvisation. Or is it that certain factors involved in improvisation lead to episodes of greater narrative construction?
Dialogue for instance- we know this to be true for improvisational theatre and for children’s play and perhaps too for the artistic process. The difference in the artistic process from theatre and play is that the artist has an assumed role that is often not collaborative. As artists we must enter into dialogue with many things though and it is this give and take, combined with the freedom of improvisation that leads the artist to play off of past, future, and present intentions and impulses.
Perhaps it is within this dialogue of narrative improvisation that the artist’s identity is found. Improvisation is linked to personal narrative and the building of self-identity. During the experience of creative improvisational thought and action the artist is constantly asked to judge and discriminate inputs and actions that are created, and mediated from both internal and external, subjective and objective sources. Our responses to these two types of experience will be different and it is in the process of this continuing flux of subject/object evaluation that greater awareness of self is created. The quilter asks, what is needed here- am I responding to what is needed by the physicality of the quilt or by the creative space that is working to design and craft the quilt? Are we responding to how it looks now or how we want it to look in the future?
During the improvisational experience we exercise this natural response to defining self identity.
This is why it is important to quilt with a more improvisational creativity. As quilters we are asked to respond to the creation and identity of others in a long tradition. But it is our responsibility to be part of this tradition, visually, and with authority for our creative narratives.
