Improvisation

Between Technique and Spontaneity

Edited By: Marina Santi

£34.99

This book explores improvisation—a creative process where shared practices meet spontaneity. The studies within contend that artistic improvisation holds the key to understanding the improvisation that pervades our professions and everyday experiences.

Underpinning this project is the attempt to grasp the notion behind improvisation and to understand what is actually meant by “improvisation” its nature and its…

Underpinning this project is the attempt to grasp the notion behind improvisation and to understand what is actually meant by “improvisation” its nature and its construct. At the same time this project aims to bestow on improvisation its legitimate role as a versatile, long-lasting creative process of knowledge and action. The word “improvisation” is used to describe a host of very different things. It can be considered a collective, creative phenomenon, an individual skilled performance, an emerging act within a rooted practice, or as a set of generative techniques, yet there are a number of issues with its concept and practice. In improvisation, shared practices, steeped in culture and history, are intertwined, yet constantly exposed to the force of spontaneity and innovation. All the studies presented in the book contend that improvisation in artistic practices could hold the key to understanding the more unstructured, at times more unconscious, forms of improvisation that pervade different fields of knowledge and professions, as well as our everyday experiences.

Marina Santi holds a PhD in Educational Sciences and is Associate Professor in Teaching Methodologies and Special Education at the Faculty of Education and Training at the University of Padova, Italy. Her work focuses on dialogue and argumentation concerning knowledge construction processes and the investigation of social interaction as cognitive potential for learning and inclusive education.