Ramblings

Question: Is choreography the same as improvisation in terms of dance? We had this deabte in class today and I honestly see them as maybe not the same thing, but definitely 2 processes which cannot be done independent of the other. I find that one cannot choreograph a dance without improvising to some extent. It may not be to the extent of creating well planned and carefully thought through movement, but even just the idea behind a movement that comes to one's mind, to me, is still a constituent of the art of improvising, as Michael likes to say. And when he says "art", I personally define it as the thought and time put into the creative process and the actualy execution of an idea and the translation of that idea into some sort of visual or audio representation, be it visual art, music or dance. That is my definition of "art", but what Michael actually perceives what that word means may be totally different. According to my Widget dictionary, art refers to the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a usual form...producing works primarily for their beautyor emotional power. It can also mean a skill at doing a specified thing; typically one acquired through practice. And I certainly agree that improvisation takes a lot of practice and that's why I agree with the statement that improvisation is not the same as just fooling around and dancing on your own in a club for instance. Personally, the element of improvisation which is most significance and of the highest level of difficulty to master and attain, is the ability to translate all the images, phrases, words, thoughts, sounds, into some sort of movement that makes sense to your fellow dancers, if any, and to the audience and maybe even to yourself. More often than not, I find myself improv-ing, but not necessarily moving the way I visualised in my mind's eye; it may look interesting and may evoke certain emotions in a spectator, but it may not always be what I had intended it to look like, which on the other hand, totally doesn't matter. I am all for the explorative nature of dance and how organic and raw and honest movement is. That's what dance is all about and I hope that it never loses that essence of itself.