I enjoyed a recent meeting with Gary Peters, author of The Philosophy of Improvisation, when I discovered that he describes himself as an ‘ironist’.  That makes his book, which is mostly impenetrable academic jargon, jammed with indigestibly lengthy sentences, a lot more approachable.  I just picked out the bits that resonated with me, such as his insight that the work of any improvisation is both demanded and limited by the materials provided.

And it was the same with his talk at the Transdisciplinary Improvisation Network at Middlesex University.  Brace yourselves, please, as I do my best to reflect on his reflections.  He made a distinction between ‘talking about’ and ‘talking’.  Talking about is when you are asked (perhaps at an interview) to discuss a particular topic, probably following an agenda.  This is different from talking, when there’s no special requirement, and improvising happens.  What turns out is whatever happens to emerge.

It starts from nothingness, the confrontation with an empty space, and filling it up with something.  Given an empty space, we have an impulse to come up with something, almost an obligation.  In writing, the equivalent is seeing where your words take you from one sentence to the next.  While it may turn out that there was little of worth in the output – or perhaps even that there was nothing to know – that doesn’t devalue the activity or the effort.  Nice, eh?

Cheers, Paul