ABSTRACT
In the 1960s, work in performance studies began to expand the notion of theatrical performance, with a significant amount of scholarship utilizing cultural anthropology, which shows that non-Western theatrical traditions significantly differ from Western theater. Moving closer to dance improvisation, a similar expanded understanding of the performative developed in dance studies. The modern era witnessed the emergence of the professional choreographer – an artist with a distinct artistic vision that informed the development of dance technique and a related ability to innovatively organize movements of performers in time and space. Walking through an airport or executing a basketball play can unfold with the means and aims of activity coalescing as intended. Many social dances feature codified movements that the dancer can creatively sequence during performance. Indeed, pragmatist body-based experimentalism dovetails with the notion of “practice-as-research” apparent in the writings of dance improvisors.
