ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the meaning of the term 'improvisation' and its relationship with the term 'exploration'. It develops the concepts introduced earlier and then discusses possible roles for improvisation in the process of composition. The chapter concerned with improvisation in the context of the preliminary exploratory work or search for starting points which might initiate the process of composition. In the process of exploration the choreographer, playwright or music composer explores and selects the way in order to arrive at a final product. The concepts of abandonment, of loss of directed thought, of free-flight imaginative indulgence are conjured up when one thinks of free and spontaneous improvisation. Limited improvisation, is the more usual approach in dance composition. Beginner dancers and composers may feel very inhibited by a total freedom and will often not be able to move at all, whereas more experienced dancers at least have learned vocabularies of dance movement from which to start.
