This feminist study examines women's use of improvisation in discovering, creating, and articulating various self-identities. To create a theory of identity formation, two feminist theoretical position, essentialism and poststructuralism, are analyzed and merged. This hybrid theory addresses the interplay between the self and society that women must recognize in order to form satisfying identities. Improvisational practices, involving bodily awareness and movement, are demonstrated to have the potential for helping women to actualize themselves in these various identities. For this study, the writer uses her experience as an improviser and interviews three women who use improvisation in their choreographic processes. She also discusses performers whom she has seen and performers about whom feminist performance critics have written. This study examines improvisation in dance and performance art from a feminist perspective. I clarify what improvisation entails and, by doing so, illustrate how improvisational movement in dance and performance art can enhance the lives of women as viewers and performers. Through exploring improvisation from this feminist perspective, I demonstrate the psychological insights I have gained from practicing improvisation and document performances that have been improvisationally inspired by women who feel dissatisfied with the manner in which this society shapes and limits their identities.

In this bachelor project, Leon Falk has examined the interplay and collective improvisation in New Orleans jazz and related genres - in particular the interplay among the wind instrumentalists in New Orleans jazz and brass bands. The main goal has been to develop as a trombone player and ensemble musician.This reflective thesis includes a description of the process of the project and the exam concert, a historical reflection about the New Orleans jazz and brass band tradition and an analysis of 9 interviews with contemporary musicians playing traditional jazz: Jens "Jesse" Lindgren, Björn Ingelstam, Ulf Johansson Werre, Joakim Falk, Claes Ringqvist, Klas Lindqvist, Hans Ingelstam, Niklas Carlsson and Örjan Kjellin. The thesis ends with a conclusive reflection about the project as a whole and Leon Falk's own play style in ensemble with other wind instruments. / <p><strong>Repertoar examenskonsert: </strong>St James Infirmiry (trad), Room Rent Blues (Irving Newton), At the Georgia Camp Meeting (Kerry Mills), Should I Reveal (Nacio H Brown / Arthur Freed), Savoy Blues (Edward Kid Ory), While We Danced At the Mardi Gras (Alfred M Opler / John H Mercer), Cash is King (Leon Falk), Girl Of My Dreams (Sunny Clapp).<strong>Musiker examenskonert: </strong>Leon Falk (trombon/sång), Adam Falk (klarinett/tenorsaxofon), Erik Tengholm (trumpet/kornett), Jocke Falk (trumpet/kornett), Uno Dvärby (kontrabas/banjo), Sara Karkkonen (piano), Jonathan Leidecker (trummor).</p>

Cette recherche est consacrée à l’étude du déploiement d’un dispositif de gestion logistique chez un constructeur automobile français. La théorie de la mise en acte des outils de gestion est utilisée pour analyser le processus du déploiement du dispositif de gestion MAF mutualisés. Celle-ci considère qu’il y a un processus d’adaptation par les utilisateurs lors de la mise en place du dispositif appelé « appropriation ». Notre proposition établit que cette appropriation se réalise « chemin faisant », sans planification et par la volonté des utilisateurs, trois caractéristiques de l’improvisation identifiées dans la littérature. A la suite des travaux de Ciborra, nous faisons appel au concept d’improvisation organisationnelle afin de caractériser les actions réalisées par les utilisateurs pour « faire avec » le dispositif de gestion. Notre démarche est fondée sur un aller-retour entre littérature et terrain qui nous a permis d’affiner les questions de recherche et la méthode d’analyse suite à la période d’observation participante d’un an (juillet 2009 à août 2010) au sein de l’équipe chez le constructeur automobile. Nous avons ainsi élaboré trois grilles de lecture pour identifier les difficultés rencontrées lors du déploiement du dispositif, caractériser les boucles prescription-improvisation lors de la mise en place du dispositif et les comparer. Notre étude nous emmène à proposer une définition de l’improvisation comme compétence à « faire avec » les outils de gestion et à construire un modèle du processus d’improvisation. / This research studies the implementation of a management device at a French car manufacturer. Implementation theory is use for analyzing the device’s implementation process called « mutualized MAF ». This theory considers that an adaptation process is realized by the users during the device implementation. This process is called "appropriation". Our findings propose that this appropriation is realized «making path», without planning and voluntarily by the users, three improvisation characteristics identified by the literature. Following Ciborras’s work, we use organizational improvisation concept to characterize the actions performed by users to "make do" with the management device. Our approach is based on a going-and-coming process between literature and research ground which helped us to suit better our research questions and our analyzing method after one year observation period (July 2009 to August 2010) within the team at the automaker. We have developed three reading grids to identify difficulties encountered during the device, characterize prescription-improvisation loops during the implementation of the device and compare loops between them. Our study leads us to propose a definition of improvisation as a skill to "make do" with the management tools and to build a model of improvisation.

Este artigo consiste na utilização da técnica de viewpoints como ferramenta de composição para o ambiente da livre improvisação musical. Para isso, iremos esclarecer inicialmente alguns conceitos relativos ao ambiente da livre improvisação, entre outras questões centrais como o que são viewpoints e quais são seus recursos para criação no contexto das artes performativas. Nosso objetivo final será um cruzamento entre viewpoints e a prática da livre improvisação musical, utilizando alguns procedimentos comuns a ambos ambientes de criação como a composição coletiva e a improvisação. / This article is the use of viewpoints technique applied in the free musical improvisation environment. For this, we will clarify key issues such as; what are viewpoints, resources for collaborative composition in the context of performing arts, and a conceptual approach to the creative environment of free improvisation. Our ultimate goal will be a crossover between viewpoints with the practice of free musical improvisation, using some common procedures present in both authoring environments, such as the collective composition and improvisation.

À la fois romancier, critique de jazz, trompettiste, chanteur et directeur artistique, Boris Vian est un homme polyvalent dont la réception est diverse. Omniprésente dans sa vie, la musique lui a conféré une sensibilité qui est certainement pour une part à la source de son originalité en tant qu'écrivain. Cette recherche vise à interroger l'importance de la musique dans son univers littéraire, ainsi que les efforts qu'il a consacrés au rapprochement des deux arts. Utilisant son acception ouverte des formes de la musique, nous avons découvert un monde où l'écrivain inscrit l'art d'Euterpe de maintes manières : par les espaces, les instruments, les musiciens et les morceaux interprétés ou cités. Les éléments empruntés au jazz ont, sur l'écriture romanesque de Vian, une emprise décisive. Boris Vian reconnaît lui-même l'importance de la musique dans son « écriture-jazz », toujours rythmée et improvisatrice, libre et inventive. Dans l'œuvre de fiction, la musique exerce ainsi son influence depuis le détail stylistique jusqu'à la structure macroscopique. Le premier volet de notre étude concerne les présentations explicites de la musique dans ses fictions tandis que la partie suivante poursuit l'exploration vers une dimension plus implicite. / As a novelist, jazz critic, trumpet player, singer and artistic director, Boris Vian is a versatile man recognized diversely. Omnipresent in his life, the music has given him a keen sense that is certainly part of his originality as a writer. This research aims to investigate the importance of music in his literary universe, as well as the efforts he has devoted to bringing the two arts closer together. By taking a broad view of music as Vian, we have discovered a world where the writer inscribes the art of Euterpe in many ways : by the spaces, the instruments, the musicians and the pieces interpreted or quoted. The elements borrowed from jazz have a decisive influence on Vian's novel writing. Boris Vian himself recognizes the importance of music in his "jazz-writing", which is always rhythmic and improvisatory, free and inventive. In the work of fiction, music exerts its influence from the stylistic detail to the macroscopic structure. The first part of our study concerns the explicit presentations of music in his fiction while the following part continues the exploration in a more implicit dimension.

Syftet med denna studie är att identifiera skillnader och likheter i olika pianolärares undervisningsupplägg, samt undersöka om deras synsätt och metoder går att knyta till de respektive genrer som de undervisar i. Inom forskning och litteratur har motsättningar som kan kopplas till afro och klassiskt undersökts och framställts i kontraster såsom gehör kontra noter eller improvisatoriskt kontra återgivande. Sådana motsättningar ligger till grund för föreliggande studies intresseområde. Studien utgår från ett sociokulturellt perspektiv, vilket innebär att lärande ses som en social aktivitet, där kunskap finns i kommunikation och de redskap som har växt fram i samhället. Datamaterialet består av kvalitativa intervjuer med fyra mer eller mindre aktiva musiker/pianopedagoger (två afrolärare och två klassiska lärare) med olika arbetssituationer. Resultatet visar att individanpassning och musikalisk mening samt glädjefullhet värderas högt i samtliga informanters pianoundervisning. Målet tycks vara att eleverna får uppleva glädje av att kunna musicera, snarare än att de ska bli ”stora” och kända pianister. Motivationen och det främsta ansvaret till att utvecklas anses ligga hos eleven. Fokus på teknik och övning ges efter elevens behov. Musikalitet ska alltid finnas i fokus. Omusikaliska övningar anses vara hämmande för uttrycket och motivationen. Att inkludera improvisation i undervisningen ses som viktigt. Informanterna har dock något olika arbetssätt och mål med improvisation. De klassiska lärarna arbetar efter rytmiska och tonala mallar med syfte att få eleven att utvecklas och/eller våga spela utan noter. Afrolärarna fokuserar mer på att spela till en särskild låt och att hitta personliga uttryck i improvisationen. / The purpose of this study is to identify differences and similarities in various piano teachers’ teaching approach, and investigate whether their approach and methods relate to the respective genres they teach. In research and literature, contradictions that can be linked to ”afro” and ”classical” have been investigated and described in contrasts like ear for music versus sheet music or improvisation versus reproduction. Contractions like that form the basis to this study’s area of interest. The study is based on a socio-cultural perspective, which means that learning is seen as a social activity, where knowledge exists in communication and the tools that have been developed in the community. The data consists of qualitative interviews with four more or less active musicians/piano teachers (two “afro” teachers and two classical teachers) with different work situations. The result shows that personalization, musical meaning and joyfulness are highly valued in all their piano teaching.  The goal seems to be the students´ experiences of joy in making music, rather than that they should become "great" and famous pianists. It is considered that the student has the primary responsibility in evolving and staying motivated. Focus on technique and training is connected to the student's needs. Musicality will always be in focus. “Unmusical” exercises are considered to be inhibiting the expression and motivation. To include improvisation in teaching is seen as important. The informants have somewhat different approaches and goals with improvisation. The classical music teachers work with rhythmic and tonal templates designed to get students to evolve and/or get courage to play without sheet music. “Afro” teachers focus more on playing a particular song and finding personal expressions in improvisation.

”Many  Stories,  Many  Memories” was a participatory creative music project carried out in collaboration with three professional musicians, a group of seven senior residents and the occupational therapist of “Suomikoti”-elderly home in Stockholm, February 20th – March 21st 2013 . The aim of the project was to build community feeling, participation and operation for the elderly people with dementia by intervening musically in their everyday lives. During the eight workshop-sessions, improvisation pieces were created by using song, text, fine arts, percussion instruments, body percussion, piano, kantele, and violin.The emphasized qualities of the project’s musical working methods were contextuality, and person-centered and focus group - oriented approaches. The purpose of multi-sensor exercises  was  to  support  the  participants’  sense  of  body  and reinforce their identity. The project, during which the musicians and the group of seniors met in the field of performing arts, was completed with a collectively composed semi-improvised concert, which was performed to an audience consisting of the residents and staff of Suomikoti, as well as family members.“Many  Memories,  Many  Stories”  was  my  Professional Integration Project (PIP) in the international Joint Music Master for New Audience and Innovative Practice – Master Degree Program (NAIP) at on the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. Observational periods at local Stockholm elderly homes as well as a preparatory project were conducted prior to the PIP-project. The goal of the PIP-project and this Master Thesis was to create new empiric data on the potentials of creative participatory music workshops for elderly care. This project’s musical intervention was carried out as practice-based research, and was documented session by session both in written reflections and on video for data- analysis. Semi-structured thematic interviews were also conducted for obtaining data. The interviewees were professional practitioners on the fields of music and health-care.The outcomes of the project reveal that intensive participation in the project had positive effects  on  the  people’s motor skills, creativity, expression, social interaction and self- esteem, which by enriching their everyday lives improve their general quality of life.Attached to this Master Thesis are two videos; a documentary-DVD describing the process of the project, and an edition of the”Many  Memories,  Many  Stories”-concert in full length. The documentary DVD contains mainly video-footage from the workshop sessions. / <p>Bilaga: 1 DVD</p>

Detta arbete är en självstudie i att utveckla improvisation på saxofon. Syftet är att utforska hur det är möjligt att uppnå en nivå av frihet i det improviserade spelet. En grundtanke som presenteras i inledningen är att all musik egentligen kommer ur improvisation. För att improvisation i nuet skall vara en reell komposition krävs en utvecklad förmåga att spela utifrån en inre musikalisk intuition, snarare än att enbart utgå från vad som är teoretiskt korrekt. Metoderna som används är dagliga anteckningar om den egna utvecklingen i en loggbok samt videoinspelning av mitt eget improviserande vid några tillfällen. Det teoretiska utgångsläget är fenomenologiskt. I fenomenologisk tradition ställs frågan vad som visar sig vara väl fungerande metoder eller redskap i att utveckla improvisation, för att uppnå ett ”flow” av komponerande i nuet. Dessa metoder och redskap har praktiserats och dokumenterats under några månader. Arbetets resultat utgår från loggbok och videoinspelningar. Där presenteras och utvärderas olika metoder för att öva improvisation. Vidare granskas improvisation utifrån enklare musikaliska ramar till att ta svårare utmaningar och utvecklas mer. Uppmuntrande för den som vill improvisera, är att resultatet visar att det går att få flow i sitt improviserade spel utifrån den kunnighet som finns etablerad, men att det sedan behövs träning för att improvisera utifrån mer och mer avancerade musikaliska förutsättningar. Viktigt för utvecklingen är att improvisera med andra och gärna inför publik. För att våga göra detta krävs mod. Till sist diskuteras resultatet tillsammans med de metoder som använts för att utveckla improviserat spel, liksom begreppet ”flow”. / This is a self-study in how to become a skilled improviser on saxophone, with the purpose of researching how to develop a higher level of freedom in improvising. A view introduced in the introduction of the study, is that all music basically generates from improvisation. For an improvisation to be a real composition in the now, it demands a highly developed skill, with the ability to play out from an inner creative intuition, rather than only from what might be theoretically correct. The methods used for the research are daily notes about the process in a journal and video-recordings of me improvising. The theoretic eyeglasses that are used are phenomenological. What kind of methods or tools will appear beneficial in developing improvisation skill to a level of reaching a ”flow” of composing music here and now? This is the question asked according to a phenomenological tradition. These methods and tools have been practiced and documented in about four months. The final result is based on the notes in the journal and the video-recordings. Different methods in how to develop improvisation is presented and evaluated. The result shows a development of improvising from musical frames more easy to manage, as well as taking challenges and train for more advanced skills. Encouraging for everyone, who wants to improvise, is that the result shows that it is possible to find a flow in improvising on the base of skill already established. To be able to improvise in a more and more advanced way, practice is of course necessary. Important for developing improvisation skills is to play together with others and preferably with an audience. To be able to do that courage must be added. Finally the result is discussed together with the methods used to develop improvisation, as well as the meaning of flow.

Studien är baserad på nio stycken semistrukturerade intervjuer med deltagare som har eller jobbar med improvisationsteater i grupp i minst tre år. Den tillämpade metoden är kvalitativ. Analysen och bearbetningen bestod utav en tematisk analys. Syftet med studien var att under- söka improvisatörers upplevelser av sitt yrke. De tre teman som framkom genom analysen var ”Känslan av att befinna sig i nuet”, ”Gruppens betydelse” och ”Att föra berättelsen framåt”. Resultatet visade att improvisatörernas upplevelse av sitt yrke hade stor inverkan på dem själva. Detta i forma av samhörighet, självförtroende, flow och kreativt tänkande. Resultatet visade även svårigheterna med att improvisera och hur deltagarna resonerade för att skapa en före- ställning. / The study is based on nine semi-structured interviews with participants who have worked or who are working with improvisation theater for at least three years.The applied method is qualitative. The analysis and processing consisted of a thematic analysis. The purpose of the study was to investigate improvisers' experiences of their profession. The three themes emerged from the analysis were "The feeling of being in the present", "The meaning of the group" and "Moving the story forward". The result showed that improvisation as a form of theater has a big impact on the participants in terms of happiness, self-esteem and flow. The result also showed the difficulty of improvising and how the participants reasoned to create a good performance.

Actuellement, la musicologie de l’improvisation s’appuie pour l’essentiel sur une lecture intentionnelle du projet artistique ; notre thèse propose une approche différente, en regardant l’improvisation comme un processus complexe, comportant une dimension auto-organisée, à l’image des comportements collectifs observés dans les sociétés animales. Ceux-ci résultent de composantes aléatoires, de nombreuses interactions, de logiques d’amplification et de processus non linéaires. Les outils et les concepts mis au point à l’interface physique-biologie pour comprendre ces dynamiques naturelles nous permettent de construire une démarche de modélisation propre à la musicologie, qui décrit les actes de l’improvisateur à partir d’intuitions musicales pour analyser l’interaction entre ce qui participe de savoir pré-construits et de l’intention, d’une part, et ce qui peut être compris comme un réglage de l’aléatoire, d’autre part. Cette démarche de modélisation est mise en oeuvre sur deux transcriptions du pianiste américain Brad Mehldau. Pour la première (Am Zauberberg), la démarche itérative de modélisation est exposée en détail, partant du modèle le plus pauvre jusqu’à la nécessité d’incorporer le geste de la main. Pour la seconde (Bard), cette démarche est étendue à la conception harmonique, chaque voix d’accompagnement étant conçue comme mue d’un mouvement propre au sein de contraintes d’espace donnée par les autres voix. Nous concluons en ouvrant des perspectives de possibles expérimentations inspirées par ces modèles, du côté de l’enseignement de l’improvisation ou de celui du musicien cherchant à incorporer à son jeu une dimension de lâcher-prise qui est au cœur du processus d’improvisation. / Currently, the musicology of improvisation essentially highlights the intentional part of an artistic project ; our thesis starts with a quite distinct approach, looking at improvisation as a complex process, with a self-organization dimension inspired of the way biologists analyse collective behaviors in animal societies. These behaviors are todays perceived as the result of combined statistical processes at the individual scale, with numerous inter-individual interactions, amplifications, and non linear loops. Such an analysis of observed natural phenomena led biologists and physicists to introduce and set-up concepts and tools that we use here to propose a modeling approach adapted to Musicology. We start with musical intuitions to propose a description of the perceptions and actions of the improviser that puts forward the deep interaction between what is made of pre-builded knowledge and intention, on one side, and of « tuning random behaviors », on the other. This modeling approach is carried out on two transcriptions of the american pianist Brad Mehldau. With the first piece (Am Zauberberg), we fully describe the iterative process leading from the poorest model to the need of incorporating hand-gestures. With the second piece (Bard), we dress the question of improvising harmony, each voice being conceived as animated of its own displacement rules, but spatially constrained by the others. We conclude by opening up prospects of experiments inspired by these models, some concerning the teaching of improvisation, others aiming at better understanding the process by which a musician seeks to incorporate to his play more « letting go », at the heart of what improvisation is about.