Artist Story: Lisa Gonzales

I found improvisation by accident. I was seeking deep engagement in the moment—in the form of a dance class—and happened into a college dance program at Middlebury College, in Middlebury, VT, where improvisation is foundational to every aspect of the curriculum. As a prospective student, I remember going to watch a dance class, expecting to see something familiar to me, such as jazz or ballet. What I had happened upon, however, was improvisation. The students were moving with such commitment, intention, and surrender that I had tears rolling down my cheeks and thought I have to learn to move this way.

I soon found out that improvisation was a part of technique classes. It was introduced as a means for creating choreography and, most significantly, taught as a viable performance form in and of itself. I also found out that I hated it! It was terrifying for me. Eventually, I found a voice within the form, and it has become the basis for my creative thinking. Still, it was difficult at first. I was exposed to improvisation as a philosophical practice, as well as a physical and compositional one. Indeed, they were not ever separate. I am indebted to my mentors from this period of my life—Penny Campbell, Andrea Olsen and Peter Schmitz—for teaching me that improvisation is about bringing the full self into collaboration with the moment, not about controlling the moment.  

I realize that improvisation is defined by an endless array of practices. On a basic level, what might link most practices is the idea of dialogue or connection. As in any serious practice, the improviser goes about deepening the connection between his/her self and the “thing”—the “thing” he/she is practicing. In my improvisational practice, I care about the making of art. To do this, I feel it’s important to increase awareness of the many levels of perception operating within the body/mind, and also between this body/mind self and the surrounding environment. One way of describing this multi-layered awareness is the dialogue between the inside eye and the outside eye.  

There is a common misconception that improvisation is always “doing whatever you feel.” Well, yes, you must honor your desires and interests as an artist, but at the same time, you must also recognize the effect that  “doing what you feel” has on the work. This is what makes the way I, and many others, practice improvisation specific to performance. Those of us who care about composing while we work are interested in taking responsibility for every moment of the dance. There is excitement (and a great challenge) in accepting that you are in relationship to the whole and that your choice will affect the whole. To paraphrase one of my mentors, Peter Schmitz, “You must be completely in and utterly out.”

For example, I might be taking a solo in the context of a larger work. I’m busy mining movement from an internal place, and this solo becomes a wildly phrased stomping dance. I’m really invested, and yet I notice that my colleagues Katherine, Pam, and Jen are setting up a slow spatial chorus in response to my solo. I love the juxtaposition and begin to consciously push the dynamic contrast while letting where they are in space determine my spatial choices, because I feel we are moving towards a group event. All the while, I’m still trying to develop my solo material and the content inherent in it. Attempting to be aware of both the inner and outer worlds honors that both are happening all the time. This leads me to my relationship to improvisation as a compositional form.  

Composition involves making choices about how one is engaging with form. On some level, every impulse we follow is the result of a choice. One of my goals in improvisational practice is to constantly grow my ability to make different kinds of choices. If we train to recognize the details of form as they emerge in the moment, then we can make different kinds of choices about our relationship to that form and, therefore, get at different kinds of content.

I am remembering a recent performance at Collision Theory (the fantastic series curated by Rachel Damon and Dan Mohr) with dancer, Jennifer Kayle, in which she started a repetitive rhythmic pattern in the legs. I noticed how far apart the feet were moving from each other. I noticed the released grounded nature of her stance. Her torso was swinging wildly on top. In a few seconds I decided between a few choices: joining her as completely as I could in order to go through this experience with her; joining her but altering the movement a bit in order to experience/communicate a partial accompaniment; or stopping her in order to begin a series of interruptions, which would mean something altogether different. I found myself joining her completely. Two bodies, one a little in front of the other, moving wildly but rhythmically together. Wait…oh…oh dear…I’m beginning to alter it. The form continues to evolve!  

I believe that form communicates content. So, if I want to be able to express many kinds of content I want to be able to recognize many kinds of forms! Ensemble work is my improvisational practice of preference because of the incredible sensitivity needed to create together.

I am a founding member of The Architects with Katherine Ferrier, Jennifer Kayle and Pamela Vail. We are a 12-year-old collective of artists who research improvisation as performance. I am also a founding member of the Movement Intensive in Compositional Improvisation (MICI) with the Architects and longtime collaborators Michael Chorney and Kathy Couch. Michael is a musician and Kathy is a lighting designer and installation artist. Improvisers come from all over the United States and internationally to work together for a week at our summer intensive.  

Participants identify as dancers mostly, but we have also worked with improvisational painters and video artists. As a group, we have different aesthetics, different practices, and live in different areas of the world, but we come together for a week in the summer to create art together. While extremely challenging, it’s made possible through respect, trust, and a highly refined awareness of the effects of one’s choices on each other (and, most importantly, the work we are making together). All week long, non-hierarchically and completely collaboratively, we work with and without scores to make performance pieces together in the moment.

I care about refining my ability to create community through improvisation, and this involves being able to put that aesthetic into dialogue with other aesthetics with the intention of making something “worthwhile,” which is what my friend Michael Chorney suggests as a way for defining the value of a piece of improvisation (“Was it worthwhile?”).   

I trust improvisation as a philosophical and physical practice that recognizes the mystery and paradox underlining the human experience. I also value it as a forum in which to practice making courageous decisions within the complex moment.

Lisa Gonzales is an independent choreographer and improviser. She has presented work in New York, where she lived from 1999–2004, at such venues as Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace at St. Mark’s Church, and Joyce Soho, among others. She has also shown her work across the U.S. and in Taiwan, Russia, Finland and The Dominican Republic. She works as an independent artist, a commissioned artist, a choreographer in educational settings, and as part of the collective of performing improvisers called The Architects. She currently lives in Chicago and is full-time faculty at Columbia College Chicago.

This story includes editorial support by CAR Dance Researcher Meida McNeal.