An invitation: Improvisational living and teaching

When teachers and students teach and learn artistically, live dramatically, play spontaneously, create collectively, and are aware of 'being in the moment', the boundaries of the curriculum as well as the community of the classroom become more in tune with the improvisational and human characteristics of life. A reflective and analytical consideration of related phenomenological scholarship could support an enhanced perception of improvisational ways of being - of life as an ongoing journey of improvisation. This _dissertation will connect the practical and the theoretical by journeying through a series of reflective narrative and poetic glances connecting my daily living and professional practice to improvisational and artistic pedagogical moments which are not only grounded in the current and accepted scholarly discourse, but are further underpinned with a series of important interviews that will resonate within the field. This dissertation seeks to explore how might we become more in tune with different improvisational forms so as to incorporate and/or evaluate their pedagogical effectiveness in the classroom? And to that effect, how can we tell, share, write, dance, sing, draw, paint, build, sculpt, compose, act, or teach passionately, sensitively, graciously, and mindfully as improvisational beings whilst maintaining predetermined relationships, structures, and affiliations? To what extent has dramatic improvisation been reformulated as a competitive performance enterprise consisting of stand-up-like-comedy, warmup games, and winner-take-all tournaments? How credible is the ethereal nature of spontaneous creation that is experienced in the moment? How can we begin to share the improvisational moments of daily life, as a vital part of our own personal narratives, our parenting, our relationships, and our pedagogical practice?