I was delighted to have been invited to join the Translating Improvisation Research Group at Queen's University Belfast where researchers from many disciples are investigating how improvisational practices, discourses and pedagogies from the musical realm may be translated across disciplines.
Translating Improvisation project is lead by Dr. Sara Ramshaw and Dr. Paul Stapleton. It engages with improvisation as a social practice through an exploration of the possibility of translating improvisational practices, discourses and pedagogies from the musical realm to other disciplines in the humanities. One of the key tenets of this research is the belief in improvisation’s emancipatory promise. Instead of being purely spontaneous, improvisation self-consciously engages with tradition, enabling resistance to oppression and injustice and opening up possibilities for new ways of conceiving community, both locally and at the global level.