Open peer commentary on the article “Varela’s Radical Proposal: How to Embody and Open Up Cognitive Science” by Kristian Moltke Martiny. Upshot: Varela’s description of how first-, second- and third-person positions are inserted in a network of social exchange forms a central ground for using a second-person position as a mediator in a phenomenological exploration of lived experiences. Based on Martiny’s arguments that we should expand the notion of the lab, I suggest that the fundamental circularity of the scientist and the first-person experiences investigated needs to be considered in an extended form when involving a second-person method taking place in the conditions of the world of everyday life.

In this article, we inquire into Maxine Sheets-Johnstone and Michele Merritt’s descriptions and use of dance improvisation as it relates to “thinking in movement.” We agree with them scholars that improvisational practices present interesting cases for investigating how movement, thinking, and agency intertwine. However, we also find that their descriptions of improvisation overemphasize the dimension of spontaneity as an intuitive “letting happen” of movements. To recalibrate their descriptions of improvisational practices, we couple Ezequiel Di Paolo, Thomas Buhrmann, and Xabier E. Barandiaran’s (2017) enactive account of the constitution of agency with case studies of two expert performers of improvisation: a dancer and a musician. Our analyses hereof show that their improvisations unfold as a sophisticated oscillation of agency between specialized forms of mental and bodily control and, indeed, a more spontaneous “letting things happen.” In all, this article’s conclusions frame thinking in movement concerning improvisational practices as contextually embedded, purposively trained, and inherently relational.

Key words: improvisation, thinking in movement, sense of agency, interactional asymmetry, dancer, free improvisation musician.