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.

Excerpt: I would like to begin by citing a statement Piaget made in conjunction with one of his documented observations of an infant, specifically a mouth gesture made by his sixteen-month-old daughter Lucienne as she was trying to open a matchbox. The statement highlights in a dramatic way both the phenomenon of thinking in movement and the all-too-common oversight of thinking in movement. To lead up to the statement and put it in its proper context, I need to say something first about our spatial perceptions and cognitions as infants and cite some supporting literature.