Audiences love improvised, off-the-cuff entertainment, and new research suggests it’s because spontaneity seems to offer a glimpse of the performer’s authentic self.
ChatGPT is better used for playacting than playing at finding facts.
EvgeniyShkolenko/iStock via Getty Images
ChatGPT and other AI chatbots seem remarkably good at conversations. But you can’t believe anything they say. Sometimes, though, reality isn’t the point.
Santur player Sadaf Amini performs in front of singers from the Kingston Chamber Choir.
(John Burge)
Machines have been getting better at mimicking improvisation. But can this distinctly human process serve as a bulwark against the mechanization of life and art?
Anishinaabe musician Melody McKiver.
plays at the Bus Stop Theatre in Halifax, May 2018.
(Steve Louie/Flickr)
Meditations on improvisation in a year of both COVID-19 and what some called ‘the other pandemic’ of racism push us to go deeper to find ways to sustain healthy public common life.
This is not a wok: Japanese musician Natsuki Tamura explores sounds at an online global festival of improvisation, IF 2020.
(Ajay Heble/IF 2020)
Improvisation asks us to trust that surprise will teach us something. As we enter a new year and a post-pandemic landscape, musical improvisation offers inspiration.
Joe Biden speaks at a rally before Super Tuesday, the day his campaign roared back to life.
AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez
Is it possible to plan for the unforeseen? Some basic principles allow careful preparation to be reconciled with quickly shifting circumstances.
Disruption does not always drive the most monumental or ingenious innovation. The stress of running from wolves is hardly conducive to good planning.
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Necessity and desperation are portrayed as the prime motivators of innovative behaviour, but in reality, stability and holistic incentives go a long way to freeing up creative energy.
Training in improvisational theatre enables health professionals to learn deeper empathy, as well as mental agility and other clinical skills.
(Shutterstock)
Health professionals need a dose of drama in their training to build clinical and interpersonal skills.
While improv comedy in the classroom might nurture your child’s stage talent, it’s also a highly effective way of teaching literacy. Pictured here, La Ligue d'Improvisation Montréalaise.
(Wikipedia Commons)
Women are disturbingly under-represented in Australian jazz, with relatively few female composers and instrumentalists. What’s holding them back? And what can be done about it?
Jazz in the classroom not only teaches children to play instruments; they may also learn a range of essential life skills.
Reuters/Carlos Jasso
Many middle-class parents buy classical CDs because it is supposed to make their kids clever. But a jazz-loving academic has started using her favourite genre in early childhood learning.
South African jazz is experiencing a new wave like seldom before. One of its strongest proponents, jazz veteran Carlo Mombelli, has just released a new album.
Orchestra of nature: artist Bartholomäus Traubeck has converted pieces of trees into music.
Eric C Bryan
What is the music of trees? German artist Bartholomäus Traubeck spun slices of logs on turntables that translate their textures and annual rings into music. Traubeck calls the result Years, and I played…