First Published in 1997. The authors’ purpose in this book is to dissect developments in improvisation in the arts since 1945, with a particular emphasis on process and technique. The approach is analytical and theoretical but is also relevant to practitioners and their audience. Their key argument is that improvisation has been of great importance and value in the contemporary arts, particularly because of its potential to develop new forms (often by breaking definitions).

First Published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Theatrical Improvisation provides an in-depth analysis of short form, long form, and sketch-based improv - tracing the development of each form and the principles that define and connect the styles of performance. Brimming with original interviews from leaders in the field such as Ron West, Charna Halpern, John Sweeny and Margaret Edwartowski, Theatrical Improvisation presents straightforward improvisational theory, history, and trends. Includes easy-to-follow resources on teaching improvisation, with assessment tools, exercises, games, and classroom assignments to enable instructors to incorporate and assess improv in the classroom. Leep offers a practical, essential, and engaging guide for anyone who wants to better understand the art, teach, or perform improvisation.

In Theology as Improvisation, Nathan Crawford reimagines the possibilities for how theology thinks God within a postmodern world. He argues that theology is improvisation by analyzing the nature of attunement within theological thinking and how this opens certain possibilities for theology. He does so by engaging a number of thinkers, including Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, David Tracy, and Saint Augustine. He navigates the nature of thinking God in a postmodern world by using these thinkers to offer critiques of onto-theological thinking and totalizing systems while also following their embrace of the fragment and focus upon the nature of thinking as attunement. The result is a unique way of approaching theological thinking in our contemporary context.

V. 1. Cognitions -- v. 2. Critical theories

Improvisation informs a vast array of human activity, from creative practices in art, dance, music, and literature to everyday conversation and the relationships to natural and built environments that surround and sustain us. The two volumes of the Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies gather scholarship on improvisation from an immense range of perspectives, with contributions from more than sixty scholars working in architecture, anthropology, art history, computer science, cognitive science, cultural studies, dance, economics, education, ethnomusicology, film, gender studies, history, linguistics, literary theory, musicology, neuroscience, new media, organizational science, performance studies, philosophy, popular music studies, psychology, science and technology studies, sociology, and sound art, among others.

Hyperimprovisation is the first book to focus on the unique potential of computer-interactive sound improvisation. Instrumental improvisation, through the intermediacy of computers, allows musicians to create and modify large scale and long term structures at a highly polyphonic level, yet still in real-time. Computers also allow the construction of hyperinstruments, with many levels of explicit control of sound generation and transformation. Further, networked improvisation allows mutual—or competitive!— adaptation of the performing interfaces and mechanisms by several performers, again, in real-time. The achievements and future possibilities of the “hyperimprovisation” which is released by computer technology are explored in this book.

The field of Sound Studies has changed and developed dramatically over the last two decades involving a vast and dizzying array of work produced by those working in the arts, social sciences and sciences. The study of sound is inherently interdisciplinary and is undertaken both by those who specialize in sound and by others who wish to include sound as an intrinsic and indispensable element in their research. This is the first resource to provide a wide ranging, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary investigation and analysis of the ways in which researchers use a broad range of methodologies in order to pursue their sonic investigations. It brings together 49 specially commissioned chapters that ask a wide range of questions including; how can sound be used in current academic disciplines? Is sound as a methodological tool indispensable for Sound Studies and what can sound artists contribute to the discourse on methodology in Sound Studies? The editors also present 3 original chapters that work as provocative 'sonic methodological interventions' prefacing the 3 sections of the book.

Improvisation informs a vast array of human activity, from creative practices in art, dance, music, and literature to everyday conversation and the relationships to natural and built environments that surround and sustain us. The two volumes of the Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies gather scholarship on improvisation from an immense range of perspectives, with contributions from more than sixty scholars working in architecture, anthropology, art history, computer science, cognitive science, cultural studies, dance, economics, education, ethnomusicology, film, gender studies, history, linguistics, literary theory, musicology, neuroscience, new media, organizational science, performance studies, philosophy, popular music studies, psychology, science and technology studies, sociology, and sound art, among others.