Embodied creativity in dyadic interaction

Improvisation expertise is no particularly well-understood topic from a cognitive standpoint, especially not beyond solos, and least in movement skills. This research compares generativity in Tango argentino, Aikido, and Contact improvisation, investigating what sources of real-time generativity experts possess and how creative choices are constrained by an interactive situation. The methods focus less on extended improvised sequences than micro- moments of choice and negotiation. We apply micro-genetic think-alouds, quasi-experimental variation and video- feedback. Distinguished improvisers are invited to playfully yet with dialogic guidance emulate their natural creativity, explore alternative interaction pathways, mix movement repertoires, and explore how all this is influenced by varying configuration, micro-timing, available space, or general factors like cooperativeness, style, leading/pacing, rapport, stability, dynamicity, etc. Generative skills are thus explored in vivo: 1. The basic objective is a framework of skilled embodied improvisation in dyads. Expressive choice must incorporate the interplay of sensorimotor and interaction skills (rapport, dynamic negotiation and repair, etc.) which concurrently constrain how pathways through the improvisers knowledge base are found. Furthermore, while models from musicology provide a useful starting point, embodied improvisation imposes special requirements of spatial continuity and dynamic stability and suggests replacing the commonplace view of cue-based interaction semiotics by mutual incorporation, extended bodies, and ceaseless resonance loops. 2. Generativity in the standard case stems from variable chaining of ready-made micro-elements. Yet, distinguished improvisers partly transcend this modular knowledge base by encouraging variability of basic action units (cf. situated concepts after Barsalou) and variable motor pulses. Still more radically, some improvisers claim to have thrown fixed repertoire overboard. Can ready-mades really give way to dynamic soft-assembly of interaction solutions that would allow unprecedented form-related creativity and flexibility? In the hypothesized model expert improvisers may temporarily operate in a force-field of generic principles. Such creative solutions must simply respect a set of perceptually-based control laws (cf. Warren), which are contextually activated and then balanced into adequate mixes. To understand how control laws coalesce we have experts widen their repertoire by playfully varying semi-independent systems of sub-task control (motion trajectories, relative distance, relative body front orientation, etc.), so as to explore their synergetic trade-offs and limits. E.g., the couples simulate for different scenarios how small changes in one control dimension implicate or block other dimensions. This allows modeling experiential knowledge about how to dynamically soft-assemble good synergies in the interplay of control laws. 3. What makes improvisation in duets different from solos? How can creative and coordinative needs meet? Dyad-related constraints on creative choice are firstly reflected in the necessity of establishing rapport and information flow, secondly of synchronizing and mutually calibrating standard interaction techniques, but thirdly also of dealing with the inevitable moments of emergence: These ensue from miscommunication, intentional risk- taking/perturbations, and the odd magic moment of unpremeditated dyadic self-organization into novel patterns. With the characteristic micro-dynamics in view, we investigate skills for emergence-management, notably micro- negotiations ensuring that meta-stability is rapidly regained and improvisational flow safeguarded.

We investigated joint improvisations in the partner dances Tango and Contact improvisation and the martial art Aikido, thus addressing both collaborative and antagonistic forms comparatively. Joint improvisations emerge not only from individual intentions and interests, but occur in a "force-field" of external and interpersonal constraints, pressures to create good synergies, and embodied communication rules. Individual ideas, exploration, or playful experimentation unfold within the wiggle room defined by these factors. We developed a micro-genetic format of data collection, in which we interviewed expert couples in a workshop setting, supported by video-feedback and informal experimentation. The method allows an "in vivo" reconstruction of improvisational events of a few seconds duration, e.g. an Aikido bout, a Tango step combination, or an acrobatic lift of Contact improvisers. In all three domains, the path is found in walking it through emergent coordination. To understand this phenomenon, we reconstructed individual "micro-moves" whereby persons A and B complement, enable, nudge, invite, redirect, challenge or coerce each other. We mapped this fine-grained interpersonal "give-and-take", the embodied communication on a timeline, which allows tracing how improvisational trajectories emerged as A and B reciprocally trigger each other - including complex, yet unplanned synergies. Initially, we sampled a wide range of interactions to investigate aims, action principles, and modalities of each domain to delineate how domain-specific conditions constrain interaction dynamics. In Tango the strict external form, the leader/follower roles, the music and crowded dance-floors impose different demands on spontaneous interaction than the formally free and open negotiations of Contact improvisation. Aikido involves a specific build-up logic for defensive actions (evasion, redirecting the attack, etc.); improvisation happens within this logic; efficiency often trumps creative aims. Subsequently, we micro-modelled how selected improvisational trajectories emerged, and possible alternative paths not taken. We analyzed from the experts' viewpoint how the "collective physics" (e.g. of acrobatic lifts or off-balance weight-sharing) function and identified how participants spontaneously complexify a form by providing "springboards" for each other. We also modelled productive perturbations, "saves", and "hi-jackings" of partner actions. Another inquiry concerned joint creativity, which spans individual micro-ideation within the momentary situation's constraints, but also creative process not exclusively residing "in the head" or a single individual. The active dynamics of embodied engagement (i.e. recursive explorations, stimulations, or manipulations) provide interactivity-based creativity mechanisms. We documented how creativity involves an ability to skilfully constrain, modulate, channel, or resonate with ongoing collective dynamics, so that they invite or auto-catalyze novel forms. Finally, based on our data-base of annotated micro-interactions, we created a typology of co-creation modalities, including forms with parallel or relatively autonomous creativities, leader-follower forms, and autocatalytic effects emerging from intense mutuality, e.g., when two persons mutually interfere in each other's activities in real-time.