I've been thinking about your improvisational metaphor over the last
couple of days and I have one question. I need to limit myself to
talking about improvisational theater because I know little about
music (i.e., the type of person who sometimes even has trouble turning
on the record player). It seems to me that improvisational theater
and imporvisational play among young children might be the same in
terms of operations, but would be qualitatively different in terms
of activity. When children play and interact in improvisational
fashion it seems to me they lose themselves completely in the interaction.
The interaction itself becomes the activity. It seems from the limited
experience I've had in improvisational theater this isn't the case.
First, it seems to me that improvisational theater always has a
starting point (e.g., a director) who sets the context, and sets
the context for a specific reason (e.g., wants to unleash some
type of emotion in the actors). It also seems to me that the
actors have to recognize some initial motivation (it could be the
director's motivation, it could be their own motivation to
achieve a certain emotion, it could be their motivation to
impress their director, it could be the motivation to seduce
somebody else in the company) or the meaning of the interaction
quickly becomes subverted (there have been numerous satirical
pieces on this type of impovisation with a subverted meaning...
"Be a tree!" "I'm a tree, I'm a tree, I feel the sap!").
Do you think this difference exists between the types of activities
that give meaning to your original metaphor and the way the metaphor
might be used in examining children? If so, how do you deal with it?
Michael Glassman
University of Houston