This enquiry expanded the activation of jo-ha-kyū and ma into the sequencing and pauses of an improvisation. Concurrently, I considered duration, speed, and temporal patterning in composing while dancing as additional layers of temporality that could be animated from the activation of jo-ha-kyū. This is what I propose as the term ‘improvising time’, as exemplified in the creative component of this research, Solo Dialogue (2021).

In improvising time, improvisation is not merely about shaping actualized movement. As established in Enquiry 4 that movement can be understood as events, my approach is to facilitate and put in place embodied processes that generate embodied temporality across the elastic formation between virtual and actual movement.

After beginning an improvisation through utilizing the perceptual tools discussed in Enquiry 4, I will now discuss how improvisational material can be generated by approaching from aspects of embodied temporality — the time felt by the improviser — particularly in the presence of the audience.

In the studio research, I explored jo-ha-kyū and ma as apparatuses for articulating five aspects of time in improvisation. These five aspects of time are proposed by neuroscientist Dean Buonomano as crucial for the intelligibility of speech. These temporal aspects are sequencing, pause, duration, speed, and temporal patterning (Buonomano 2017: 83). An exemplar of this exploration can be seen in the excerpt of Solo Dialogue below.

Sequencing

From the repetition with differences, jo-ha-kyū can be utilized as an apparatus of temporal composing in sequential form. Along with the fulfilment of each jo-ha-kyū grain, which produces ma, a sequencing of improvisational material can emerge from the same node as the previous one, or from a different node.

A node is defined as ‘a knotty formation’ or ‘a point in a network or diagram at which lines or pathways intersect or branch’.[1] In my practice, a node is where the jo of jo-ha-kyū originates along the nexūs. The term node speaks to a superposition of jo because a node can have many arcs issuing from it. Through the perceptual tool of repetition with differences, each time I repeat a similar passage of a jo-ha-kyū along a nexus, and the kinaesthetic sense of the nexus thickened, potential jo-ha-kyū grains in a sequence may begin from a different node.

Pause

Each jo-ha-kyū grain is an event and, therefore, discrete. As a grain resolves, it leaves an interval that retains qualities. These qualities can be archived in the improvising body before the next movement event emerges and become a potential for a future movement events.

As Erin Manning writes, ‘the interval is virtual, incorporeal. Yet it has substance: it is palpable’ (Manning 2009: 24). I take it that the substance of the pause is the field of potentials. Therefore, the pause, or ma between jo-ha-kyū grains, can be perceived as a virtual zone, for catching up with what previously occurred. It also provides an interstice for perceptual uptakes where the next superposition of possibilities can be speculated from the archived felt perception of the past jo-ha-kyū grains.

In addition, the pauses are instances where the reactivation of successive jo-ha-kyū grains and the re-attunement of intersubjective milieux can take place. Within each pause, the viewer may anticipate what could happen next. The audience anticipation then informs my embodied processes and strengthens my intersubjective experience with them.

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Duration

In my practice, the sense of duration is most palpable during the pause or ma. I experience a processual quality within ma during its unfolding. At the same time, from the first-person perspective of an improviser, if a ma begins, it will come to an end. Therefore, it is discrete. Through practising the perceptual tools, I found that the duration of virtual and actual jo-ha-kyū events could be experienced as ongoing as well as discrete, depending on the perspective of experiencing.

In the act of improvising, I perceive the ongoingness within the passage of ma until I make a movement again. Ma is also processual — there is a jo-ha-kyū process to it. After the ma is complete, I also recognize its back-formation. Furthermore, the detached perception of riken no ken provides another layer of experiencing duration with an element of double articulation where the ongoingness and discreteness of ma can both be perceived during improvising.

Speed

The notion of speed in my improvisation practice is not only about moving fast or slow but also considering speed as relative. In particular, what determines speed in this research is the intersubjective interface between improviser and watcher.

Embodied temporality is always embedded in embodied processes, i.e., attuning, noticing, perceiving, feeling, as well as moving. The riken no ken practice of double perception, or witnessing my body perceiving, enables me to generate what sociologist Robert Hassan refers to as ‘controlled speed’ (Hassan 2009: 99) from deliberate, organized, and thoughtful actions. In the context of my improvisation, I consider controlled speed as one that allows enough of the fabric of time for me to perceptually access my embodied processes as well as relational and intersubjective milieux.

Moreover, through controlled speed engendered by riken no ken, emerging impulses can be mediated. They can be enacted upon, or linger... 

Sometimes, delaying impulses can strengthen the bond between the past and the potential in the future.

Temporal patterning

By controlling speed, I gain some time to notice and, if needed, reactivate the relationality between the past kinaesthetic experience and emerging fields of potential. At any level of jo-ha-kyū, from virtual movement deep in my body to rigorously energetic movement, kinetic energy is emphasized in the kyū phrase of jo-ha-kyū events. Thus, the kyū of movements or phrases are where I notice the peaks in the fabric of temporal patterns.

Within the jo-ha-kyū in each improvisation, the temporal patterning features variations in dynamic and speed. The speed and temporal patterning of upcoming improvisational material is considered in relation to that which precedes it. The relationality between each granular jo-ha-kyū event and its ma is accreted into the temporal patterning of the piece, which emerges as it is perceived through riken no ken.

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