Contemporary ballet choreographer Willaim Forsythe developed a new approach to improvisation in the 1980s and 1990s. Forsythe breaks down movement into 30 modalities or movement concepts, such as folding, collapsing and matching.
Dancers learn and then use these modalities as reminders for different ways of movement as they improvise.
Bring this idea to your own improvisation by giving yourself or your dancers a few basic shapes or kinds of movement to explore. Then turn on music and let the dancers build upon those basic modalities. This gives structure to your improvisation without restricting the dancers.
Performing tap dance, particularly as a solo performer, requires excellent improvisational skills. Often, tap dancers will tailor their dance to the particular energy of an audience or a particular mood.
You can practice by giving yourself or your students a particular rhythm to recreate using different steps. Another popular tap improvisation technique is to choose a piece of music and give the dancers a restricted set of steps they can use, such as only steps and heels.
To expand the artistry of a tap dancer, assign them a theme, emotion or story to convey during their improvisation.
Conceived in 1972 by American choreographer Steve Paxton, contact improvisation is based on the physical contact between two moving bodies. During contact improvisation, the shared weight and energy between you and your partner dictates how you move. Gravity and momentum play central roles in guiding your contact improvisation.
This brand of improvisation requires dancers to release tension and give into the natural flow. You might find yourself falling to the floor, rolling, being carried, or supporting a partner. Choreographers often use contact improvisation to inspire the creation of partner work in a dance.
You can improve your musicality and add an element of chance to your art by participating in an improvisational dance jam. At a dance jam, dancers exchange movement steps and styles, linking them together in unique ways. Add music to the mix by putting an iPod or MP3 player on the "shuffle" setting.
Have dancers and choreographers take turns teaching different steps or short movement phrases, then turn on the iPod and challenge dancers to adjust the movement for each different song that plays. This "shuffle" game can be a useful tool for helping choreographers see their own movement in a different light.