Books in the Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice series

Addressing a diverse set of improvised art and music forms-from jazz and cinema to dance and literature-this volume traces how the social, political, and the aesthetic relate within the context of improvisation.

Placing the body at the center of critical improvisation studies, the contributors to Negotiated Moments explore the challenges of negotiating subjectivity through improvisation in various forms-from jazz, Japanese taiko drumming, and Iranian classical music to sound walking and political street theater.

Jazz musicians, scholars, and journalists emphasize how the political consciousness that infused jazz in the 1960s and 1970s has continued to animate the avant-garde, Free Jazz, fusion, and other forms of this lively, always-evolving music.

The contributors to Playing for Keeps examine the ways in which musical improvisation can serve as a way to negotiate violence, trauma, systemic inequality, and the aftermaths of war and colonialism.