The access dramaturgy of dance improvisation: Redefining dance spaces and adapting generating constraints

In this article, I discuss the benefits and limitations of collaboratively created dance improvisation scores as approaches that are often considered more inclusive of artists living with disability than set choreography. To expand benefits and reduce limitations, I propose scoring improvisation with dance generating systems in mind. Because such systems are anchored in artistic inquiry and sources that matter to the artists, the dance space is redefined to reflect the lived embodied experience of disabled dancers. From this starting point, a process of discovering which improvisation tasks and constraints that enable each dancer’s unique strengths can be engaged with more directly. Dancing within such a score, artists gradually learn to anticipate one another’s patterns of response, attune relationally and use agency to bend the constraints of the score. This could release disabled dancers from either having to adapt to norms or needing to know in advance how scores are best designed for their integrated accessibility.