150 performance as art
of artistic performances. First, both improvisation and rehearsal enter into
the processes whereby particular performances come to have the manifest
features that they do. Just as it may matter, for our appreciative understand-
ing of certain artistic performances, that they involve improvisation on the
part of the performers, so it may matter, for our appreciation of other artis-
tic performances, that they issue from a particular kind of rehearsal process.
Indeed, we saw in Chapter 6 how the role of ensemble revision in rehearsals
for theatrical performances might be thought to bear upon whether these
performances are rightly subsumed under the classical paradigm. Second,
improvisation and rehearsal might both be viewed as modes of composition of
performable works. We need to determine the conditions under which what
we have termed “improvisational composition” might take place, whether in
performance or in rehearsal.
A third distinguishing feature of artistic performances is that they are nor-
mally directed at an audience that shares a physical space at a given time with
the performers. Film, on the other hand, is normally directed at an audience
that occupies a distinct space at a later time. This opens up the possibility of
integrating interactions with the audience into an artistic performance. We
have already addressed, in Chapter 1, the kind of regard that artworks in
general demand from their receivers. But we need to examine more closely
two distinctive aspects of the relation between audience and work in the
performing arts. First, we must determine to what extent it is definitive
of an artistic performance that it is for an audience that is present at the
time of performance. Second, we must inquire as to the kind of audience
response that is sought or that is appropriate. This will be one of our con-
cerns in Chapter 9. A second concern will be the ways in which, in theater
and dance, the bodies of performers themselves figure in the artistic vehicles
of performances.
2 The Nature of Improvisation
We noted in the previous chapter the “process–product” ambiguity of a
term like “improvisation” as it applies to musical performance. The term
may refer either to the product of a performer’s activity or to the activity
itself. If we are interested in the essential features that distinguish improvi-
sations from other things, however, it seems more promising to focus on
the performer’s activity. For, even if, as we have seen, there are features
that tend to distinguish the products of musical improvisation from the
products of reflective composition, these features are not always present,
and their presence is to be viewed as a consequence of the process that