After three years of contemporary dance training at a university, my teacher planned an improvisation lesson where we had to conduct a ‘free improvisation.’ This meant that we could interpret the music in whichever way we wished while having complete freedom of movement and use of space. While observing my classmates, I noticed that during their free improvisation they were all conducting strikingly similar movements that were almost identical in dynamic, style, and aesthetic. In a way, it was like observing a homogenous group of dancers moving with no choreography, yet with a uniform sense of movement that lacked any difference, diversity, or contrasts. This was puzzling because while there were different personalities, bodies, and minds in that room, all I could see was a group that was moving as if it was one. Considering that improvisation is viewed by critics and artists as an act for ‘self-expression’ and ‘self-definition’ (Prevost, 1995, p.67), could it be possible that the students’ selves were all so innately similar? How can I explain the phenomenon that the students’ self-expressions appeared to be almost replicants of one another’s? And on a larger scale, what could this mean for the future of art and arts-education? This paper attempts to respond to these questions and unravel the intuition that improvisation cannot only express individuality, but also reveal how it is configured, influenced, and affected by society.

Considering this, I argue that improvisation reveals tendencies of homogenization amongst students, while also holding the potential to fight homogeneity through pedagogical models that encourage the challenging of sameness in the spirit of heterogeneity. Homogeneity is viewed under a negative light due to its drive to assimilate different perspectives, worldviews, and expressions into a homophonous whole that struggles to acknowledge individuals’ potential for developing nuanced sociocultural grounds. The fact that homogeneity is apparent in an arts education setting suggests that the setting itself contracts and compacts creativity to fit within its own standards; ultimately reproducing a product of its own making. This poses a great problem for arts-education since the space meant to nurture artists disturbs the cultivation of artistic conduct and agency. I thus argue that in our ever-changing world that longs for nuanced expressions of our reality, the cultivation of agency should be a priority in higher education arts courses to help emerging artists reflect and celebrate the diverse and multi-dimensional form of human existence.

To unravel this, I use Adorno’s concepts of ‘pseudo-individualism’ and ‘culture industry’ to explore the problematic nature of social as well as artistic homogeneity. Through Adorno’s lenses, it becomes apparent that modern society threatens ‘individuality’ since everyone is immersed within a system that sees them as commodities, making them simply a ‘reproduction of what the whole has made them’ (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1944, p.100). Nevertheless, Adorno’s advocation for developing contradictions and resistance against dominant sociocultural powers opens up a theoretical space that proposes new ways of thinking and being in the world. These philosophical insights are then thought of in the context of arts education to propose ways that heterogeneity can be developed through improvisation. More specifically, Adorno’s admiration for musical polyphony and dissonance will be read metaphorically to culminate into a pedagogic rationale of improvisation - for higher education - that embraces the goal artistic heterogeneity. Taking this a step further, I conclude with the proposition that a figurative reading of diffraction, a scientific phenomenon in quantum physics, can materialize Adorno’s vision of a polyphonic society while also igniting a more critical and difference-attentive way of thinking, creating, and improvising in the arts as well as in society more broadly. 

A philosophical mode of inquiry drives the critical analysis of the improvisation lesson I found myself in. This mode of inquiry is used as a tool to excavate the root of homogeneity and unveil sociocultural realities that motivate its emergence. This philosophical excavation thus allows me to illuminate the sheer reality of the problem to then break it down and attempt to resolve it. Improvisation is used as a laboratory for thinking through both the problem as well as the solution of homogenization. Thinking within the parameters of improvisational practice allows me to examine the ways the students used the knowledge they already had to create something new, illuminating a process of knowledge formation that will be placed into question. Accordingly, the ephemeral and elusive nature of improvisation, in conversation with Adorno’s admiration for polyphony and dissonance, motivates me to re-imagine this process of knowledge formation and develop an alternative pedagogical approach that can embrace heterogeneity within the realm of arts. This pedagogical approach has at heart the concept of diffraction which can, I argue, reflect, develop, and cherish our polychromatic and diverse form of existence. Taken from quantum physics, the phenomenon of diffraction will be read metaphorically to illustrate how the entanglement of different ideas, through processes of infusion rather than rearrangement, can produce nuanced artistic concepts and techniques that fight the reproduction of sameness and embrace heterogeneity. Heterogeneity is placed on a pedal stool because as I will illustrate, it is historically evident from artists like Igor Stravinsky and Pina Bausch that arts revolutions have been stimulated from a wish to ‘step beyond and differ from what was done before’ in, I would infer, a heterogeneous manner (Norris, 2013, p.2). For example, Stravinsky’s revolutionary character was illuminated through his groundbreaking use of harmonic language since he stepped away from the traditional tonal harmony that was dominating the Western world, and nuanced unconventional chord progressions and dissonances with no resolution that expanded harmonic possibilities in classical music. As Roxburgh and Davis (2014, p.3) claim, Stravinsky’s initiative to move away from traditional rules ‘reshaped the aesthetic landscape of classical music’ and captured the transformative spirit of the 20th century, which shows the profound impact that innovation and willingness to move beyond pre-existing knowledge can have on our sociocultural world.

Through the philosophical excavation of artistic homogeneity, this paper proposes a shape-shifting theoretical framework for improvisation that evolves the practice into a pedagogical tool that affirms and showcases the ingrained uniqueness and individuality that each artist has within them. While students learn to internalize technique to master their art, it is extremely important for them to learn to use the space of improvisation as a platform to transcend beyond this technique and carve nuanced perspectives and practices in their discipline. In this way, higher-education arts institutions will nurture a heterogenous generation of artists who will push the aesthetic of their society forward through entangling their experiences in a diffractive manner. The reason this paper places such an immense emphasis on heterogeneity as a goal for arts education is because it can be a promising way to make art embrace its power to redefine norms rather than affirming the ‘commodity character of art’; the one that reproduces dominant standards, ideologies, and modes of expression. I should note here that while improvisation is considered as a practice that belongs within the parameters of the arts and arts education, I see these parameters collapsing as the mental processes occurring during improvisation do not only speak of artistic conduct, but rather of human behaviour more generally and adaptively. Therefore, what this paper aims to stress, following Adorno, is that syncopated rhythms, blue notes, and dissonant chords – being analogous to alternative ways of being in the world, differences in ways of thinking, and contradictions to dominant ideologies – are the very elements that show and cherish the complexity of human nature and existence. It is through these contradictions that individuals can hear their cry out of a homogenizing environment that often suppresses and obscures their voices.

Adorno T. and Horkeneimer M. (1944). Dialectic of Enlightenment. Trans. by J. Cumming, London: Verso. Adorno, T. W. (1965). Notes on Literature. Trans. by Nicholsen S. B. New York: Columbia University Press. Adorno, T. W. (1966). Negative Dialectics. Trans. by. Ashton E. B. New York: Routledge. Adorno, T. W. (1973). Philosophy of Modern Music. Trans. by Anne G. Mitchell and Wesley V. Blomster. New York: Continuum. Adorno, T. W. (1997). Aesthetic Theory. Trans by: Hullot-Kentor, R. University of Minnesota Press. Adorno, T. W. & Simpson, George (1941). ‘On Popular Music’, Studies in Philosophy and Social Sciences, 9 (1). pp.17-48. Barnes, E. C. (2015). Freedom, Creativity, and Manipulation. Noûs, 49(3), pp.560–588. doi: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43828936 Bayley, A. (2020). ‘Diffraction for Performance Research: A new materialist approach to theory/practice’, Performance Research 25 (5), pp.1-3. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2020.1868830 Bertram, G. (2021). ‘Improvisation as a Normative Practice’, Bertinetto, A. and Ruta, M. (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts. NY: Routledge. Cole, D. R., Somerville, M. (2017). ‘Thinking school curriculum through Country with Deleuze and Whitehead’ in Naughton C. (ed), Art, Artists, and Pedagogy (pp.72-82) London: Routledge DeNora, T. (2003). After Adorno: Rethinking Music Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Guat, P. (2010). ‘The Philosophy of Creativity’, Philosophy Compass 5(12), pp.1034–1046, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00351 Haraway, D.J. (1997). Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium. FemaleMan_Meets_OncoMouse: Feminism and Technoscience. New York: Routledge. Mason, M. (2024) ‘Theodor Adorno's Theory of Music and its Social Implications’ Moya K. Mason. June. Available at: https://www.moyak.com/papers/adorno-schoenberg-atonality.html Norris, G., (2013). ‘The Rite of Spring: one of the 20th century's most influential masterpieces was premiered 100 years ago this year.’ Gramophone, 91, pp. 26-27, Available at: link.gale.com/apps/doc/A331004595/ITOF?u=ucl_ttda&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=f4f7bb80. (Accessed: 4th of September 2024) Peters, G. (2009). The Philosophy of Improvisation, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Prevost, Eddie. (1995). No sound is innocent. Charlottesville, Virginia: Copula.