The author introduces us two ways of making performance of the performance group OPTIK; the first circle performance developed over the period 1981-1986 were highly structured and no part of it was ever improvised. But the second began 1991 and were created making extensive use of improvisation.
The first approach could be described as working with blocks of performance material, the second cycle worked with wave-like transitions and emergent movements of event and action. Rather than through pre-determine long passages of performance action are the performances built through very small moment by moment actions and relied on the decision making processes of each performer in the work itself to create the final sequence. Without a rigid pre-determined resolution can the movement stand out as movement, the sound as sound, audible, visible, excessive, and the performers as presentators but as creative artists.
The second cycle practice is based on the dynamics of the human body in space and time. It is inside this framework that the sound artist operates, whether acoustic or electronic. The sound artist also works as a performer along with the others, following the same creative decision-making process – not ‘bolting on’ pre-determined sound in a separate way. Part of the pleasure of live performance lies in the way that the performers are drawing attention to themselves, in that space in that moment. Through this very human act the performer is both unique and connected to the watchers in some way, because he is not playing a role but making a role in the performance.
The similar case about creativity from spontaneity and improvisation can be found in Jazz or in Jackson Pollock’s work. Jazz improvisation is the process of spontaneously creating fresh melodies over the continuously repeating cycle of chord changes of a tune. And Pollock was not interested in representation or interpretation of nature but in the creative, unconscious movement of human.
