Abstract
This presentation explores the real-time dynamics of improvisation in Djembe dance through a neuro-phenomenological lens, focusing on how kinesthetic memory unfolds in response to rhythmic interaction. Bridging AR Luria's theory of kinetic melodies with Maxine Sheets-Johnstone's concept of kinesthetic memory, the research examines how dancers engage in embodied decision-making within structured yet fluid performance environments.
Improvisation here is understood not as the absence of structure, but as an emergent process rooted in the flexible recombination of embodied movement sequences. Drawing from autoethnographic fieldwork and situated within Thomas Csordas's paradigm of embodiment, the study treats the body as a methodological tool for accessing the lived experience of movement. Through audiovisual documentation and first-person accounts, the research captures how dancers navigate hesitation, perceptual shifts, and real-time adaptation as they enter the improvisational space of the Djembe dance circle.
The concept of kinetic melodies serves as a framework to understand how practiced movement patterns are cognitively and experientially encoded, allowing dancers to retrieve, reconfigure, and align phrases with evolving rhythmic cues. Improvisation thus emerges as a continuous negotiation between prestructured memory traces and moment-to-moment sensory input. By analyzing the interplay between rhythmic perception, motor intention, and embodied memory, this study offers insights into how improvisation becomes intelligible from within the experience itself.
Bio
Diego Marín is a performing artist and dance researcher who investigates kinesthetic intelligence through inter- and transdisciplinary approaches integrating empirical methods, embodied experimentation, and conceptual design. His choreographies blend physical theatricality with sensory metaphor, gaining international recognition for their avant-garde aesthetics and philosophical nuance. His creative research explores the glitch as a choreographic gesture, the tension between the synthetic and the organic, and the symbiosis of human and nonhuman bodies. At RITMO, his research focuses on kinesthetic memory, multimodal rhythm, and rhythm ontologies, with a special emphasis on Djembe dance, rooted in his anthropological fieldwork in West Africa.