Taken by surprise : a dance improvisation reader / edited by Ann Cooper Albright and David Gere.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

INTRODUCTION / David Gere -- IMPROVISING BODY, IMPROVISING MIND : Taken by surprise (Improvisation in dance and mind) / Susan Leigh Foster -- Exposed to gravity / Bruce Curtis -- Dance (A body with a mind of its own) / Ruth Zaporah -- The cutting edge of awareness (Reports from the inside of improvisation) / Kent De Spain -- A DUET WITH POSTMODERN DANCE : Anna Halprin and improvisation as child's play (A search for informed innocence) / Janice Ross -- Animate dancing (A practice in dance improvisation) / Simone Forti -- Learning to speak (An apprenticeship with Simone Forti in logomotion) / Carmela Hermann -- Spontaneous combustion (Notes on dance improvisation from the sixties to the nineties) / Sally Banes -- EXPANDING THE CANON : Stepping, stealing, sharing, and daring (Improvisation and the tap dance challenge) / Constance Valis Hill -- The writing on the wall (Reading improvisation in flamenco and postmodern dance) / Michelle Heffner Hayes -- Improvisation as participating performance (Egungun masked dancers in the Yoruba tradition) / Margaret Thompson Drewal -- Against improvisation (A postmodernist makes the case for choreography) / Victoria Marks -- Multiple pleasures (Improvisation in Bharatanatyam) / Avanthi Meduri -- RECONSIDERING CONTACT IMPROVISATION : A subjective history of contact improvisation / Nancy Stark Smith -- Drafting interior techniques / Steve Paxton -- Embodied meanings in performing, interpreting, and talking about dance improvisation / Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. -- Weighting metaphors (A response to Raymond W. Gibbs and "Hilary") / Karen Schaffman -- Present tense (Contact improvisation at twenty-five) / Ann Cooper Albright -- IMPROVIASTION IN EVERYDAY LIFE : Some traveler's tales / Rachel Kaplan -- What's the score? (Structured improvisation as national pastime) / Maura Keefe -- For the taste of an apple (Why I practice Zen) / Ellen Webb -- Life scores / Nancy Stark Smith -- EPILOGUE : Dwelling in possibility / Ann Cooper Albright.