Thoughts on Sandeep Bhagwati’s Comprovisation: Concepts and Practices
“Comprovisation” is a term created by combining “composition” and “improvisation” used by Sandeep Bhagwati since 2004 on various occasions. It is meant to clarify the systematic coexistence between the areas of composition and improvisation. This article shows how Bhagwati’s concept of comprovisation can be used as an artistic concept, a form of playing music collectively, a way of working and as a training model. Comprovisation brings a new formulation of tasks and location of roles of the participants to the idea of collaborative work that is consistent in the process of rehearsal for staged performance. With it, one comes close to the realization of the basic idea of “making music together” (Alfred Schütz, Christopher Small). What is above all new here is its transcultural or intercultural orientation. Comprovisation invites the testing of and experimentation with the boundaries of available musics and cultures, their materiality, sociability, performativity and their creative potential.