Artistic Research

The research aims to connect ‘play’ and collective improvisation through the social and psychological dimensions of group ‘playfulness’, proposing ‘play’ as a creative tool for fostering collective improvisation. This work emerged from my engagement with collaborative improvised music during my years of teaching and PhD studies in Istanbul. Driven by a continuous search for new approaches to deepen my relationship with improvisation (both individually through my instrument and collectively through group dynamics) I was inspired by the well-known book Homo Ludens by cultural historian Johan Huizinga, which explores the significance of play in human culture. During this phase, I also began collaborating with the play expert Yeşim Kunter, whose insights significantly influenced my research. Her expertise helped me explore connections between children’s play and adult play, especially in relation to sensory experiences and embodied knowledge.

The research offers improvisatory collaborative plays and provides a methodology, workshop techniques, and a toolbox for collective practices. The offered play proposals includes: “Emotion Play,” collaborated with an industrial designer, Gülen Mine Demiralp, aimed to increase emotional awareness and practice it with tactile, auditory, and visual components. The “Re-Thinking Objects,” collaborated with play expert and futurist Yeşim Kunter, transforming everyday objects into sound sources, was used to create improvisation. The “Listen Before Play” focuses mainly on the importance of supporting the listening acts during improvisation. One of the main inspirations for these exercises is Pauline Oliveros’ concept of ‘Deep Listening.’ This play emphasizes listening to the sounds created by the performer in the moment, but also to those made by collaborators. The play “Maintain Balance” focuses on body movements, and by making body movements active within a group dynamic, it aims to investigate an embodied practice, which was developed in collaboration with martial arts expert Çağlayan Ceylan. The last two plays, namely “Voicing A Letter” and “Upside-Down,” experiment with the idea of exploring ways of new performing approaches and techniques with the voice and instruments. A set of play instructions as a toolbox has been provided mainly for creative education and collective creative activities. 

The toolbox will be available soon to download.