Faculty Member Susan Sgorbati’s Emergent Improvisation Project

The San Diego Tribune recently included dance faculty member Susan Sgorbati’s Emergent Improvisation Project on its list of the top ten performances of 2006. The list includes such notables as Savion Glover and Alonzo King, among others. The Tribune described Sgorbati’s LaJolla, California performance as “quiet, intelligent dances that… illuminated the nature of memory.” The Tribune continued, calling the Project “…less flashy but more profound.”

The Emergent Improvisation Project was conceived following Sgorbati’s collaboration with the Neuroscience Institute— founded in 1981 by Nobel laureate Gerald M. Edelman, MD, PhD, is dedicated to understanding how the human brain "works" at the most fundamental level. The institute’s groundbreaking theories informed the dancer’s approach to improvisation. In music and movement, her Emergent Improvisation Project demonstrates how self organizing systems can give rise to emergent patterns.

The Emergent Improvisation Project was commissioned by the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in partnership with Bennington College, The Neurosciences Institute, New England Complex Systems Institute, and the National Performance Network Creation Fund. The work received additional support from the Jerome Robbins Foundation, Bumper Foundation, and Bennington College.

• To access the full article and complete list of The San Diego Tribune’s top 10 performances of 2006, click here.
• To read more about The Emergent Improvisation Project please follow the corresponding links.
• For more information about Bennington College’s collaboration with the Neuroscience Institute, click here.