The Art of Making It Up as You Go
Hear from two artists and an educator about how they use improvisation to engage with art.
Improvisation informs all kinds of creative practice. Choreographers like Anna Halprin, composers like Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris, and visual artists like André Breton have all used chance to find new pathways, connections, and compositions. But how does chance really play out in an artist’s work? And how might it inform their everyday lives?
Choreographer and dancer Mariana Valencia and artist and musician Jazmin “Jazzy” Romero test these ideas in the performance Jacklean (in rehearsal). In this podcast, they discuss how chance operates in their work, what a performance score for improvisation looks like, and share more about their collaboration. Their story of friendship and innovation is bookended by anecdotes from Sarah Dinkelacker, an educator at MoMA who uses improvisation to help people engage with art. Tune in to hear more about improvisation as a tool for life—a way to make it up as you go and move through the world with others.
Mariana Valencia and Jazzy Romero during a rehearsal for Arrival (work-in-process)
See below for a transcript of the SoundCloud audio.
Artist, Mariana Valencia: Improvisation…it’s just like constant being and learning, I think. And just trusting that something’s going to be, as opposed to needing to represent perfection, or a finished product. I’m writing a script to move away from the script. I’m making a dance to forget it.
Educator, Sarah Dinkelacker: I would define improvisation as a responsiveness, responding to a moment or an action, someone else is putting out there. And a willingness to follow that path.
Artist, Jazzy Romero: The kind of improvisation that I practice is really about just being curious to reach out and just pluck a note and keep improvising from there. What does it look like when we just create something that isn’t there yet? It’s really just being curious and open to play.
MV: It’s this something out of nothing concept as well. When you just have the earth and some things on it, that’s an improvisation, to create something from that. In a city like New York, it’s been here forever, and at the same time I feel like I’m always finding a renewal inside of it. There’s so much material, sometimes it feels like there could be growth or rebirth from something so established.
Host, Lilia Rocio Taboada: Welcome to MoMA’s Magazine Podcast. My name is Lilia Rocio Taboada and as you’ve probably guessed, today’s episode is all about improvisation: what it means, what it looks like, how artists approach it, and how that art can help us embrace the uncertainties of everyday life.
I’m a curatorial associate and have been studying improvisation through close work with two artists over the last couple years. Today, we’ll learn more about improvisation from choreographer and dancer Mariana Valencia and sound artist and musician Jazzy Romero. They’ll share more about their performance here at MoMA and how making art in such fluid ways has changed their lives.
But first, I want you to think about the last time you visited a museum. Because improvisation can actually play a big role when engaging with art.
Sarah Dinkelacker teaching in MoMA’s galleries
SD: Do you know okay, if you meet a museum educator, there is a 50% chance that they did theater in high school? [Laughs]
LT: That’s Sarah Dinkelacker. She’s an educator here at MoMA and I often see her giving tours to students in the galleries. It seems like every time I run into her, she’s talking about a different work of art. I’m always surprised by how seamlessly she transitions between works, finding ways to connect art created—in some cases—more than 50 years apart.
SD: What I’ve always loved about museum education is that…it’s chaotic. You don’t often know the students that you’re gonna be working with. They’re always changing. The galleries are always changing, and you’ve only got 75 minutes together. You can plan and plan and plan, but you can never quite guarantee what’s gonna happen.
When I teach—especially a group of students who I don’t know—I don’t know how they’re going to respond. You could have the same artwork and ask the same questions, and the conversation is gonna be different.
So for instance, if I’m looking at a work of art with a group of people, I’ll ask them, “what do you see?” And they could say anything. Like, there’s no wrong answer. And I think a good teacher says, “Okay, tell me more.” And follows that path as opposed to saying, “Actually this artist meant this.”
LRT: I asked Sarah how she thinks improvisation shapes her work.
SD: The idea that there are multiple meanings and multiple interpretations to a work of art, that more than one thing can be true at the same time. And that our interpretation, it might be different from the artist's, but there’s still validity to it.
I would define improvisation as a responsiveness. Responding to a moment or an action, or it’s something someone else is putting out there. And a willingness to follow that path. And being playful, I think that’s like one of the most valuable skills.
LRT: Improvisation helps Sarah craft stories out of the observations people make when looking at art. But improvisation can also be an invaluable tool for the artists who make that work.
MV: Hi, this is Mariana Valencia. I’m a choreographer and dancer based in New York.
JR: My name is Jazzy Romero. I am a musician and a visual artist based in Los Angeles.
A lot of the ways in which I’ve explored performance was first through music. And as a performer, I’ve always used video and sound and sculpture and different tools to tell stories. That usually happens in a sort of like experimental or improvised way.
MV: For me, I make work that uses the structure of form as guideposts. But I move through those sections in improvisatory ways, which means I rely on a lot of the stuff I already know from training, or from the street, or from just life.
So some of those themes might be my Latina identity, or my queer identity, or my femininity. Or it could be as simple as, I’m a short person—like, I’m short. [Chuckles]
I can also pull from an understanding of sacred dances that I’ve studied. It can also be pop culture. I am using stuff broadly, and I feel like this stuff is just whatever’s in my back pocket and whatever I’ve also accumulated from learning. It all comes together.
Jazzy Romero and Mariana Valencia performing Jacklean (in rehearsal).
LRT: Over the next two weeks, Jazzy and Mariana are collaborating on a performance at MoMA called Jacklean (in rehearsal).
Each night offers something new—Mariana and Jazzy improvise from within a loose structure, so the artwork changes and evolves. Sometimes based on how the audience responds, but also based on how Mariana and Jazzy respond to each other.
Jazzy Romero and Mariana Valencia performing Jacklean (in rehearsal)
MV: Mine and Jazzy’s collaboration was like hopping into this commitment of we’re each following a score, both a sound score and a movement and text score, and that’s the promise. That’s the ground we’re walking on.
JR: And I think we work well together because you use your body first. My first instrument is my voice.
MV: Every time we communicate, it’s either about agreeing upon and expanding upon something, or remembering something together. And I’m sure that it has to do with our shared heritage and timeline in the world. But I also think that it has to do with the way we think as artists.
Jazzy, I think it was your Coqueta project that I was like, oh yeah, those people like are really getting it. They’re doing what I perceive to be improvisational parades or happenings in the street. I was like, yeah! They’re doing it here, right here in New York.
[“Cumbia” by JR excerpt from Jacklean (in rehearsal) plays]
JR: I worked with my sister Jezenia on a musical project called Coqueta. Coqueta was a punk electronic cumbia band. At that time, we were wondering, where do people go and dance cumbia here in New York City or in Brooklyn? Where are the Latinos at? Who’s listening to Latin dance music at dance parties and where are those venues? That was really an exciting thing for me to be able to open up my community.
LRT: Around this same time, Mariana and Jazzy were officially brought together by a mutual friend, photographer and visual artist Guadalupe Rosales.
MV: Yeah, so our friend Lupe Rosales, she is a friend that we have in common. I don’t know when Jazzy met Lupe, but I met Lupe in 2014.
Lupe had a show many, many years later, curated by the Whitney Independent Program. She had a performance in it, and she was like, “You wanna dance on my installation?” And I was like, “Yeah!” And she was like, “Cool, my friend Jazzy is making the track.”
Then about a year later, I had this performance at Performance Space New York, and I wanted a house track made. I really liked what Jazzy had to offer for Lupe, and so let’s see what it would look like to collaborate. Jazzy said yes to that, and then the rest is history.
LRT: But shortly after that first spark of creative connection, the COVID-19 pandemic began and the world shut down.
JR: Although I felt like we were fast friends and there was so much curiosity and interest about getting to know each other and connecting, there was just other factors that didn’t give us that opportunity to explore our friendship, I guess. But there was this understanding.
MV: I think from there on, I was interested in improvisation and not really knowing too much about Jazzy’s practice, but understanding enough, maybe just from vibes and conversation and trust, just like blind trust, I was like, “I think Jazzy is the right collaborator.”
Mariana Valencia performing AIR.
LRT: Years later, when they finally had the chance to fully explore their creative dynamic, Jacklean emerged: a performance with improvisation at its core. But what does that actually look like in practice?
Mariana Valencia performing Jacklean (in rehearsal)
MV: I feel like what’s been happening on stage and in our practice is she’s over here rehearsing and I’m over here rehearsing. And then when we come together, it’s this practice of remembering together.
JR: For me, the kind of improvisation that I practice, for Jacklean specifically, is that there’s a kind of expression that wants to be released, and I’m not trying to land any specific place. It’s just this idea of doing something.
MV: I’m not trying to think through, like, and then this is going to produce that.
JR: So it’s really about being curious to just pluck a note and keep improvising from there, playing around with different melodies and responding to how she’s moving through the space.
LRT: In Jacklean (in rehearsal), Mariana and Jazzy improvise their way through a series of vignettes. Jazzy plays music while Mariana dances. Mariana performs on her own—telling stories, dancing, and interacting with the audience. Jazzy also performs on her own, dancing and singing. They also come back together dancing cumbia or singing covers of popular songs by artists like Chavela Vargas, Sade, and Nina Simone.
The sounds you encounter in one of these performances might vary, but the actions bringing it about are often the same. Mariana repeats words until the pattern becomes a song, like in this clip:
[Performance excerpt]
MV: Hey, Jazzy!
JR: Yeah?
MV: Did you know that Annie was an orphan?
JR: I did know that.
MV: [Singing] Annie was an orphan. Annie was an orphan. Annie was an orphan. Annie was an orphan.
Annie was an orphan. Annie was an orphan. Annie was an orphan. Annie was an orphan.
[Stomping and clapping begins] It’s a hard knock life for us. Annie was an orphan. It’s a hard knock life for us. Annie was an orphan. It’s a hard knock life for us. Annie was an orphan. Annie was an orphan.
It’s a hard knock life for us. We us…be us...
We us. You wouldn’t wanna be us. If you could be us, you wouldn’t wanna—Annie was an orphan. Annie was an orphan. Annie was an orphan.
Jazzy Romero during rehearsal for Arrival (work-in-process)
LRT: Jazzy riffs off of Mariana’s movements, improvising beats and melodies to create new songs, like this one, a house track they like to call “Goth.”
MV:_Full House). Small Wonder. Mr. Belvedere. Hold me closer, tiny dancer. Hold me closer, Tony Danza. Plenty. Pleasure. Jazzy. Jam.
[“Goth” by JR excerpt from Jacklean (in rehearsal) plays]
LRT: These vignettes sound different every time, and always grow into a story that makes connections to the artists, the people in the room, and communities beyond the gallery’s walls.
MV: In this performance, I would say that I am focusing in a more “micro” sense of community between me and Jazzy. Even though there’s an audience in front of us, she’s the one I’m really with.
“Does anybody know Jazzy?”
That’s a question that I put into the room. In other performances, I feel like I would just mention Lydia, and Lydia, and Lydia, and then assume that through repeating it, people would get that Lydia’s my friend. But here I’m kind of like, “No, look at this relationship, watch us move through it, watch how we foster it,” and then maybe you guys can also have something from it, or partake.
JR: Also, it’s so collaborative. I’m looking at what Mariana is doing, and then it gives me an idea of how else I want to play or change something.
[“Warm-up” by JR excerpt from Jacklean (in rehearsal) plays]
I might create a sort of drone or foundation of sound that then I might play on top of, but I’m not really expecting or trying to land any specific place.
I studied jazz formally, so I learned these methods of improvisation which were really specific to bebop. I know them, but I don’t really have to try very hard. It’s not like a light bulb that flashes up in my mind being like, oh, and right now I’m doing this thing. I think at this point, it’s this process of osmosis or something, where it’s now just a part of me. Now it just gets released, I guess.
MV: I’m writing a script to move away from the script, I’m making a dance to forget it. It’s finding freedom within composition. That composition could also be just trusting that something’s going to be, as opposed to needing to represent perfection, or a finished product. What if we just did it for ourselves in front of them? That’s the liberating premise for me. And whatever Jazzy brings, I’m game.
LRT: Jacklean (in rehearsal) is guided by the same ideas that Mariana was thinking through when she first came up with the project: movement, trust, and play.
Mariana Valencia performing AIR.
MV: Jacklean is this actual fantasy character that my friend Lydia and I created out of kind of nothing. We were playing through rehearsal, and we just were lying on our backs—I think we were planning a residency in LA, our first one that was outside of New York. And we were like, “Wow, what’s LA?” We’d never been there. I think LA is the future.
And then Lydia was like, “Jacklean will be there.” I had no idea what Jacklean was, but I just went with that. And I was like, “Yeah, Jacklean will be there.” And she was like, “But Jacklean prefers the pronouns we and us, ‘cause Jacklean’s coming in the future. And in the future, there won’t be identity binaries.” We just kept playing back and forth.
We ended up in LA some months later, and we became these little Jackleans ourselves, looking at the place with improvisational wonderment and approaching it with curiosity, and I think it stuck.
LRT: Over time, Jacklean became more than just a character.
MV: Post-lockdown and through the pandemic and through so many political struggles, I think I had to return to Jacklean to find some kind of hope in something that started feeling even more unpredictable than before. If I just rest into Jacklean, I know that as long as we keep it moving, nothing needs to be fixed. If nothing’s fixed, then there’s potential, and that’s a place of hope.
LRT: This idea of staying fluid, of seeing potential in what’s around you, echoes another concept central to both Mariana and Jazzy’s creative practices.
JR: Rasquachismo.
MV: Which is the sensibility to create something legitimate out of improvisatory elements. You know, if you don’t have a table, you make it with some bricks and a box.
JR: I really love that idea so much, because you just look around and you go, “Okay, what do I have around?” And whatever it is, it just becomes your tool. It’s gotta work, so you just make it work.
MV: It’s this something out of nothing concept when you just have the earth and some things on it, that’s an improvisation, to create something from that.
JR: This is something that I try and teach my niece and nephew as an example, or that we try to learn from each other. Oftentimes they think that they have to always ask permission to do things. I always tell them, “Hey, you have a lot of things already at your disposal that are tools that you can tap into. Why don’t you just go with that?”
My instinct is just to look towards my family members or look towards my friends or my immediate community and say, “Can we put our things together to try to get me to a place where I can see the finish line on this?”
Without really, like, asking for permission or looking towards some kind of authority figure, you know. I kind of like the idea that everyday improvisation is really finding a power within and a strength in a sort of togetherness with my family members or community or friends to get things done, do things that I just need to do to live a life.
LRT: Rasquachismo is a term coined by scholar Tomás Ybarra-Frausto in 1989 to describe Chicanx and Mexican American art. Ybarra-Frausto was inspired by his involvement in the Chicano movement of the 1960s, a social and political movement in the United States that sought to empower Mexican American people.
[Archival audio excerpt from the educational film Chicano (1971), directed by J. Gary Mitchell]
Frank Alderete: Well, Chicano is a, uh, term that has developed through a philosophy, I believe. A philosophy of concern by our youth.
Danny Quinones: We're proud, dignified people, with respect for ourselves and our people.
[Archival audio excerpt from Chicano (1971), including a musical rendition of “Yo Soy Chicano”, performers unknown]
This movement called for the Chicanx community to control its own resources and future. And a key part of that self-empowerment was acknowledging and celebrating the inventiveness of everyday people who found ways to survive with what they had.
So even though it comes from a different context, we can think of rasquachismo as a form of improvisation—of making or doing something in the moment using whatever resources you have available to you. Of transforming obstacles into opportunity, uncertainty into trust.
Mariana Valencia performing AIR.
Jazzy Romero and Mariana Valencia performing Arrival (work-in-process).
MV: It doesn’t take that much material, per se. But it takes energy. And it takes trust. Trust in the venue, that they’re going to trust me to trust myself, to trust that on that day, the performance is going to happen. Trust in the community that shows up to take a chance. Trust in Jazzy.
LRT: And this trust isn’t just essential to performance. It’s a critical tool for navigating an increasingly unpredictable world.
JR: The world around me is just changing so quickly. There’s so much uncertainty, which is really not my favorite place to sit in. And so I have to continue to lean into trust that, like, all the years of making and creativity or learning and research that I’ve done to get to this place of having a facility with improvisation, that will guide me or support me. I have to trust myself that I know what I’m gonna do even if something unexpected happens.
MV: It’s like, “Ah, trust is what we needed the whole time.” Maybe I created that for myself in researching this approach. Maybe I didn’t have so much of it before in myself. I’m sure I had a good amount to try and forge a way through this world. But I don’t know if I had as much as I do now. And I don’t think that I would know that it was valid if I hadn’t tried this project out.
I’m dealing in a field where the experience and the doing of it is the thing, there’s no product.
An attempt to repeat is valid, but the actual attempt to replicate is futile. Maybe there’s value in that—that I’m dealing in a form that is ephemeral. One can say, “Oh, it’s so self-indulgent.” Because it’s, like, yourself doing the experience, but I don’t think it is. I think that it’s an offering, to bring people together and to share in something.
LRT: When it comes to bringing people together in a gallery tour, trust is a crucial thing for Sarah, too.
SD: Creating trust is so hard. Because most of our visitors through the school visits program, it might be their first time coming to MoMA. Often their first time meeting the educator, the learning specialist. And very quickly they have to say, “Hey, it’s safe to share what you think.” And it’s safe to share what you notice and your ideas, and you’re not gonna be judged, and we really wanna hear from you. And there are no wrong answers.
I think sometimes gaining their trust is getting them to slow down. and, being just as vulnerable, like letting go of control because that’s what you’re asking them to do.
And I find that when I positively respond to all comments that are shared by kids, then they feel empowered to keep sharing and they feel empowered to move from observation to inference, to interpretation. Because they realize, “Oh, anything goes, anything can be right.” And my opinion, as perhaps someone who’s walked into the museum for the first time, is just as valid and important as the person who works here and the artist.
LRT: So what have you learned about improvisation through this work?
SD: Flexibility. I think the attitude that if, you know, something can’t go one way, what’s another way. And then collaboration. Improvisation is most often done with two people together. And you’re responding to that person. So this idea of working together and building off one another.
Students engaging with movement and improvisation in the galleries
Jazzy Romero and Mariana Valencia performing Jacklean (in rehearsal).
JR: I guess I could add that I try to work against this expectation that I feel sometimes about being a musician where I have to be virtuosic, that I’m supposed to sort of be technically very skilled or trained. And I like the idea of turning that around and instead holding this attitude that, yes, I’m sitting at the piano and no, I don’t have 30 years of piano-playing under my fingers, but I still can play. I guess it’s just holding this attitude of lightness, that I can play all of these instruments and make them sound specific and distinct to me.
MV: Becoming a mother to my baby has become a daily practice of not knowing something. I thought I knew what improvisation was by making Jacklean with Jazzy, and I thought I knew what improvisation was when I intellectualized this idea of rasquachismo, which was something I inherited from being who I am. But I didn’t fully understand a day-to-day improvisation in the way of learning how to be who I am next to someone who depends on me.
I think that it takes a lot of compassion and a lot of patience. I run a little later now. I am a little kinder to myself and others, maybe. I’m more thoughtful. I’m more deliberate at the same time. I slow down in unpredictable ways. And I have become efficient in a way that I don’t even know where it comes from.
I can base today on what happened yesterday, but this baby’s learning so quickly that today might be completely different from yesterday and everything that I thought was working yesterday might not work today. Let’s go with that.
LRT: And maybe that simple phrase, “let’s go with that,” is the bravest act of all. Because it embraces a fundamental truth: that no one is in full control. That we’re all making it up as we go along and life is just one great big improvisation. This is what binds an educator’s discoveries on a school tour to two artists creating in real time on stage.
Thanks so much for listening! This episode was narrated by me, Lilia Rocio Taboada, and produced by Arlette Hernandez and DaeQuan Collier. It was edited, mixed, and sound designed by Katie McCutcheon. Special thanks to Cam McEwen for his work on this episode and for helping me organize the performance series Mariana Valencia: Jacklean (in rehearsal). You can see Mariana and Jazzy in action at MoMA’s Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Studio through March 23.
["Cumbia" by JR excerpt from Jacklean (In Rehearsal) plays as concluding music]
JR: I think we just send sometimes like one-word text messages back and forth. It’s a very, like, inside joke, but it means that our friendship lives in sort of, like, non-language.
MV: That’s great. No, it’s good. I love this non-language. [Laughter]
Mariana Valencia: Jacklean (in rehearsal) is on view at MoMA through March 23, 2025.
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