FINDINGS
What emerged most clearly through these tasks was that the body is not simply a site where knowledge is stored but a system through which knowledge is continuously enacted, questioned, and reorganised. Improvisation revealed itself not only as a tool for physical exploration but also as a medium of cognitive engagement. Below are several key insights that surfaced from my embodied practice, reshaping how I understand memory, perception, and thought in movement:
​
1. Embodied memory is rhythmic, not narrative. In both body mapping and memory-triggered improvisation, I noticed that memory did not arise as mental images or stories. Instead, it surfaced through movement itself—through curved trajectories, breath-led phrasing, and familiar muscular responses. What I remembered was not "what happened" but "how it moved." This shift in perception made me realise that memory in the body is felt and enacted, not necessarily recalled as a sequence of events. This aligns with Morejón’s (2021) findings that improvisational dance reveals memory through rhythm and muscle response rather than linear narrative.
​
2. Perception generates cognition in real-time. The sensory reset task made this particularly clear. When I danced with my eyes closed, I noticed how my body relied on subtle sounds, balance, and spatial feedback to guide movement decisions. There was no pre-planned action—just attention, response, and adjustment. I realised that cognition in this context was not a product of mental recall but an emergent process activated through direct engagement with sensory input. This observation resonates with Lindberg et al. (2023, p. 334), who emphasize the role of sensory feedback in enacting cognition during improvisational dance.
​
3. Improvisation reconfigures memory, not just expresses it. In the memory fragment collage and interrupting the familiar tasks, I experienced how disrupting familiar movement patterns allowed new forms to emerge. These were not consciously invented but surfaced when habitual responses were interrupted. Through these moments, I understood that improvisation allows the body to reorganise and transform memory, creating new configurations of movement and understanding. This supports the findings of Petigny and Parker (2020), who argue that improvisational practice provides a means of accessing and restructuring collective memory.
​
4. Movement itself is a form of thinking. Perhaps the most transformative insight was that movement is not simply a tool to express thought—it is a mode of thinking. I experienced moments where my body generated ideas through action, where gestures emerged not from pre-existing concepts but from felt responses to the environment. This shifted my relationship to improvisation: it became a way of thinking with the body, where knowledge arises not through analysis but through doing. This insight aligns with Ravn and Høffding's (2022) analysis of improvisation as embodying the process of thinking through movement.
​
These insights were not the result of theoretical reflection alone but were activated through the act of moving. They emerged from lived, somatic experiences, offering a kind of knowledge that cannot be fully articulated through theory. This practice has shown me that movement is not merely an artistic product but a cognitive process—a site where memory, attention, resistance, and transformation unfold in real time. Each task was not designed to prove a theory but to experience and reflect on how embodied knowledge is generated and reshaped. Rather than seeking clarity or a solution, the practice invited me into the ambiguity of embodied knowing. I came to understand that research can happen not only through analysis or observation but through active participation in sensation, memory, and disruption. Improvisation thus became more than a method; it became an epistemological framework, one that revealed knowledge through experience rather than explanation.
Importantly, the improvisations did not lead to a single discovery but opened multiple lines of inquiry: What is remembered through movement? What is forgotten until interrupted? How does the body choose, adjust, and think when language and planning fall away? These are not questions I could have answered through reflection alone—they were questions my body asked and answered through movement. ​
Through these layered, iterative tasks, I began to view the dancing body not just as material but as a method. Improvisation became a way of posing questions that cannot be asked in words and of encountering knowledge that does not arrive fully formed. Through this process, my understanding of memory and cognition was reshaped—not as separate, internal phenomena but as relational, embodied, and composed through movement.
This leads into the final reflections of this study, where I articulate how practice has reshaped my understanding of what it means to remember and think with the body and how this inquiry contributes to broader discussions in dance, somatic, and embodied research.