Karl Marx mockingly called the Hungarian revolutionary leader Lajos Kossuth "an improviser who is moulded by the impressions he receives from the audience facing him at any given moment, not an author who stamps his original ideas on the world." A few years earlier, Marx had derided Giuseppe Mazzini for a failed uprising and also compared him to an improviser: "Has one ever heard of great improvisators [sic] being also great poets?" Marx wonders, "[t]hey are the same in politics as in poetry."

Marx's improvisation-bashing raises many questions: how does improvisation relate to politics? Are there not, contra Marx, good reasons to mould your performance according to the impressions you receive from the audience at any given moment? I seek to answer these questions by connecting political action and improvisation. To do so, I draw on Hannah Arendt's concept of political action and speech. Even though Arendt never used the word ‘improvisation,’ there is a striking overlap between improvisation and her concept of politics. Her emphasis on virtuosity and spontaneity, coupled with her contention that the performing arts have a strong affinity with politics, puts her thought in dialogue with improvisation studies. Unsurprisingly, scholars in Arendt and improvisation studies have claimed that her conception of politics resembles improvisation. This dissertation makes a stronger claim. Improvisation not only resembles politics; it is a performance mode historically linked to politics. To support this claim, I adopt Arendt's phenomenological method and recover earlier, political meanings of improvisation that have gotten lost over time. First, I examine the historical background of the word 'improvisation' by tracing it back to Italian on-stage poetry and comedy theatre. Particularly relevant are the late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century improvivisatori (male) and improvvisatrici (female), solo performers who improvised verses on themes suggested by the audience. Next, I consider a manifesto for improvisational speech in Athenian democracy written by Plato's contemporary Alcidamas, who opined that politicians should invent and deliver their speeches at the moment when they are facing their audience. After that, I point to the fact that improvisations, then and now, cannot be read prior to performance and are therefore uncontrollable. This uncontrollability makes improvisation a potentially disruptive performance mode, especially when performed before agitated audiences. I argue that this disruptive dimension becomes most apparent in the opposition to improvisation by those in power – particularly the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century censorship of German-speaking theatre and the Viennese anti-improvisation law of 1770. It is here that improvisation obtained a new meaning as rule transgression, civil disobedience, and political liberation. After that, I reflect on two conflicting political conceptions of improvisation in the twentieth century: on the one hand a Cold War conception of jazz improvisation as a model for consumer freedom – a model that also served to deflect from racism in the U.S. – and on the other, a revolutionary conception of jazz improvisation as a model for freedom as self-determination and liberation from racial and economic oppression. I then point out that improvisation is not inherently democratic or emancipatory and may just as well be employed by anti-democrats. It is true that Martin Luther King Jr. often improvised, as evidenced by the spontaneously added "I have a dream" section of his 1963 speech. But Donald Trump also improvises and even presents himself as a staunch defender of improvisation. In conclusion, I reflect on the status of improvisation's political and emancipatory potential – either in jazz, theatre, or political oratory.

Besides being a PhD candidate, I am a bass clarinettist, composer, and teacher at the Jazz Department of the Conservatory of Amsterdam. There I teach a Master elective called "Freedom and Improvisation." Over the past few years, I've explored the intersection between philosophy and improvisation. This research interest led to publications in Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, Hollands Maandblad, and a book chapter in Muziek Zit Tussen je Oren. I also incorporate my research interest into my music. For example, my latest album Rope Dance is based on Nietzsche’s parable of the tight-rope walker; Oh Einsamkeit! is a chamber music composition foregrounding Nietzsche's notion of solitude; the project ExTemp, featuring two dancers (Meg Stuart and Claire Vivianne-Sobottke), drums (Jeff Ballard), and myself (bass clarinet), reflects the improvvisatori-tradition of improvising on audience-given themes; and in my solo lecture performance Music and Short Stories I alternate bass clarinet improvisations with brief narrations related to my research topic.