Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

This article outlines key areas in which improvisation is engaged by artists to support individual and collective well-being in applied contexts. It proposes a number of structural, affective and experiential features which render improvisation a valuable resource for living and dying ‘well’ – both in the form of discrete artistic activities and as a framework for understanding the complex dynamics of professional arts and health practice. Grounded in its contingent, emergent nature and its unique ‘in the moment’ temporality, we position improvisation as a multifaceted phenomenon which supports well-being across overlapping psychological, social and sensory domains. In departure from positivist approaches, we advocate the need to consider improvisation as a dynamic relational activity whose various clinical and non-clinical health benefits emerge through contextuality, the interaction of multiple creative agencies and in embodied and affective registers of meaning-making.

This paper explores relational understandings of children's participation rights, particularly for babies and very young children under 2 years old. We draw on selected data from the Voice of the Baby research project commissioned by Starcatchers, an early years arts organisation in Scotland (2022-ongoing). The overarching aim of the Voice of the Baby project is to explore how babies' participation rights might be realised through the participatory arts. In this paper, we use observations of artists' creative work with babies to illustrate the relational elements of their listening practice. Artists worked through reciprocal interactions with babies, their families, other people in the spaces, the physical materials and qualities of the space, underpinning knowledge of the communities and their own identities as artists. These findings demonstrate that a relational orientation to children's rights is an essential aspect of participatory work in the very early years. However, while the need to understand interdependence, relationality and fluidity has been a key aspect of debates about children's participation rights for decades, an individualist image of the autonomous participating child continues to rear its head. By bringing the Voice of the Baby project into dialogue with international theorisations of children's participation rights-particularly from Majority World contexts-we argue that the tension between autonomous and relational understandings of the child creates a generative space for reflexivity and transparency about how very young children are being involved in conversations about their lives.

Research and practice around dance for promoting health and well-being are rapidly expanding, especially dance for chronic neurological conditions. Yet, research has primarily focused on assessing individual-level therapeutic outcomes, providing limited insight into broader stakeholder voices and community-level health impacts. In response, a longitudinal qualitative interview study was conducted to explore stakeholder perspectives on the community impact of a collaborative, community-centred dance for multiple sclerosis (MS) initiative in a rural Scottish island community. Repeated semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 19 participants, recruited purposively across three fieldwork visits. Participants included organizational partners, dance practitioners, musicians, volunteers, and dancers with MS. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Three themes were developed: (i) amplifying specialist community dance capacity, supporting individual practitioners and the island's wider dance industry; (ii) promoting social capital and inclusion among the diverse local stakeholders involved, especially those living with MS; and (iii) providing a holistic well-being resource for participant dancers with MS, affording regular opportunities for physical, joyful, and meaningful activity through dance. By adopting a broader health promotion perspective, findings show that community-centred dance for health initiatives can generate a range of impacts in rural contexts both among and beyond the primary target participant group (i.e. people with MS), supporting capacity, inclusion, and well-being. Given the breadth of community impacts reported, findings also highlight the importance of maintaining such changes locally, suggesting the need for further consideration around organizational planning, support, and investment in the long-term sustainability of dance for health in rural contexts.

This editorial introduces the Special Issue of the Journal of Applied Arts & Health , which focuses on improvisation and well-being, a timely contribution to a growing field of practice and research investigating creative applications of the arts to support health and well-being. It explores ways in which improvisation can be engaged for social, mental and physical benefit across an interdisciplinary range of projects and articles, which are inclusive of community, pedagogical and therapeutic practices.

Inclusion is often stated as a key dimension of community music (CM). This is of interest in CM research and practice as well as in broader contexts of music education; finding ways of increasing access through and in music participation are imperative. Inclusion, however, is understood in contrasting ways and is often constructed from an adult’s perspective. While practitioner values and actions for achieving and maintaining inclusive spaces have been investigated, less is known about (a) approaches of CM teams with practitioners who have additional support needs (ASN) and (b) how participation may be constructed by children with and without ASN. To investigate this, an exploratory qualitative study investigated a six-week CM programme. Workshops were delivered for seven children aged 10-12, (three with ASN) by two CM practitioners (one of whom wears hearing aids). Interviews were undertaken with practitioners and a child-led focus group was held after the programme. Data were analysed with thematic analysis, resulting in identification of three practitioner themes: multiple ways in which outlines the potential for children to contribute through different artistic disciplines; special communication, which describes the crucial aspect of maintaining a close working relationship in the delivery team and the importance they placed on recognising and building on golden nuggets which were moments of creative flow in the group. Themes from the children: expressing yourself and building a band explored emotional release that group music making provided and social gains and strong group identification the children perceived in creating a “band” together. Capturing these influential views offers insight into (a) how practitioners’ multimodal communications provided distinct options for participation and (b) the potential of investigating children’s musical identities as providing an effective lens for understanding inclusion.