D’ Improviso is an artistic project focused on promoting sociocultural and sonic inclusion through music and creative improvisation. Our organisation has been developing this project in the city of Lisbon since 2022, having involved 250 participants and engaged more than 3000 people, in 189 initiatives in 5 neighborhoods. The project uses diverse tools based on improvisation to foster creative expression and to combat social and cultural exclusion. The key goal of the project is to empower marginalized youth to increase their cultural participation, their artistic knowledge and their creative skills, by providing safe spaces for artistic experimentation, improvisation and collaboration. This project brings the participants from the outskirts of Lisbon to stages in the center of the city.
Improvisation and collaboration are seen as key tools for dealing with the precarious and constantly changing environment that characterises modern societies and, particularly, marginalized people and their neighborhoods. These tools are considered essential for finding hope, resilience and alternative paths to navigate uncertainty and to find innovative resources and creative solutions to respond to social, cultural and economic challenges in deprived urban contexts. More specifically, these contribute to empower individuals and widen their individual and professional perspectives and possibilities, while helping to promote civic engagement and to overcome frequent (personal and societal) limitations associated with social stigma.
With this in mind, the project develops activities that promote broad artistic dialogues and cross multiple art forms, based on the establishment of informal networks of cooperation for sharing knowledge and skills between participants. Taking advantage of the extended possibilities of creative ‘improvisation’, it invites established artists and educators to conduct different training sessions which are shaped by the interests and skills of participants. In this way, D’ Improviso’s participatory actions include the co-creation of a percussion and wind orchestra (PWO) in each participating neighborhood and the co-development of a series of parallel initiatives, that can range from the promotion of concerts that bring jazz and creto these neighbourhood, hip-hop, spoken word and beat making workshops to the exploration of break dance, graffiti art and other forms of creative improvisation.
The simultaneous development of PWOs in each participating neighborhood, allows participants from different neighborhoods to collaborate in punctual initiatives and to share experiences and play together in public presentations of the project. This action starts with the development of workshops for the construction of percussion instruments from recycled materials, contributing to develop participant’s ecological awareness and to stimulate a first approach to creative improvisation by using everyday materials to create instruments At the same time, the high versatility and adaptability of the parallel workshops to the interests and characteristics of each group is made possible thanks to the vast network of projects and partners in and with which our association is involved, that often share values, objectives and teams. By including this project in these networks, besides expanding perspectives of creative improvisation, we aim to increase the participants’ access to relevant professional networks and to new working opportunities. In each neighborhood, there is a dedicated team of artists, cultural producers and educators that engage with local groups to conduct the PWO’s sessions. The promoters of parallel workshops can circulate between the different neighborhoods.
Thus, the project is developed simultaneously in 5 different deprived neighborhoods, located outside of the city center of Lisbon. Namely, Lumiar (in Alta de Lisboa), Carnide, Ajuda, Marvila and the Almirante Reis area (all considered priority intervention areas by the municipality), taking advantage of pre-established relations with local parish councils, the DLBC (a Lisbon-based network that supports community-based local development) and local community groups. With the help of these entities, we gather new participants for each edition of D’ Improviso and we ensure the context-specific adequacy and sustainability of the project’s strategies and methodologies in each of the participating neighborhoods. At the same time and in its different phases, the project is constantly monitored by the ASL team to ensure the efficacy of the ongoing actions. We have developed extensive field-work in each of the participating neighborhoods, having acquired a good perspective of key potentialities and challenges in each territory that are considered in the project’s implementation strategies.
The participants of each neighborhood (young people of 12 years and older) are mostly from marginalized communities, including african descendents, roma people and disadvantaged youngsters. Through creative improvisation, they are invited to share and learn different creative skills and to take an active role in experimenting with new ways of doing things and of connecting with their environment, opening new perspectives towards their lives and their communities. Ultimately, D’ Improviso methodology is based on a creative studio’s model, where participants - based on their knowledge, skills and cultural backgrounds - are invited to take an active role in the creation and adaptation of the project’s initiatives to their interests, skills and context. Combining theoretical and practical sessions, the emphasis is on stimulating creative thinking and on the articulation of different knowledge and experiences, as a way to foster individual and collective improvisation as a mode of creative action. This leads to the open exploration of new creative possibilities that are not prescriptive and that challenge established processes, hierarchies, methodologies and forms of individual and collective organization.
In 2025/2026 and 2026/2027, D’Improviso actions will take place during 8 months and all actions are developed in the neighborhoods where participants are based, facilitating the participant’s access to D'Improviso initiatives and contributing to bring favourable spill-over effects to the wider community. In order to stimulate the establishment of closer relations between participants, local communities and local entities, we include in the project’s actions public talks and meetings about improvisation and social creativity to be developed by the ASL team. These sessions are open to the wider public and the aim is to engage a diverse audience in the discussion about these topics, helping to build wider interest, networks and support towards the actions and mission of D’Improviso.
