Improvisation and collective well-being in the context of protest in South Africa

This article examines protest as an improvisational performance practice that generates both political meaning and collective well-being. Centring the South African student movement (2015–17) and the 2019 anti-gender-based violence and femicide protests, it explores how spontaneous, embodied tactics of resistance also constitute acts of care, repair and social rehearsal. Drawing from performance studies and improvisation theory – particularly the ethics of co-creation articulated by Daniel Fischlin, Ajay Heble and George Lipsitz – the article argues that improvised protest is a form of collective attunement: a responsive mode of being together through uncertainty and risk. From an applied arts perspective, protest is read not only as political action or spectacle but also as a participatory, process-oriented practice that mobilizes embodied knowledge, ethical responsiveness and relational care. Moments such as the 2015 Parliament occupation, the 2017 naked protest and the 2019 demonstrations show how vulnerability and solidarity intertwine as practices of resistance and well-being within conditions of precarity.