Abstract

This preprint excerpt, titled “Jazz, Refusal, Metabolic Improvisation,” is drawn from a collaborative article-in-progress, Chew on It—Toward a Compostable Imaginary, co-authored with artists Camila de Andrade Bianchi and Liza Stout. Emerging from a March 2023 performance at Arizona State University’s Grant Street Studios, the work stages collective chewing as a sonic, embodied act of refusal. This excerpt develops a philosophical account of chewing as improvisatory labor, drawing on sonic critical theory—particularly the writings of Ralph Ellison and Fumi Okiji—to frame oral rhythm as a fugue of metabolized resistance. Situating the performance within traditions of jazz, ecological aesthetics, and feminist materialisms, the piece explores how affective, collective sound-making functions as a mode of critique and survivance. Positioned at the intersection of aesthetic theory, environmental philosophy, and experimental performance studies, this text contributes to emerging discourses on political refusal, sonic epistemologies, and the ethics of embodied practice.