Architecture as a Record

Duke Ellington was once quoted as saying:

"Art is dangerous.  It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don't want it."

When in front of an arch-i-critical firing squad - with the ball decidedly not in my court - I find myself thinking of this quote.  How does improvisation find its way into architecture?  What paths have I already traveled that have led to another damn building (a derogatory term in this case)?  Where did the life of improvisation go once the realm of walls and rooms and bathrooms was breached? This has led me to the confusion of whether a building should be considered a record of an event or the site of one?  Maybe both!  

When I gather a group of people together to have an architectural performance, I get the same feeling that I once had performing music in front of a crowd.  That is a good sign.  The other day, I woke up around four in the morning and wrote "from music to performance to film to still image to architecture", which is one path I could take.  My task is to clearly elucidate this performance idea I have in my head to an audience through something that is architecture.