0
Maggie Nicols
Maggie Nicols
British musician and dancer
1
Joëlle Léandre
Joëlle Léandre
French double bassist, vocalist and composer
2
Irène Schweizer
Irène Schweizer
Swiss musician
3
Annemarie Roelofs
Annemarie Roelofs
musician
4
Lindsay Cooper
Lindsay Cooper
English musician, composer and activist
5
Frankie Armstrong
Frankie Armstrong
British singer
6
Roger Turner
Roger Turner
British musician
7
Marilyn Crispell
Marilyn Crispell
American pianist
8
Peter Kowald
Peter Kowald
German free jazz double bassist and tubist
9
Henry Cow
Henry Cow
English avant-rock group
10
George Lewis
George Lewis
composer, electronic performer, installation artist, trombone player, and scholar
11
Linda Tillery
Linda Tillery
American singer and percussionist
12
Paul Lovens
Paul Lovens
German musician
13
Phil Minton
Phil Minton
Jazz/free-improvising vocalist and trumpeter
14
Derek Bailey
Derek Bailey
British guitarist
15
Susan Alcorn
Susan Alcorn
musician
16
Carlos Zingaro
Carlos Zingaro
Portuguese violinist
17
Caroline Kraabel
Caroline Kraabel
American musician
18
Barre Phillips
Barre Phillips
American bassist
19
AMM
AMM
British free improvisation group
20
Alix Dobkin
Alix Dobkin
American singer-songwriter and lesbian feminist activist
21
Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett
American jazz and classical music pianist and composer
22
Steve Beresford
Steve Beresford
English musician
23
Han Bennink
Han Bennink
Dutch musician
24
Albert Ayler
Albert Ayler
American jazz saxophonist
25
Teresa Trull
Teresa Trull
American singer
26
Sebi Tramontana
Sebi Tramontana
Italian musician
27
Cecil Taylor
Cecil Taylor
American jazz pianist and poet
Intro
band
Music
Members, past and present

The Feminist Improvising Group (FIG) were a five- to eight-piece international free improvising avant-garde jazz and experimental music ensemble formed in London in 1977 by Scottish vocalist Maggie Nicols and English bassoonist/composer Lindsay Cooper. Their debut performance was at a "Music for Socialism" festival at the Almost Free Theatre in London in October 1977, and they toured Europe several times in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

FIG were the first publicly performing women-only group of improvisers and challenged the hitherto male-dominated musical improvisation community. The group consisted of women from different backgrounds with different levels of musicianship, and their concerts were a combination of music and theatre that dealt with everyday women's issues. FIG also integrated "lesbian sexuality" into their performances that, Canadian academic Julie Dawn Smith said, "queered" the improvisational space and "demanded queer listening".

FIG were generally not well received by male improvisers, who Nicols said criticised their technical ability and their "irreverent approach to technique and tradition". Smith noted that FIG's performances were also criticised by some feminists for being "too virtuosic and abstract", but they generally received positive reactions from both women and men at concerts. A review in the improvised music magazine Musics said that FIG's debut performance "was a welcome contrast to the previous performances [of the evening] which had been singularly humourless."

In 1983 FIG evolved into the European Women's Improvising Group (EWIG), bowing to pressure to tone down their name. FIG were influential on the second-generation improvisation scene and spawned a number of women-only improvising groups and events. FIG were also educational in that they exposed new audiences to improvisation and feminism.