Short Takes – ImprovNotes June 2019

ImprovNotes is edited and written by David Lee and assembled by administrative assistant Rachel Collins. If you have anything improvisation related that you would like included in the newsletter, please email [email protected].

Call for participants! Toronto Symposium / Gathering

Line. Bridge. Body. is a day-long explorative symposium to be held at Majlis Art Garden in Toronto on August 31, 2019. The organizers are inviting participants to present talks and/or short workshops using any medium exploring somatic praxis, relationality, and movement, particularly in the arts, ecology, eco/performance, and politics. The symposium will be followed by an evening of performance art, for which submissions are also encouraged and welcomed. Those interested should submit 300 words describing how they want to explore a symposium theme, plus a brief bio, to linebridgebody [at] gmail.com. The deadline for submissions is July 10, 2019.

“Spontaneous Acts” in Jazz & Culture

Image of the Spontaneous Acts (Routledge, 2016) cover.

Mark Lomanno (Northeastern University) reviews The Improvisation Studies Reader: Spontaneous Acts, edited by Rebecca Caines and Ajay Heble, in the most recent issue of Jazz & Culture. “More so than any similar volume,” Dr. Lomanno writes, “the authors are well balanced between those who are primarily known as artist/performers and those known as academics.”

Improvisation in Rural Ontario

Image showing artists collaborating at the Westben Residency.

Performer-composer Ben Finley is facilitating a new music residency at the Westben Centre for Connection and Creativity in Campbellford, Ontario (outside of Peterborough), that will present a performance on July 12th at 7pm. Participants will hail from Canada, the USA, France, Norway, and Iran, and include Jacques Burtin, Marika Galea, Ryan Gaston, Molly Jones, Mike McCormick, Sarah Belle Reid, Kathryn Shuman, Nahre Sol, Davy Sumner, Roozbeh Tabandeh, and Micaela Tobin.