Big Ideas in Improvisation: Improvising in this Moment
September 11, 2025 // ImprovLab at University of Guelph, 108 McKinnon
Part of the Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium 2025
Big Ideas in Improvisation: Improvising in this Moment featured a talk by Patricia Nicholson moderated by Daniel Fischlin. Patricia Nicholson’s statement for this talk reads as follows:
“As Artists/Musicians/Dancers/Poets/Teachers/Organizers
We are Keepers of the Spirit/of the Light
We must find our way back to each other, and to the Community that needs us.”
You can listen to the full audio of this talk below:
Dancer, poet and organizer of movement, music, and causes, Patricia Nicholson Parker has developed her work within the aesthetic of the free jazz improvised arts with an attention to spiritual and social responsibility. There is a choreography to Nicholson’s approach to programming. She curates evenings with a deliberate arc, emphasizing dynamic flow and messaging. Her goal is to design nights that create a complete experience, and engage audiences in active and creative witnessing. All her work is done with the intention of illuminating, whether it is movement/dance based, poetry, or organizing.
Nicholson has had a wide-reaching influence in her capacity as an artistic and community organizer. In 1981, Nicholson choreographed, performed, and organized A Thousand Cranes Peace Opera, with 1,000 children performing in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza for the opening of the Special Sessions on Disarmament; in 1983 and 1985, she responded to a lack of visibility for free jazz by helping to organize the Sound Unity Festivals. In 1994, Nicholson brought together fifty artists to form The Improvisors Collective. Following that success, in 1996, Nicholson founded Arts for Art and the Vision Festival to promote and advocate for free jazz with a focus on equity and diversity, raising awareness through the highly visible platform of the Vision Festival. AFA has grown to be a movement that supports hundreds of artists annually, all working within the free jazz aesthetic. In addition to the Vision Festival, there are year-round events which are free or include a pay-what-you-can option. There is also a free or pay-what-you-can option for her music education program. In every way, Patricia Nicholson Parker has dedicated herself to maintaining diversity in creative improvised music and arts, as well as fair pay for artists, and accessibility. All of this is driven by a deep sense of social responsibility.
In January of 2017, she initiated and led Artist for a Free World, a marching band that participated in 47 demonstrations. Patricia Nicholson Parker has reactivated this group to respond to present threats to our shared humanity.
