Turntable Trio: Maria Chavez, Mariam Rezaei, Evicshen—Wet Sounds #3
2025-03-30 18:30 - 22:00 (America/Toronto) | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
Please join IICSI and Musagetes on Sunday, March 30 at 7:00 PM (ET) for Wet Sounds #3: Turntable Trio.

This presentation will take place in person at ImprovLab, MCKN 108 at the University of Guelph.
Suggested PWYC tickets of $15 will be donated TBD.
No one turned away for lack of funds (NOTAFLOF).
Purchase your tickets here!
More About the Event
On Sunday March 30th, 2025, Wet Sounds: feminist + queer music practices in the polycrisis, presents a performance and conversation with female pioneers of new turntablism, Turntable Trio—Maria Chavez, Mariam Rezaei, and Evicshen (Victoria Shen).
Premiered at Counterflows festival in Glasgow and Rewire in The Hague in April 2023, the project represents the first time three female turntablists of colour have come together in this way. The trio bring together elements of musique concrète, free improvisation, noise, techno and hip-hop with instrument building and modification. Each artist has a wildly different approach to turntablism. Among the techniques deployed will be skratching, beatjuggling, sampling and looping, while the technologies will include double needle head shells and acrylic needle nails. The trio’s compositional aesthetics weave through sound sculpture, maximalism/minimalism and sonic destruction. Together, they will show that New Turntablism is beyond technique, genre or compositional theory; it’s about the unknown.
The event launches with a conversation with the artists around queer and feminist performance and practice in the polycrisis.
More About the Artists
Maria Chavez (she/her) is an abstract turntablist, sound artist and DJ, renowned for repurposing broken vinyl into sonic sculptures that can sometimes be compared to improvised musique concrète pieces, or, conceptually, improvised sonic sculpture sessions. Her recital style approach focuses on the various forms of Deep Listening, a practice developed by her mentor Pauline Oliveros. Coincidence, chance and failure are themes that run through her projects. Chavez’s 2012 book on abstract turntablism, Of Technique: Chance Procedures on Turntable, written and illustrated by Maria, was the first book on abstract turntablism and has developed a reputation as both an academic resource and a foundational text for a new generation of turntablists. Born in Lima, Peru, Chavez is based in New York.
Evicshen is the nom de guerre of San Francisco-based sound artist, experimental music performer, and inventor Victoria Shen (she/her). Shen’s sound practice is concerned with the materiality/physicality of sound and its relationship to the human body. Her music features analogue modular synthesizers, vinyl/resin records, and self-built electronics. Shen’s music eschews conventions in harmony and rhythm in favour of extreme textures and gestural tones. Notable for her Needle Nails, Shen uses modified acrylic fingernails with embedded turntable needles, allowing her to play up to five grooves of a record at once. Her DIY approach extends to hand-made resin records embedded with found materials. Each piece functions not only as playable music media but a unique art object.
Mariam Rezaei (she/her) is a multi-award winning composer, turntablist and performer. She previously led experimental arts project TOPH, TUSK FRINGE and TUSK NORTH, and in November 2022, she received the Paul Hamlyn Foundation #AwardsForArtists, in recognition of her contribution to music composition. Her music has recently been described as ‘genuinely ground-breaking’ (London Jazz News 2022) and ‘high-velocity sonic surrealism’ (4* The Guardian 2022). Recent release BOWN (Heat Crimes) charted no.6 in The Wire and no10 in The Quietus’ best albums of 2023. Recent performances include a three-day residency at Café Oto, soloist with Frankfurt Radio Orchestra for the closing concert at IM Darmstadt 2023, soloist with London Sinfonietta at HCMF 2023 and Taipei Biennial 2023 in a quartet with DJ Sniff, Rex Chen and DJ SlowPitchSound.
Turntable Trio is the third guest in the Wet Sounds series hosted by Musagetes in Guelph, co-presented by the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) at their ImprovLab venue.
Suggested PWYC tickets of $15 will be donated TBD
No one turned away for lack of funds (NOTAFLOF)
Improv Lab at the University of Guelph
MacKinnon Building, Room 108
Masks will be available; we encourage guests to stay home if they’re not feeling well. Please reduce the use of scented products (e.g. perfume, cologne) for this event.
More About the Series
Wet Sounds is a quarterly arts series that presents conversations and performances centring the intersections of feminist and queer musicians’ academic work, artistic practice, and collaborations in the polycrisis. This series will examine notions of grief, ritual, queerness, pleasure, land, embodiment, colonialisms, decay, noise, and sound. Wet Sounds will ask how artists see their practice as impacted by or responding to the interconnected crises unfolding around us—climate chaos, genocide, fascism, an erosion of democracy, and multiple sites of oppression and resistance.

Sounds Like Us 2.0 | Final Showcase
2025-04-02 14:30 - 16:00 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
Please join us on Wednesday, April 2 at 2:30 PM (ET) for “Sounds Like Us 2.0 | Final Showcase” with Campus Friends Community Members and workshop facilitators jashen edwards and Valentina Morelli.
Join us in celebrating the amazing work Campus Friends students have done this semester. Come listen to their original sound explorations, musical improvisations, and extended compositions, as well as their reflections and insights on the creative works they’ll be sharing.
This presentation will take place in person at ImprovLab, MCKN 108 at the University of Guelph. The event is FREE and open to everybody!
More About the Event
Sounds Like Us—presented by the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) and the Campus Friends (CF) program—brings professional musicians into collaboration with community members of varying developmental and physical needs through a series of fun and playful improvisation-based workshops. This season facilitators include postdoctoral fellow jashen edwards, PhD student Joe Sorbara, and community musician special guest, Valentina Morelli.
Sounds Like Us draws upon IICSI’s 12+ years of co-running “Play Who You Are” workshops in partnership with KidsAbility Centre for Child Development, a research-outreach project that has offered all participants—from new musicians to the very experienced; from music aficionados and scholars to first-time listeners—revelations about the links between music and community-making, improvisation and individual/community well-being, sound and self-expression. (And indeed, Sounds Like Us 2.0 includes alumni from Campus Friends and Play Who You Are!) This ongoing research has investigated and demonstrated the effectiveness of improvisation as a means of empowering and animating special needs youth. Researchers have documented and analyzed the myriad relationships between specific improvisational activities and their effects on, for example, socialization, self-esteem, physical coordination, and mental acuity.
As part of IICSI’s ongoing research into Improvisation, Wellbeing, and the Social Determinants of Health, Sounds Like Us will help us continue investigating how community arts participation impacts social connectivity and equitable participation in society. We have seen how improvisation builds resiliency, helps develop key skills, promotes self-expression and leads to greater feelings of belonging for participants.
Please join us to celebrate a semester of music and community making at this final public concert for the Sounds Like Us program. Feel free to spread the word to others who might be interested.

Journée d’étude: Improvisation, Pedagogy, and Cocreative Worldmaking
2025-04-03 09:00 - 17:30 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
—”An adept improviser can find ways forward amid impasse, agency amid oppression, and community amid division.”
– The Improviser’s Classroom
Join us on April 3, 2025 at ImprovLab for a full-day symposium investigating ways to re-imagine pedagogy through the prisms of activism, reciprocity, and communal care. This free, open-to-everyone event is focused around the launch of The Improviser’s Classroom: Pedagogies for Cocreative Worldmaking, the new collection edited by Daniel Fischlin and Mark Lomanno and published through Temple University Press.

Demonstrating how improvisation can inform scenes of teaching and learning, The Improviser’s Classroom also outlines how improvisatory techniques offer powerful, if not vital, tools for producing connection, creativity, accompaniment, reciprocity, meaningful revelation, and lifelong curiosity. This event will explore the ideas brought up in this book through several offerings, including:
• presentations by the Critical Studies in Improvisation graduate program’s newest cohort: Simon Flint, Mark Leroy, Emma Bortolon-Vettor, and Georgia Simms
• the book launch for The Improviser’s Classroom: Pedagogies for Cocreative Worldmaking, featuring a conversation with jashen edwards, Daniel Fischlin, Mark Lomanno, and Carey West
• a keynote by David L. Clark, featuring improvised musical responses by annais linares and Germaine Liu
• closing reflections by Fred Moten, professor of performance studies and comparative literature at New York University
Find the full schedule for the day’s events below:
9:00-9:30 AM—Coffee and Gathering
9:30-9:45 AM—Welcome (IICSI)
9:45-11:45 AM—IMPR 6010/6410 Student Presentations on Emergent/Embodied Teaching Philosophies and Multidisciplinary Approaches to Improvisation; moderated by jashen edwards and Daniel Fischlin;
11:45 AM-1:00 PM—Lunch Break
1:00-2:30 PM—Book Launch: The Improviser’s Classroom: Pedagogies for Cocreative Worldmaking (“Insubordinate Spaces” series edited by George Lipsitz; Temple UP, Edited by Daniel Fischlin and Mark Lomanno; featuring contributors Carey West and jashen edwards)
2:30-2:45 PM—Coffee Break
2:45-4:15 PM—Keynote David L. Clark “I do not know how to teach: scenes from a life, made up” with improvised musical response from annaïs linares and Germaine Liu. Moderated by Daniel Fischlin.
4:15-4:30 PM—Break
4:30-5:15 PM—Fred Moten (Closing Reflections). Moderated by Mark Lomanno.
6:00 PM—Downtown Gathering for Food and Conversation – TBA

Why Arts Matter Research Speaker Series: Technology
2025-04-24 16:00 - 17:30 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
Please join us on Thursday, April 24 at 4:00 PM (ET) for Technology, the third and final event of the Winter 2024 Why Arts Matter Research Speaker Series.
This presentation will take place in person at ImprovLab, MCKN 108 at the University of Guelph. The event is free, although seating is limited. Reserve your spot here!

More About the Event
This panel will explore the transformative impact of technology on culture, the arts, and our understanding of the world. Featuring Dr. Peter Kuling, Dr. Susan Brown, Dr. Rozita Dara, and Dr. Donald Bruce, this discussion will examine how digital performance, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence are reshaping cultural engagement and artistic expression. The panelists will delve into the ethical implications of emerging technologies, the role of digital humanities in fostering collaboration, diversity, and inclusivity, and the ways science and technology are portrayed in media.
This series will be video recorded for later distribution. Following the panel, audience members can engage in a Q&A session. This series will be video recorded for later distribution. Audience members will not be on camera, however will be asked to sign a release for their voice to be included in the recording if they choose to ask a question.
More About the Series
The “Why Arts Matter” research speaker series is hosted by the College of Arts in partnership with the International Institute for Critical Studies and Improvisation (IICSI), and explores the intersection of disciplines to address individual experience, social life, and culture. This series highlights the importance of the arts in shaping our understanding of the world.
For more information, follow this link.

Listening in the Dark: equilibrium
2025-05-04 12:00 - 15:00 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
Please join us on Sunday, May 4 at 12:00 PM (ET) for a “Listening in the Dark: equilibrium”—part of the 2025 ArtsEverywhere Festival.
This presentation will take place in person at ImprovLab, MCKN 108 at the University of Guelph. The event is free and open to everybody!

More About the Workshop

If we do not live near the ocean are we separate from it? Some would say this is a planet of water with land interruptions. If we listen down into the ground to the tributaries that connect to great lakes, the brackish waterways towards the ocean, can we listen with the ocean? If we take a deep breath, are we sharing the breath of cetaceans? The deep ocean, this life-giving and complex multi-being body of water, is described as unknowable. In listening with the ocean we may discover something as yet unknown.
In this three-hour gathering with Anne Bourne, participation stems from Deep Listening practice and the Sonic text scores of Pauline Oliveros, with standing by artist/osteopath Lesley Greco, as well as sound interventions by composer/percussionist Germaine Liu. The practice of Deep Listening offers embodied listening, extreme slow walk, attunement, and collective creative expression.
The experience invokes notions of interstitial places of rest, sonic presence, listening and equilibrium in darkness. No experience necessary. The intention is to create a choral sound field in a particular moment in time, with movement influenced by the temporality of the wave patterns of water. The workshop invites a deeper attunement to each other, ourselves, our bodies, and the more-than-human by expanding sensory listening imagination. “In listening within my field recordings I propose an environmental attunement experience leading towards the algorithmic text score, The Tuning Meditation by Pauline Oliveros when we sing!,” explains artist Anne Bourne. “It is transmitted aurally. I invite participants to listen, and find equilibrium within the surroundings.”

More About the Festival
The ArtsEverywhere Festival is the place where conversations, ideas, and artistic experiments presented on ArtsEverywhere.ca come alive in our home community of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
Over four days, the festival offers lectures, conversations, music, artistic performances, circle gatherings, literary readings, exhibitions, and much more. As the publisher of ArtsEverywhere.ca, Musagetes presents the festival with support from many community partners.

the space between (Guelph Dance Festival—In the Lab)
2025-05-31 16:00 - 17:00 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
Please join us on Saturday, May 31 at 4:00 PM (ET) for the space between, part of the 2025 Guelph Dance Festival!
This presentation will take place in person at ImprovLab, MCKN 108 at the University of Guelph. Tickets are $15 (discounted) or $25. Purchase your tickets here.
More About the Event
the space between is a research-based creation that explores the intersection between sacred geometry (the transcultural belief that the universe is based on geometric principles such as the Golden Mean and double helix) and our relationship to the embodiment of the unseen and ‘déjà là’ (‘already there’).
the space between navigates the fine line between artistic, scientific and intuitive practices. I am gathering artists with the intention to bring approachable and friendly ways of experiencing the unseen (but felt) to the Guelph Dance community.
I wish to cultivate a reciprocal offering with the space between. I want to offer experiences that deepen wonder and inspire sharing. In this time of collective unhinging and chaos, it is my hope that this creation will offer a window into our human bodies as a site for reconnection and transformation.
CHOREOGRPAHY
Katie Ewald
PERFORMERS
Andrea Nann, Kevin O’Connor, Julia Garlisi, Katie Ewald
DRAMATURGICAL SUPPORT
Coman Poon
OUTSIDE EYE
Ame Henderson
EMOTIONAL SUPPORT
Leslie Fisher
BREATH-WORK SUPPORT
Tiago Ferreira
ABOUT THE CHOREOGRAPHER
Katie Ewald lived and worked as a dancer in Montréal for fifteen years. Spliced inside that time she lived in Brussels, Belgium and went to the dance school P.A.R.T.S., which formed her as an artist.
She dedicated her career to working with avant-garde/conceptual artists and choreographers like: Ame Henderson/Public Recordings, Martin Bélanger/LAPS, k.g. Guttman, Lin Snelling, Chanti Wadge, Shary Boyle, Daniel Léveillé Danse and Forced Entertainment.
During her time in Guelph, she worked with Janet Johnson, as well as curated/produced six Short&Sweet shows (Wants&Needs), as well as two Double Time shows for Guelph Dance and Kazoo! Fest.
Currently she is cultivating the dance project the space between, while pursuing her Masters in Spiritual Integrated Psychotherapy and Art Therapy.
ACKNOWLEDEMENTS
Thank you, Asa.
Thank you, sacred geometries and source.
Thank you to all the ancestors before me, whether they be dance, movement, spiritual guidance, mathematician, seeker, believer, helper and healer, and truth teller ancestors, and those working to raise this world in both quiet and obvious ways currently.
the space between is in process. It is an unfinished art work. I would like to thank artist Jenn E. Norton for the inspiration for the space between, and for conversations about our common interests in Chladni plates and sacred geometries, but most importantly for sharing her knowledge and PHD research with us.
the space between has been supported by both the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Improvnetics: Post-anthropocentric performance and improvisational modes for human-AI play, or: What we talk about when we talk about Intersentient empathy. | IMPR Colloquium by Michael Bergmann
2025-06-10 13:00 - 16:00 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
Please join us on Zoom or in the ImprovLab for a hybrid presentation of an IMPR Student Colloquium by Michael Bergmann!
Michael Bergmann is a Canadian artist and scholar. He is a tenured Associate Professor in Performance at Toronto Metropolitan University. His research-creation work explores the integration of AI and robotics into performance and storytelling, fostering post-humanist and post-anthropocentric thinking through improvisational collaboration with synthetic intelligences. He holds an MFA in Design from the Yale School of Drama, where he was supervised by Wendall Harrington.
Michael’s research proposal is called “Improvnetics: Post-anthropocentric performance and improvisational modes for human-AI play, or: What we talk about when we talk about Intersentient empathy.” It is centred around key questions: How can improvisational practices foster empathy in human-robot and human-AI interactions? What role does performance play in shaping these interactions? And how can we better understand non-human sentience? The primary objectives are to develop a framework for human-robot / human-AI improvised performance that treats each as equals; examine representation of robots beyond language performance; explore potential live interactive performances as mediums for human-robot interaction.
Full Zoom information:
Michael Bergmann Colloquium
Time: Jun 10, 2025 01:00 PM America/Toronto
Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/96432136617?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 964 3213 6617
Passcode: [REDACTED]
—
One tap mobile
+15873281099,,96432136617# Canada
+16473744685,,96432136617# Canada
—
Dial by your location
• +1 587 328 1099 Canada
• +1 647 374 4685 Canada
• +1 647 558 0588 Canada
• +1 778 907 2071 Canada
• +1 780 666 0144 Canada
• +1 204 272 7920 Canada
• +1 438 809 7799 Canada
Meeting ID: 964 3213 6617
Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/avLPzK8WY

LITHOPHONICA | CD Release, Concert/Discussion
2025-06-12 19:00 - 21:00 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
Please join us on Thursday, June 12 at 7:00 PM (ET) to celebrate the release of the marvellous, eccentric Lithophonica I & II (Bedrock Resonances) by Gayle Young and James Harley on the Farpoint Recordings label in Dublin.

This CD Release, Concert, and Discussion event will take place in person at ImprovLab, MCKN 108 at the University of Guelph. Admission is FREE and open to everybody!
More About LITHOPHONICA
Stones, the instruments featured on this album, are joined by sounds of bells, sticks and Young’s stringed instruments as Harley expands their resonance, shaping sounds through granulation, layering, transposition, delays, and spatialization.
Young’s collection of resonant stones from the shores of Newfoundland, resonant sticks from abandoned beaver lodges in Ontario, played with bells and assorted hardware, are combined with stringed instruments she designed and built.
As hex-bolts are rolled over stones resting on strings, their vibrations cause the strings to sound. Bells resonate with stones, stones rock on strings, and resonant sticks bounce on strings.
Signal processing simultaneously expands the depth and frequency range, adding complexity through layering and subtle shifts over time.
Additional details to follow

Audiopollination Guelph
2025-06-18 19:30 | Silence, 46 Essex Street, Guelph, Ontario, N1H 3K8, Canada
Audiopollination Guelph is wrapping up the season with this, its last event before the 3rd annual Audiopollination Marathon in August! Local legends Depression 500 will be closing out an evening of familiar faces and Audiopollination Guelph newcomers alike.
Audiopollination Guelph is devoted to being identity-affirming space for all people, so please come as you are and/or as you desire to be!
Wednesday, June 18th, 2025
Cost: $20/PWYC
Silence (46 Essex Street, Guelph, ON)
Doors Open at 7:30pm | Music Starts at 8pm
Ensemble 1: Em Wright, Claire Whitehead & Benedict Hobson
Ensemble 2: Nick Perri, Thomas Rolf & Ana Platanos
Ensemble 3: Evan Gordon, Monte Fenske & Chelsea Masse
Ensemble 4: Depression 500
Please do your part to keep Audiopollination Guelph scent-free.
We are so thankful for support to the show from the Guelph Arts Council!
Masks will be provided at the door.

SOUNDTRACK TO THE REVOLUTION Book Launch (+ Film Screening)
2025-06-24 18:30 | The Bookshelf Cinema, 41 Quebec Street, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Mark the date! You are invited to The Bookshelf Cinema on June 24th for the launch of Soundtrack to the Revolution by Eric Fillion. This scintillating book tells the story of Quebec’s Jazz Libre, a radical experiment in musical activism that reveals the meaningful role that the art of spontaneity played in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s.
The book launch, which will include a discussion with writer David Lee (6:30-7:30 p.m.), will be followed by a screening of The Cat in The Bag (1964) [in French with subtitles], one of the founding films of Quebec national cinema with an original score by John Coltrane’s classic quartet.
This event is free and open to all.
Co-presented by The Bookshelf, Véhicule Press, and the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation.
* Eric Fillion is director of the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation and assistant professor at the School of Languages and Literatures at the University of Guelph. He is the author of Distant Stage: Quebec, Brazil, and the Making of Canada’s Cultural Diplomacy. With Sean Mills and Désirée Rochat, he co-edited Statesman of the Piano: Jazz, Race, and History in the Life of Lou Hooper. He lives in Guelph, Ontario.
*Hamilton-based writer David Lee wrote his 2017 University of Guelph dissertation on Toronto improvised music. His other writings include The Battle of the Five Spot: Ornette Coleman and the New York Jazz Field, and with the late pianist Paul Bley, Stopping Time.

Lancement du Livre: SOUNDTRACK TO THE REVOLUTION BY ERIC FILLION
2025-06-26 17:00 - 19:00 | Casa del Popolo, 4873 Boul. St Laurent, Montreal, QC, Canada
Mark the date! You are invited to Casa Del Popolo on June 26th for the launch of Soundtrack to the Revolution by Eric Fillion (translated by David Homel). This scintillating book tells the story of Jazz Libre du Québec, a radical experiment in musical activism that reveals the meaningful role that the art of spontaneity played in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s.
Co-presented by Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival and Véhicule Press, the book launch will include a discussion with the writer and artist Joseph Sannicandro. This event is free and open to all.
* Eric Fillion is director of the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation and assistant professor at the School of Languages and Literatures at the University of Guelph. He is the author of Distant Stage: Quebec, Brazil, and the Making of Canada’s Cultural Diplomacy. With Sean Mills and Désirée Rochat, he co-edited Statesman of the Piano: Jazz, Race, and History in the Life of Lou Hooper. He lives in Guelph, Ontario.
* Joseph Sannicandro is a writer and artist based in Montreal, studying creative labor and (un)popular culture, with a particular attention to sound. He is co-founder of the music blog A Closer Listen, and producer of the Sound Propositions podcast, and currently lectures in Media Studies at SUNY Purchase.

MILE Camp Concert: Musique du Moment @ Bell House
2025-08-10 19:00 | Bell House, 167 Route 132 Ouest, Percé, QC, G0C 2L0, Canada
(Le français suit)
As part of this year’s MILE Camp, a free public concert will be held at the historic Bell House in Percé.
On Sunday, August 10th, at 7:00 PM (EDT), camp facilitator and multi-Emmy-winning improvising pianist D.D. Jackson will perform in a duo with singer Zoé Jean-Deslauriers. Currently based in New Jersey, Jackson is a celebrated improviser and composer with numerous awards and nominations on both sides of the border for his work on jazz albums and television scores.
Zoé Jean-Deslauriers is a graduate of McGill University’s Jazz Performance program. The singer and songwriter divides her time between Montreal and the Gaspésie.
Also performing will be Montreal harpist Sarah Pagé. A phenomenal solo performer renowned for her skill in going beyond the conventional tonal palette of the harp, Pagé has also worked in collaboration with musicians spanning several genres, including Lhasa De Sela, Nadah El Shazly, Esmerine, the Barr Brothers, and Land of Kush.
Click here to view the full artist bios!
As with all of our public MILE Camp concerts, this event is free and open to all!

Le dimanche 10 août, à 19h00, à l’historique Bell House (167 Route 132 Ouest à Percé), D.D. Jackson, animateur du Camp Coin-du-Banc en folie et pianiste improvisateur plusieurs fois primé aux Emmy Awards, se produira en duo avec la chanteuse Zoé Jean-Deslauriers.
Actuellement installé dans le New Jersey, D.D. Jackson est un célèbre improvisateur et compositeur qui a reçu de nombreux prix et nominations des deux côtés de la frontière pour son travail sur des albums de jazz et des musiques de télévision.
Zoé Jean-Deslauriers est diplômé du programme d’interprétation jazz de l’Université McGill. La chanteuse et auteure-compositrice partage son temps entre Montréal et la Gaspésie.
La harpiste montréalaise Sarah Pagé se produira également ce soir-là. Interprète solo phénoménale reconnue pour son habileté à aller au-delà de la palette tonale conventionnelle de la harpe, Sarah Pagé a également travaillé en collaboration avec des musiciens de plusieurs genres, dont Lhasa De Sela, Nadah El Shazly, Esmerine, les Barr Brothers et Land of Kush.
Cliquez ici pour voir les biographies complètes des artistes !
Comme tous les concerts publics du camp Coin-du-Banc en folie, cet événement est gratuit et ouvert à tous !

MILE Camp Concert: D. D. Jackson Solo Piano Improvisation
2025-08-11 20:00 | Corner of the Beach Cultural Museum, 294 route 132 est, Coin-du-Banc, Quebec, Canada
(Le français suit)
On Monday, August 11th, at 8:00 PM, audiences will have a unique opportunity to see an intimate improvised solo piano performance by D.D. Jackson at the Musée culturel de Coin-du-Banc / Corner of the Beach Cultural Museum (294 route 132 East in Coin-du-Banc).
Jackson, who has played with such jazz luminaries as Little Jimmy Scott, Laila Biali, Sammy Jackson, David Murray, Dewey Redman, Oliver Lake, James Carter, Milford Graves, Andrew Cyrille, Jack DeJohnette, Hamid Drake, Larnell Lewis, Pheeroan Aklaff, Billy Bang, William Parker, Ugonna Okegwo, James Newton, Jane Bunnett, Mino Cinelu, Mor Thiam, and Kahil el’Zabar, will have space to demonstrate the individual skills that make him a gifted and sought-after collaborator by some of the biggest names in improvised music.
As with all of our public MILE Camp concerts, this event is free and open to all!

Le lundi 11 août, à 20 h, le public aura l’occasion unique d’assister à un spectacle intime de piano solo improvisé par D.D. Jackson au Musée culturel de Coin-du-Banc / Corner of the Beach Cultural Museum (294, route 132 Est à Coin-du-Banc).
Jackson, qui a joué avec des sommités du jazz telles que Little Jimmy Scott, Laila Biali, Sammy Jackson, David Murray, Dewey Redman, Oliver Lake, James Carter, Milford Graves, Andrew Cyrille, Jack DeJohnette, Hamid Drake, Larnell Lewis, Pheeroan Aklaff, Billy Bang, William Parker, Ugonna Okegwo, James Newton, Jane Bunnett, Mino Cinelu, Mor Thiam et Kahil el’Zabar, aura l’occasion de démontrer les compétences individuelles qui font de lui un collaborateur doué et recherché par certains des plus grands noms de la musique improvisée.
Comme tous les concerts publics du camp Coin-du-Banc en folie, cet événement est gratuit et ouvert à tous !

MILE Camp Concert: D.D. Jackson + MILE Camp Participants
2025-08-15 16:00 | Corner of the Beach Cultural Museum, 294 route 132 est, Coin-du-Banc, Quebec, Canada
(Le français suit)
On Friday, August 15th, at 4:00 PM, D.D. Jackson will be joined by MILE Camp participants at the Musée culturel de Coin-du-Banc / Corner of the Beach Cultural Museum (294 route 132 East in Coin-du-Banc) for our third and final MILE Camp concert of the year! This performance—a Grand Finale group improvisation—will reflect the collaborative learning and musical exploration that MILE Camp participants have engaged in over the course of their weeklong retreat.
Come and see a renowned bandleader work with a cohesive unit of gifted improvisers who have come together in the beautiful setting of Coin-du-Banc for a week of close contact and shared experiences!
As with all of our public MILE Camp concerts, this event is free and open to all!

Le vendredi 15 août, à 16h00, D.D. Jackson sera rejoint par les participants du camp Coin-du-Banc en folie au Musée culturel de Coin-du-Banc / Corner of the Beach Cultural Museum (294 route 132 Est à Coin-du-Banc) pour notre troisième et dernier concert de l’année ! Cette performance — une grande finale d’improvisation de groupe — reflétera l’apprentissage collaboratif et l’exploration musicale auxquels se sont livrés les participants de Coin-du-Banc en folie au cours de leur retraite d’une semaine.
Venez voir un chef d’orchestre renommé travailler avec une unité cohérente d’improvisateurs doués qui se sont réunis dans le cadre magnifique de Coin-du-Banc pour une semaine de contact étroit et d’expériences partagées !
Comme tous les concerts publics du Camp Coin-du-Banc en folie, cet événement est gratuit et ouvert à tous !

Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium 2025: "Dance with the Music: Movement in the Improvised Arts"
2025-09-11 13:00 - 2025-09-13 11:00 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
The 2025 Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium will take place in the ImprovLab at the University of Guelph from September 11-13, 2025. Presented by the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) and curated by its Director, Dr. Eric Fillion, this year’s colloquium is titled “Dance with the Music: Movement in the Improvised Arts.”
Focused on the interplay of improvised music and dance, this edition of the Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium provides attendees with a great opportunity to engage with world-class academics, dancers, and musicians from Canada and the US, including Heather Cornell, Patricia Nicholson, Julie Richard, and many more. Discussions, performances, artist interventions, and films will all be showcased in IICSI’s state-of-the-art ImprovLab research and performance space.
The colloquium program will also highlight two special sessions by US-based artists Ravish Momin, Val Jeanty, and Ivvy, as part of their week-long residency at the ImprovLab, which will culminate with a performance at the Guelph Jazz Festival. The first of these sessions, by Momin and Jeanty, will feature a discussion and examples of their unique take on global music, an approach that is characterized by the notable absence of traditional instruments and a vision of cultures as dynamic and continuously adaptive. A two-part session, it will address both Haitian culture and Mumbai street bands. The second session will see Ivvy speaking about the aesthetics of FlexDance, demonstrating this artform’s interdependence with music while reflecting on the communities that developed around it as an outgrowth of Black urban/working class culture in Brooklyn.
This catered event is free and open to all, with RSVP via Eventbrite.

For more about this year’s colloquium, including artist bios and headshots, please visit the colloquium page.

cinéma FRANCOPHONE cinema: Le silence de la mer (1949, dir. Jean-Pierre Melville)
2025-09-24 19:00 - 21:00
IICSI Director Dr. Eric Fillion is curating a special Francophone Cinema film series at The Bookshelf Cinema (41 Quebec Street, Guelph). These French-language films (with English subtitles) push the boundaries of cinematic convention to explore urgent, timely topics. Intended for Francophiles and cinephiles alike, the fall 2025 program brings together a brilliant constellation of politically minded artists that straddled the line between cinema and literature amid turbulent times (1940s—1960s), voicing their opposition to war, imperialism, and the spectre of fascism while also enacting and articulating their vision for a better, more just and equitable society.
The first film in the series will be Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le silence de la mer (1949). See the film synopsis and specifications below. We hope to see you there at the launch of this exciting monthly film series!

Le Silence de la mer
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Year: 1949
Country: France
Running Time: 87 minutes
Jean-Pierre Melville began his superb feature filmmaking career with this powerful adaptation of an influential underground novel written during the Nazi occupation of France. A cultured, naively idealistic German officer is billeted in the home of a middle-aged man and his grown niece; their response to his presence—their only form of resistance—is complete silence. Constructed with elegant minimalism and shot by the legendary Henri Decaë with hushed eloquence, Le silence de la mer points the way toward Melville’s later films about resistance and the occupation (Leon Morin, Priest; Army of Shadows) yet remains a singularly eerie masterwork in its own right.

Thinking Spaces: Lucy Rupert, Lisa Hirmer, and Christina Kingsbury "Interdisciplinary Improvisation & Ultrasonic Moth Songs"
2025-10-07 12:00 - 13:30 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
Please join us on Tuesday, October 7 at 12:00 PM (ET) for Thinking Spaces: “Interdisciplinary Improvisation & Ultrasonic Moth Songs” with Lucy Rupert, Lisa Hirmer, and Christina Kingsbury.

This presentation will take place in person at ImprovLab, MCKN 108 at the University of Guelph. As always, our Thinking Spaces events are free and open to all!
More About this Workshop:
In August 2024, dancer Lucy Rupert and musician Ben Finley, along with artists Christina Kingsbury and Lisa Hirmer, collaborated on the interdisciplinary performance Ultra-sonic Moth Songs. Audiences present on that magical summer evening experienced improvised music and movement among the moths at the Moth Garden! Join us as Lucy, Christina, and Lisa reflect on the environmentally inspired multi-disciplinary performance, and the role of improvisation in creating their evocative work.
More About the Presenters:
Lucy Rupert is a dancer, choreographer, art-science researcher, and artistic director of Blue Ceiling dance (founded 2004), through which she has created and produced over three dozen works of contemporary dance and multidisciplinary performance. For the last decade, Lucy has researched and explored the intimate connection between scientific and artistic processes through interviews, artistic creations, and collaborations with scientists.
“heartless”, Lucy’s most recent solo production delving into the moral philosophy of robots, was honoured with three Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations, including Outstanding performance by an individual and Outstanding original choreogprahy.
Lucy’s work has been presented by dance: made in Canada/fait au Canada festival, the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Dusk Dances, Guelph Dance Festival, the Stuttgart International Solo Tanz-Theatre Festival and in unconventional spaces throughout Ontario.
Lucy has performed with noted companies such as Fujiwara Dance Inventions (2010-present), Theatre Rusticle (2001-2017), Nova Dance, Theatre Passe Muraille, Puppetmongers Theatre, Circus Orange, Chartier Danse, Anandam Dance, Sashar Zarif Dance, Free Flow Dance Theatre Company (1995-1999), and many other independent choreographers and creators.
With a Joint Honours BA in Dance and Music from the University of Waterloo, an MA in History from the University of Toronto, Lucy is a lifelong learner, currently studying philosophy through Oxford University’s Continuing Education Department.
Lucy is a mom, a birdwatcher, a citizen scientist, a singer-songwriter and a writer on creative process and dance history. She lives in Toronto with her husband, her son, and a feral cat, in a neighbourhood full of coyotes and old trees.
Lisa Hirmer is an interdisciplinary artist who works in visual media, especially photography; social practice; community collaboration, and sometimes writing. Her work is focussed on collective relationships both in human communities and in human relationships with the more-than-human world. A lot of her recent work wrestles with what it means to be living inside the climate emergency and on the edge of planetary collapse. Her work finds home both in traditional gallery contexts and an expanded field of other public and semi-public spaces and is always created with a keen awareness that multiple realities exist alongside one another.
She has shown her work across Canada and internationally including at Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Gallery of Guelph, University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Cambridge Art Galleries, Art Gallery of Mississauga, Tom Thomson Gallery, Art Windsor-Essex, Doris McCarthy Gallery, Peninsula Arts, CAFKA, Queens Museum, and Flux Factory, among others. She has done artist residencies with Arts House Melbourne, the Santa Fe Art Institute, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World, KIAC and Camargo Foundation, and was the 2022 Waterfront Toronto Artist in Residence. She has received numerous grants including from the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts and has a Master of Architecture from the University of Waterloo.
Christina Kingsbury’s (she/her) interdisciplinary art practice is inspired by histories of care and explores themes of place, ecology and inter-species relationships. Her work takes the form of performance, installation and social practice. Christina collaborates regularly with poets, ecologists, artists, choreographers and the public-including ecological public – to create relational works that offer a quiet and radical challenge to the commodification of life. Her work is rooted (often literally) in the Grand River watershed and treaty lands of the Mississauga’s of the Credit and part of her practice works through relationships with land as a settler person. Her solo and collaborative work has been shown as public interventions and in curated exhibitions both locally and internationally.

cinéma FRANCOPHONE cinema: Hiroshima mon amour (dir. Alain Resnais, 1959)
2025-10-15 19:00 - 21:00 | The Bookshelf Cinema, 41 Quebec Street, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
IICSI Director Dr. Eric Fillion is curating a special Francophone Cinema film series at The Bookshelf Cinema (41 Quebec Street, Guelph). These French-language films (with English subtitles) push the boundaries of cinematic convention to explore urgent, timely topics. Intended for Francophiles and cinephiles alike, the fall 2025 program brings together a brilliant constellation of politically minded artists that straddled the line between cinema and literature amid turbulent times (1940s—1960s), voicing their opposition to war, imperialism, and the spectre of fascism while also enacting and articulating their vision for a better, more just and equitable society.
The second film in the series will be Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima mon amour (1959). See the film synopsis and specifications below. We hope to see you there for the October edition of this exciting monthly film series!
Hiroshima mon amour
Director: Alain Resnais
Year: 1959
Country: France
Running Time: 90 minutes
A cornerstone of the French New Wave, the first feature from Alain Resnais is one of the most influential films of all time. A French actress (Emmanuelle Riva) and a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada) engage in a brief, intense affair in postwar Hiroshima, their consuming mutual fascination impelling them to exorcise their own scarred memories oflove and suffering. With an innovative flashback structure and an Academy Award–nominated screenplay by novelist Marguerite Duras, Hiroshima mon amour is a moody masterwork that delicately weaves past and present, personal pain and public anguish.

IICSI 2025 Improviser-in-Residence Marilyn Crispell in Concert at the ImprovLab
2025-10-18 19:00 - 21:00 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
IICSI is thrilled to announce that a free night of performances by renowned pianist Marilyn Crispell will take place in ImprovLab on Saturday, October 18th.
These performances will be the culmination of a week of workshops and collaborative sessions Crispell will lead as IICSI’s 2025 Improviser-in-Residence.
In her first performance of the evening, at 7 PM, Crispell will collaborate with Guelph’s new and as-yet-unnamed Creative Music Orchestra. Having gathered a few times in recent months to explore the compositions and ideas of some of its many members, the orchestra is beyond excited to work with Marilyn Crispell. For this performance, the orchestra members will be:
Connor Bennett – saxophones
Matt Brubeck – cello
Matt Endahl – piano, fender rhodes
Jonathan Kay – saxophones, esraj
Kayla Milmine – soprano saxophone
Patrick O’Reilly – guitar
Heather Saumer – trombone
Joe Sorbara – drums, percussion
Tyler Wagler – bass
Claire Whitehead – violin
Em Wright – objects
Mark Zurawinski – drums, percussion
The second set, at 8 PM, will see Crispell perform in a trio with Joe Sorbara and Jonathan Kay. Sorbara and Kay’s duo project, The Rest, invokes the emergence of compelling sound worlds that draw upon memory in different ways: intriguing and transformative sounds, noises, spaces, places, images, and affects are made present in the moment alongside intentionally cultivated memories including the musics of Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman, Marilyn Crispell, and Jimmy Lyons, in addition to original pieces by Kay and Sorbara themselves. All of this means that Kay and Sorbara are as likely to be exploring a sound constellation tripped over in a moment of free improvisation as they are a pre-composed melody, groove, or playful rhythmic puzzle.
Anyone wishing to see what Crispell is working on during her time in residency is free to listen in on her trio workshop session with Sorbara and Kay from 1-3 PM on Tuesday, October 14th. Crispell will also give an open improvisation workshop for community members and students from 1-3 PM on Thursday, October 16th. Please reach out to IICSI Project Manager Julia Busatto if you would like to participate!
Marilyn Crispell has been a composer and performer of contemporary improvised music since 1978. For ten years, she was a member of the Anthony Braxton Quartet and the Reggie Workman Ensemble. She has performed and recorded extensively as a soloist and with players on the American and international jazz scenes. She has worked with dancers, poets, filmmakers, and visual artists. She also teaches workshops in improvisation. She has been the recipient of three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust composition commission, and a 2025 NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship award.
Internationally celebrated for her skill as an improvising pianist, Marilyn Crispell is not to be missed. In the words of The New York Times’ Jon Pareles, “Hearing Marilyn Crispell play solo piano is like monitoring an active volcano. She is one of a very few pianists who rise to the challenge of free jazz.”

IMPR Student Colloquium: Mike Hansen—"The First Experience: A Noise…"
2025-10-21 15:00 - 17:00 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
Mike Hansen will present his IMPR PhD Student Colloquium at 3 PM in ImprovLab on October 21. This hybrid presentation is titled “The First Experience: A Noise…” and will be accessible via Zoom:

Topic: Mike Hansen Colloquium
https://zoom.us/j/98711610640?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 987 1161 0640
Passcode: [REDACTED]

This paper will examine a common first point of exposure to sound poetry for children, by which an epistemological understanding of sound and noise is created in a performative setting. This occurs when a parent or guardian reads a children’s picture board book to a toddler, thereby developing an ontology of learning.
This paper will argue that the improvised performative poetic presentation—or sound poetry—of these children’s texts functions as an oral tool for learning, comprehension, and agency building.
This paper will examine how noises are presented in various picture books, such as Dr. Seuss’ Mr. Brown Can Moo! The paper’s primary focus is the noise-to-sound paradigm developed through the improvisational performance of children’s texts like The Noisy Book, by famed children’s author and poet Margaret Wise-Brown (best known for Goodnight Moon). These seminal texts are about the relationship of noise, improvisation and poetry in the ears of toddlers. The inclusion of onomatopoeic words creates the flow of written noises, and their presented function—via improvisational, performative actions—emphasizes comprehension. This paper will dissect noise and the context in which it is perceived in toddler’s poetic literature, where its purpose is to be orally performed. These board books are sonic-poetic presentations that form the recipient’s thinking while also developing agency in the presenter. These texts move past read poems or stories to onomatopoeic presentations, creating an ontology of performative acts which stress actions of understanding and definition, building the foundation of an epistemology towards future thinking. This is the first experience of language and improvisation for toddlers, and possibly for the presenter or performer as well.
Mike Hansen is a sound artist, visual artist and experimental musician who uses noise through acts of improvisation as a tool to create social constructs. He is a PhD student in Critical Studies in Improvisation (IMPR) at the University of Guelph. His research seeks to develop an understanding of when noise becomes a sound, both through how it is defined and its evolution. He completed his Masters of Fine Arts at York University in 2008 and has been exhibiting paintings, sculptures and installations since 1984. For 22 years, he hosted a radio program of experimental and improvised music in Toronto. He has published a number of papers on noise and experimental turntablism.

Sharon D. Engbrecht: "World-Building: Improvisation and Narrativity" Public Lecture
2025-10-27 10:00 - 11:00 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
We are pleased to announce that IICSI Postdoctoral Fellow Sharon D. Engbrecht will be delivering a public lecture in ImprovLab at 10 AM on October 27. This event is free and open to all!
Dr. Engbrecht’s lecture will explore the dynamic between improvisation and narrativity. Both share elements of world-building or of negotiating how the world around us is perceived, but world-building is bound by unspoken rules, agreements, and expectations—does the same go for improvisation? What are the limits of co-creation? How might aspects of narrative theory challenge the way we think about improvisation?
Having recently finished their PhD at the University of British Columbia in English Literature, Sharon D. Engbrecht is the 2025-2026 Postdoctoral Fellow at the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI). Their research into narratives of gender and sexuality investigates broader questions of embodiment, dwelling, and queer love. Their forthcoming articles include the theorization of “difficulty” in the post-secondary educational context and the “gloriously ugly” in Marian Engel’s No Clouds of Glory (Sarah Bastard’s Notebook).

cinéma FRANCOPHONE cinema: Alphaville (dir. Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)
2025-11-05 19:00 - 21:00 | The Bookshelf Cinema, 41 Quebec Street, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
IICSI Director Dr. Eric Fillion is curating a special Francophone Cinema film series at The Bookshelf Cinema (41 Quebec Street, Guelph). These French-language films (with English subtitles) push the boundaries of cinematic convention to explore urgent, timely topics. Intended for Francophiles and cinephiles alike, the fall 2025 program brings together a brilliant constellation of politically minded artists that straddled the line between cinema and literature amid turbulent times (1940s—1960s), voicing their opposition to war, imperialism, and the spectre of fascism while also enacting and articulating their vision for a better, more just and equitable society.
The third film in the series will be Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville (1965). See the film synopsis and specifications below. We hope to see you there for the November edition of this exciting monthly film series!
Alphaville
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Year: 1965
Country: France
Running Time: 99 minutes
A cockeyed fusion of science fiction, pulp characters, and surrealist poetry, Godard’s irreverent journey to the mysterious Alphaville remains one of the least conventional films of all time. Eddie Constantine stars as intergalactic hero Lemmy Caution, on a mission to kill the inventor of fascist computer Alpha 60.

Guelph Film Festival: Assembly—2025, dirs. Rashaad Newsome & Johnny Symons
2025-11-08 19:30 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
IICSI is proud to co-present Assembly, a film by Rashaad Newsome & Johnny Symons, at this year’s Guelph Film Festival!
The film, which runs for 99 minutes, will screen in ImprovLab on Saturday, November 8th, at 7:30 PM. This event is PWYW, with $15 suggested.
Assembly is a multisensory extravaganza featuring a global cast of performers, who transform New York’s historic Park Avenue Armory from a bastion of white military power into a vibrant celebration of Black and queer culture. Reimagining the military facility through video projections, AI holograms, sculptures, collages, music, dance, and African fractal patterns challenges colonial structures while honouring the complexity and resilience of Black experience, thereby turning pain into artistic power. One such moment is a memorial for murdered Black trans women that evolves into a protest march, highlighting art’s capacity for reclaiming agency and inspiring change, offering a vision of intergenerational resilience, transformation, and hope. The film transcends traditional documentary by weaving together Rashaad Newsome’s creative process, dynamic performances, and the lives of his collaborators through hybrid storytelling, visual effects, and the ongoing presence of ancestors.
Before and after the screening, audiences will be invited to experience interactive and collaborative multi-sensory experiences centring BIPOC and queer communities. For full details and to purchase tickets, please visit the listing on the Guelph Film Festival website. Don’t forget to check out other GFF events, too! The festival runs from November 7-15.

Thinking Spaces: Steve Sladkowski—"'What Can I Get Away With Here?': Improvisation in Punk Rock Performance and Community Making"
2025-11-18 12:00 - 13:30 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
IICSI is pleased to present a Thinking Spaces presentation by Steve Sladkowski—guitarist for renowned punk band PUP, and U of G alumnus—in ImprovLab at 12 PM on Tuesday, November 18th! As with all of our Thinking Spaces events, this presentation is free and open to all.
Here’s how Steve describes his talk, and himself:
“Over the past 15 years of touring the world in a loud and sweaty punk rock band, I’ve learned a lot about improvising in musical and physical space by asking the question “What can I get away with here?” Some of the lessons gleaned from repeatedly asking this question are profound; some of the lessons are very, very silly. Through a lively and open-ended discussion with a healthy dose of Q+A, I’d like to offer insight into the practical uses of improvisation as it relates to onstage performance, to music venues as safe spaces, to the art of songwriting and composition, and the many other parts of my lived experience as a touring musician in the age of streaming and social media.”
Steve Sladkowski is a guitarist, improviser, composer, and writer best-known for his lead guitar work in the Juno Award-winning and two-time Polaris Prize-shortlisted Toronto punk rock band PUP. He has performed and improvised in 26 countries since graduating from the University of Guelph’s SOFAM in 2010. When not playing the guitar, he can be found reading, cooking, or cheering on the Blue Jays and Raptors. He resides in Toronto with his wife, dog, and cat and remains tremendously uncomfortable writing bios.

Un-Muting Sonic Restitutions: An Afternoon of Afrosonic Explorations and Improvisations with Satch Hoyt
2025-11-22 15:00 - 17:00 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
IICSI is thrilled to share an exciting and informative afternoon of conversation and an open improv jam session with internationally-acclaimed visual artist and musician, Satch Hoyt! Curated by former IICSI postdoctoral research fellow jashen edwards and featuring IMPR students, this event will offer a glimpse into the ways art and music can be a vehicle for social-political inquiry into injustices sustained by forced migration and xenophobic policies. Join us at ImprovLab from 3-5 PM on Saturday, November 22nd for this free event!
For his Canadian tour, Hoyt will discuss his project: Un-muting Sonic Restitutions, in which he collaborates with national galleries and museums across the globe, including the ROM, unearthing their African musical instrument collections and breathing new life into the wood, metal, beads and cowries that have laid dormant for so long. Hoyt will also share thoughts on the making of his new album, Un-Muting Beyond Misspelt Borders.
At ImprovLab, Hoyt will be joined by a core septet consisting of Daniel Fischlin, Matt Brubeck, Reagan Mitchell, David Lee, Mike Hansen, Hayden Mesnick, and jashen edwards.
Hoyt is a Jamaican-British Berlin-based visual artist and musician. A believer in ritual and retention, his diverse and multifaceted body of work – whether sculpture, sound installation, painting, musical performance, or musical recording – is united in its investigation of the “Eternal Afro-Sonic Signifier” and its movement across and amid the cultures, peoples, places, and times of the African Diaspora. Hoyt is an intimate observer of the sites of convergence where the Diaspora comes together to sing, shout, and be, reflecting itself to itself. Employing the shared tool kit to connect, express, and commiserate across centuries and oceans, Hoyt taps into aural and oral echoes as well as into those retained in the historical and material record (Rujeko Hockley, for the catalog Prospect 4: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp, 2017).
This event is co-presented with the College of Arts Interdisciplinary Program and the Art Gallery of Guelph!

IF 2025
2025-11-28 18:00 - 23:00 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
IF—our free annual Improvisation Festival—returns to ImprovLab on November 28th and 29th! IICSI Director Dr. Eric Fillion has curated a fantastic bill of artists, including legendary Quebec counter-culture figure and ESP-Disk recording artist Erica Pomerance (backed by local improvisers Joe Sorbara, Germaine Liu, and Dan Loughrin), Nicole Rampersaud and Joel Leblanc, Roger Tellier-Craig (formerly of Godspeed You! Black Emperor) and Karl Lemieux (GY!BE’s current projectionist), Sarah Pagé, and many more! This is a thrilling program composed of artists from across Canada. The lineup also has strong local representation programmed in collaboration with the Wet Sounds, Audiopollination, and coexisDance series!
In addition to the live performances, IF will also be streaming hours of archived improvised performance footage.
For full details, visit the festival website!

cinéma FRANCOPHONE cinema: Soleil Ô (dir. Med Hondo, 1970)
2025-12-03 19:00 - 21:00 | The Bookshelf Cinema, 41 Quebec Street, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
IICSI Director Dr. Eric Fillion is curating a special Francophone Cinema film series at The Bookshelf Cinema (41 Quebec Street, Guelph). These French-language films (with English subtitles) push the boundaries of cinematic convention to explore urgent, timely topics. Intended for Francophiles and cinephiles alike, the fall 2025 program brings together a brilliant constellation of politically minded artists that straddled the line between cinema and literature amid turbulent times (1940s—1960s), voicing their opposition to war, imperialism, and the spectre of fascism while also enacting and articulating their vision for a better, more just and equitable society.
The fourth film in the series (and final film of the Fall 2025 program) will be Med Hondo’s Soleil Ô (1970). See the film synopsis and specifications below. We hope to see you there for the season finale of this exciting film series!
Soleil Ô
Director: Med Hondo
Year: 1970
Country: France, Mauritania
Running Time: 102 minutes
A furious cry of resistance against racist oppression and a revolutionary landmark of political cinema, this feature debut from Mauritanian director Med Hondo is a bitterly funny, dazzlingly experimental attack on capitalism and the legacy of colonialism. Soleil Ô follows a starry-eyed immigrant as he leaves West Africa and journeys to Paris in search of a job, a community, and intellectual engagement—but soon discovers a hostile society where his very presence engenders fear and resentment. With this freewheeling masterpiece, Hondo crafts a shattering vision of awakening Black consciousness.

"Tracing the Life of Violence"— A talk by Dr. Sharon D. Engbrecht, followed by an open discussion
2025-12-08 19:00 - 20:30 | Guelph Public Library, 100 Norfolk St., Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Be part of Guelph’s “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence” as IICSI 2025-26 Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Sharon D. Engbrecht explores systemic violence in Katherena Vermette’s “The Break.”

As part of Guelph’s iteration of the “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence,” Dr. Sharon D. Engbrecht will give a talk tracing lines of systemic violence in Katherena Vermette’s “The Break.” Copies of the book can be picked up at the Main Library’s circulation desk starting November 5, 2025. Copies are limited, and a library card is required to check these items out. Enjoy light refreshments and snacks!
The talk will be followed by an open discussion about the novel’s themes and intersections of violence, as well as agency and responsibility in the wake of assault and intergenerational trauma.
The event will be held in the Program Room on the second floor of the Library’s Main Branch (100 Norfolk St.).
Katherena Vermette: is a Métis writer from Treaty One territory, the heart of the Métis nation, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Her first book, “North End Love Songs” (The Muses Company), won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. Her NFB short documentary, “this river,” won the Coup de Coeur at the Montreal First Peoples Festival and a Canadian Screen Award. Her first novel, “The Break,” is the winner of three Manitoba Book Awards and the Amazon.ca First Novel Award. It was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and CBC Canada Reads.
“The Break”: The novel opens by describing “the break,” a series of barren lots in a working-class neighbourhood in Winnipeg. In the winter, there’s hydro lines that buzz “quiet enough that you can ignore it.” The “buzz” acts as a metaphor for various forms of violence in the novel, including gender-based violence as something “you can just ignore.” It’s “just white noise,” the narrator tells readers, “and some people can ignore things like that. Some people can hear it but just get used to it.” Drawing attention to the “white noise” of gender-based violence allows us to reconsider how it plays out in our larger communities and what it means to take a stance to stop it. This activism, at once very personal and communal, is a small way we as individuals can take a stand and be a part of ending gender-based violence in all its forms.
Sharon D. Engbrecht: is a postdoctoral researcher at the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (University of Guelph). Their research delves into how narratives by women authors challenge the systems of power that perpetuate gender-based violence and discrimination. They hail from the Canadian prairies and recently completed their PhD at the University of British Columbia.
By participating in this program, you acknowledge and accept the Guelph Public Library’s Code of Conduct.
If you have any questions, please contact Library Programmer Lauren at lcontini@guelphpl.ca.
Alternative formats are available as per the Accessibility per Ontarians Act by contacting Library Communications at 519-824-6220.

cinéma FRANCOPHONE cinema presents: L.A. Tea Time (2019, dir. Sophie Bedard Marcotte)
2026-01-21 19:00 - 21:00 | The Bookshelf Cinema, 41 Quebec Street, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
IICSI Director Dr. Eric Fillion is bringing his cinéma FRANCOPHONE cinema curated film series back to The Bookshelf Cinema (41 Quebec Street, Guelph, ON).

From January through April, Dr. Fillion will present one film per month. These four films share the common theme of Quebeckers on road trips through the deserts of the southwestern United States. This theme has a personal significance for Dr. Fillion, and so he looks forward to sharing these films with the local community. Intended for cinephiles and Francophones alike, these films (in French with subtitles) depict young protagonists as they hit the road as an escape and a respite, in search of thrills and adventure, connection and purpose, meaning and closure. The first film in this second iteration of the series will be L.A. Tea Time (2019), by Sophie Bedard Marcotte.
Each screening begins at 7 PM, with regular tickets costing $14 and member or student tickets priced at $11 (both are inclusive of taxes and fees). Dr. Fillion will introduce each film ahead of its showing.

L.A. Tea Time
Director: Sophie Bedard Marcotte
Year: 2019
Country: Canada (Quebec)
Running Time: 82 minutes
A filmmaker stuck in an arid, jobless Montreal winter embarks on an improbable quest across the United States of America, taking her director of photography along for the journey. L.A. Tea Time is an unusual travelogue, at times meditative, at times haunted, recounting the adventures of Sophie and Isabelle with humour and a little touch of magic.

Life After the PhD: What is a Postdoc?
2026-01-28 13:00 - 14:30 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
Are you a graduate student wondering what your post-PhD pathway might look like? Join Dr. Sharon D. Engbrecht (IICSI 2025-2026 Postdoctoral Fellow), Dr. An Kosurko (Musagetes and MITACS Postdoctoral Fellow), and Dr. Jordan Zalis (SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow) for a discussion of postdoctoral fellowships!
These three researchers will discuss the various pathways they took as they continued their research, how they navigated funding and application processes, and how they grounded their research projects in improvisation, community engagement, and social responsibility! This talk will be of tremendous value for grad students who are curious about the range of opportunities open to them as they complete their degrees. As with all our talks, this event is free!

Sharon D. Engbrecht, PhD English Literature, University of British Columbia (they/them)
IICSI Postdoctoral Fellow, Improvising Futures SSHRC Partnership Grant: Improvising Identity
Sharon’s research in improvisation focuses on narratives of community and identity making. Their research is particularly focused on improvising intimacies by analyzing cultural narratives of gender and sexuality. Their postdoc project is about community-making and engagement, in part working with feminist-influenced organizations that actively seek to end gender-based violence and in part with researchers approaching improvisation from multiple streams of inquiry and disciplines of practice. Their work on intimacies and community-making is one piece of their larger project looking at the multiple registers of dwelling as a theoretical and phenomenological concept.

An Kosurko, PhD Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland (she/her/they/them)
Musagetes & IICSI Postdoctoral Fellow supported through Mitacs: Improvisation, Dementia Care, & Aging
An Kosurko is jointly hosted by Sociology & Anthropology at U of Guelph and IICSI in partnership with the Musagetes Foundation. Her research combines ethnomethodology, multimodal conversation analysis, and arts-based, community-engaged methods to study social inclusion, creativity, technology, and care. Her current project, Improvising with Dementia, brings together people living with dementia, caregivers, artists, and researchers to explore everyday spontaneity in caring relationships.

Jordan Zalis, PhD Ethnomusicology, Memorial University of Newfoundland (he/him)
SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at IICSI: What Does Basketball Sound Like?
Jordan Zalis is an artist and ethnomusicologist whose work examines the powers of sound in a variety of social contexts. His doctoral research built on five years of ethnographic fieldwork with the Toronto Raptors Basketball Club, analyzing how professional basketball has become increasingly commercialized and spectacle-oriented, raising urgent questions about corporate control of transnational sports culture. In response, his postdoctoral project examines public basketball courts as sites of grassroots cultural expression, investigating how basketball’s improvisatory practices transcend social and cultural difference. By studying informal norms and improvised communities emerging on public courts, he explores mechanisms through which small-scale affinity groups can build broader solidarity in everyday life.
