Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium 2016
Improvise Here! Profiles in Practice
University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, Sept. 14-18, 2016
Research on improvisation as a social practice is necessarily “practice based”; it manifests as research in performance, community outreach, social policy, pedagogy, therapeutic modes, technology, and other forms of embodied agency. Practice-based Research (PBR) methodology shares in the belief that artistic practice is itself a mode of knowledge production, and that the kinds of knowledge generated by means of artistic practice cannot be achieved or understood through conventional approaches to research alone.
Watch highlights from the 2016 Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium 2016!
Promotional video for the 2016 Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium.
Schedule
Wednesday, Sept. 14th
9:00 – Introductory remarks and welcome
9:15-10:15 – Panel 1: IICSI Invited Roundtable on Improvisation as Practice-Based Research
- Charity Marsh (Faculty of Media, Art and Performance, University of Regina)
- David Dove (Nameless Sound, Houston, Texas)
- David Feil (Nameless Sound, Houston, Texas)
- Pam Patel (MT Space, Kitchener)
George Luscombe Theatre, MacKinnon Building Room 101
10:30-12:00 – Panel 2:Improvisation and the Practice of Everyday Life
- Marcel Swiboda (Culture and Media Studies, University of Leeds, UK) “Contingent Comportments: Improvisational Modes of Being and Knowing in Music and Everyday Life”
- John Faichney (Sociology, University of Waterloo) “Strong and Weak Versions of Community in Contact Improvisation”
- Alessandro Bertinetto (Philosophy, University of Udine, Italy) “Beauty as communication: The case of improvisation”
George Luscombe Theatre, MacKinnon Building Room 101
Esmerine playing a noon-hour concert as part of the 2016 GJFC in UofG’s Branion Plaza.
12:10-12:30 – Performance / Discussion
William Edmondes (International Centre for Music Studies, Newcastle University, UK) and Freya Edmondes (Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna, Austria), “YEAH YOU: Creative Agency, Quotidian Routines, & Situated Performances as Critical Praxis”
George Luscombe Theatre, MacKinnon Building Room 101
12:30-1:30 – Lunch
MacKinnon Building Room 103
1:30-2:30 – IICSI Book Launch
- Negotiated Moments, edited by Ellen Waterman and Gillian Siddall (Duke UP)
- Improvisation and Music Education, edited by Ajay Heble and Mark Laver (Routledge)
George Luscombe Theatre, MacKinnon Building Room 101
2:30-3:45 – Panel 3: Improvisation and Intermediality
- Randy Fertel (Fertel Foundation) “Improv: Theory and Praxis”
- Navid Navab (Concordia University) “Playful Matter: composing for materials to perform”
- Ellen Waterman (Music, Memorial University of Newfoundland) “Improvisation, the body as resource, and group consciousness”
George Luscombe Theatre, MacKinnon Building Room 101
4:00-4:30 – Performance / Discussion
Kevin McNeilly (BC) and Geoff Mitchell (Quebec): Forthright Slapdash Shuffle Stomp Duo
Goldschmidt Room, MacKinnon Building Room 107
4:40-5:00 – Artist Talk
David Virelles & Román Diaz (Cuba / USA)
Goldschmidt Room, MacKinnon Building Room 107
8:00 – Performance
Jonathan Voyer and Shawn Mativetsky (Quebec)
Silence, 46 Essex Street
Thursday, Sept. 15th
9:00-10:30 – Panel 4: What Community Organizations and Social Movements can Learn from Jazz and Improvisation
- Tracey Nicholls (Philosophy, Lewis University) “Improvising Rage”
- Josslyn Luckett (Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania) “’Jazz Ain’t Got No Quarrel with VC!’: Improvisation, In a Silent Way, and Early Asian American Cinema”
- in2improv: Sandra Paola López R. (Dance, University of Texas at El Paso) and Chris Reyman (Music, University of Texas at El Paso) “The Performance Activism of in2improv: How Improvisation is Helping us Build Community on the US/Mexico Border”
George Luscombe Theatre, MacKinnon Building Room 101
10:45-11:45 – Interview
Kid Koala (Quebec) interviewed by Mark V. Campbell (Ryerson University)
George Luscombe Theatre, MacKinnon Building Room 101
11:30-12:30 – Workshop (in French/en Français)
Atelier Paroles-Musique avec Jean Derome (Quebec)
MacKinnon Building Room 103
12:00-1:00 – Performance
David Virelles (Cuba/USA)
Goldschmidt Room, MacKinnon Building Room 107
1:00-2:00 – Lunch
MacKinnon Building Room 103
2:00-3:45 – Panel 5: Practicing Theory, Practicing Performance: Where Improvisation Lives
Chair: Rob Wallace (English, Bowling Green State University)
- Francis (Cisco) Bradley (Pratt Institute) “Pirate Radio and Bohemian Cafés: The Rise of the Williamsburg Scene in Brooklyn”
- Rashida K Braggs (Africana Studies, Williams College) “Improvising Sidney Bechet’s Subjectivities”
- Edgar Landgraf (German, Bowling Green State University) “Recursivity and Improvisation: From Theory to Practice and Back”
- Tracy McMullen (Bowdoin College) “Jazz, Buddhism, and Race: Improvisation and Emptiness as Black Critical Praxis”
George Luscombe Theatre, MacKinnon Building Room 101
5:00 & 10:00 – Performance
Navid Navab, Practices of Everyday Life: Cooking (Quebec)
Guelph Little Theatre, 176 Morris Street
Friday, Sept. 16th
9:00-10:00 – Workshop
Marianne Trudel and Ingrid Jensen (Montreal/New York)
Goldschmidt Room, MacKinnon Building Room 107
10:15-11:45 – Panel 7: Research, Creation, Process, Practice: Other Ways of Knowing, Other Ways of Being
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- Kathe Gray (Theatre and Performance Studies, York University) “Aha! Utopian Moments in Improvised Music Making”
- Sara Ramshaw (Law, University of Exeter, UK) “Practice as Process: Social Justice & Improvisation”
Jesse Stewart performing with his reactable at the GJFC 2016.
- Jesse Stewart (Studies in Art and Culture, Carleton University) “We Are All Musicians: improvising communities through community improvisation”
George Luscombe Theatre, MacKinnon Building Room 101
12:00-1:00 – Performance
Esmerine (Quebec)
Branion Plaza, University of Guelph
1:00-2:00 – Lunch
MacKinnon Building Room 103
2:00-3:00 – Performance / Discussion
Jesse Stewart GJF Remix Project (Ontario)
George Luscombe Theatre, MacKinnon Building Room 101
3:15-4:15 – Keynote: Language of Dreams: Voices of the Many (an Experiment in Collective, Mixed Media, Improvisational Storytelling)
Myra Melford (Department of Music, University of California, Berkeley)
George Luscombe Theatre, MacKinnon Building Room 101
Saturday, Sept. 17th
7:00 – Interview
Amina Claudine Myers (USA), interviewed by Winston Smith (Seneca College)
River Run Centre, 35 Woolwich Street
Pop-up YEAH YOU concerts
Sunday, Sept. 18th
Pop-up YEAH YOU concerts
