Thinking Spaces: The Improvisation Reading Group and Speaker Series
Night Improvisations featuring Ben Grossman, Reza Yazdanpanah, and Kathryn Ladano.
The Improvisation Reading Group and Speaker Series, Thinking Spaces, considers the ways in which improvisation can provide us with new ways of thinking and acting. Throughout the year, this group organizes public talks, workshops, special events, and concerts, as well as reading sessions that may include music, performance, film, academic texts, fiction, etc., based around critical thinking on improvisation. Readings are circulated in advance, and may also include short informal presentations by current IICSI students, artists or community groups.
This group is open to all—community members, faculty, and students. We welcome new participants at any time throughout the year. Please contact us for more information or to be added to our mailing list.
Schedule of Current Events:
Winter 2025
- January 21, 2025: Justine Woods, Re-stitching as Methodology: Garment-making as a Transformative Practice in Research-creation
- February 11, 2025: Andrew Goldman, The Cognition of Musical Improvisation: Theories and Experiments
- March 4, 2025: Fron Reilly, Acoustic Innovation: Is There Anything Left to Invent? or, Is There Still Room for Innovative Design in the Field of Purely Acoustic Musical Instruments in an Age of Digitization?
- April 1, 2025: Lucy Rupert, Lisa Hirmer, Christina Kingsbury, and Ben Finley, Interdisciplinary Improvisation & Ultrasonic Moth Songs
See below for an archive of past events.
Thinking Spaces Archive
2023 – 2024
- September 13, 2023: Sophie Brown, Improvisation, Pedagogy, and Pre-Texts
- September 18, 2023: François Houle & Benoît Delbecq, POISE
- October 2, 2023: Karamjeet Dhillon, The Body as Knowledge Incubator: Creativity, Improvisation & Embodiment
- October 27, 2023: Kim Solga, Women Making Shakespeare Now: Decolonizing the Creation Room
- October 30, 2023: Bob Wiseman, The Black Square
- November 10, 2023: annais linares, Co-Creative Accompaniment: Improvising Re[new]ed Relationships through Arts-Based Kin Making
- November 22, 2023: Joe Sorbara, Attending to the Social Space of The Music: Self-Expression as a Site of Pedagogy | Questioning the ways that I teach creative music making
- November 24, 2023: Dr. Darren Hamilton, Exploring and Experimenting with Gospel Vocal Improvisation
- December 6, 2023: Zane Zalis, Head in the Clouds—Feet on the Ground | Improvising and Creating: A Way of Becoming and Being
- February 8, 2024: Colin Harrington, Improvisation in Sequencer-based Electronic Dance Music
- February 28, 2024: DJ Zahra Habib, Lunar Rotations: Eternal Eleutheria
- March 1, 2024: MT Space, Multicultural Theatre Space: Intercultural Theatre Creation
- March 13, 2024: Dreams Come True Music Studio, Improvisation and Radical Accessibility
- March 27, 2024: adam patrick bell, Admiration and Imitation: Toward a Disability-Led Model for Music Education
- April 5, 2024: IICSI Postdoctoral Researchers (jashen edwards, Rebecca Barnstaple, Shelby Bohn), Same Place, Same Time, Different Stories: Creative Interpolations
- April 12, 2024: Rashida K. Braggs, Amber in the City of Light
- September 27, 2024 (11:00 AM, ImprovLab): Jimmy Weinstein and Lilly Stanton, Buiding a Safe Creativity Environment
- October 25, 2024 (11:00 AM, ImprovLab): Melissa Noventa, Movement Across Borders: Improvisation, Diplomacy, and Transcultural Dialogues
- November 15, 2024 (11:00 AM, ImprovLab): Phil Mullen, Ways into Improvisation
- November 22, 2024 (11:00 AM, ImprovLab): Priya Zalis, Clinical Improvisation in Music Psychotherapy
2022 – 2023
- October 25, 2022: Phil Mullen, Improvisation, devising, songwriting and creativity in inclusive musical education
- November 2, 2022: Hilary Bradbury, Action Research Transformation: Liberating the Spirit of Yes/And at a Time of Eco-Social Crisis
- November 16, 2022: Eric Lewis, Improvising the Archive: Medea Electronique’s Archive of Digital Art
- January 18, 2023: Darren O’Donnell, Chance as Co-Director: Working with the Whims of Children
- February 8, 2023: Joanne O’Meara and Shoshanah Jacobs, “Improv for Scientists”
- March 6, 2023: Rashida K. Braggs, “Black Women Who Move Jazz Methodologies”
- March 15, 2023: Rebecca Barnstaple, “Fidelity for the Irreplicable: Improvisation in Dance and Health Research”
- March 29, 2023: Marsha Hinds, “Improvisation, Plantation Societies and Difficult Conversations”
Winter 2022 Sessions
- February 25, 2022: Catharine Cary, The Upside Down Protocol
- March 25, 2022: Aruna Antonella Handa, Untitled, or, How Free is Free Anyway?
- April 21, 2022: Ellen Waterman and Ajay Heble in conversation, Why Music Festivals Now?
2020 – 2021
Jessica Bissett Perea presenting on “Improvising Indigeneity” via Zoom for Thinking Spaces, March 2021
- April 23, 2021: Harald Kisiedu, Living Ball of Fire: Peter Brötzmann, Black Experimentalism, and Politics in 1960s West Germany
- Apr. 9, 2021: Roger Dean, AI and Improvisation: Virtual Improvisers, Virtual Pianos
- Mar. 26, 2021: Dhruv Jani from Studio Oleomingus, The Concentric Fictions of a Generous History: Hypertext and Other Annotations to Memory
- Mar. 12, 2021: Jessica Bissett Perea, Improvising Indigeneity
- Feb. 26, 2021: Taiwo Afolabi, Ethical Questioning in Research: Insight from an Applied Theatre Project
- Feb. 12, 2021: Raven Chacon and Candice Hopkins, “Dispatch”.
- Dec. 18, 2020: Interactive Improvisation in Times of Isolation project, Improvising and Listening
- Dec. 4, 2020: Dong-Won Kim, Time To Plant Seed
- Nov. 20, 2020: Joni NehRita, LOVE + PROTEST
- Nov.6, 2020: Joel Bakan
- Oct. 23, 2020: George Lipsitz, Insubordinate Spaces: Why Improvisation and Accompaniment Matter Now
2019 – 2020
Eric Fillion presenting Jazz Libre for Thinking Spaces in March 2020.
- Sept 27, 2019: Erin Felepchuk, Ben Finley, David Lane, Brent Rowan, Carey West, and Reza Yazdanpanah, Summer Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation: Showcasing Research & Lessons Learned.
- Oct 9, 2019: Benjamin Mayer-Foulkes – Improvisation as institution: the post-University
- Oct 18, 2019: Dong-Won Kim, The Nature of Improvisation From a Korean Traditional Music Perspective
- Nov. 15, 2019: Drs. Daniel and Irene Oore, Listening and Telling about Listening and Telling
- Nov.22, 2019: Lisa Sandlos, Jashen Edwards and Carey West, Improvising Bodies: Sounding Creative Critical practices in Education
- Nov. 29, 2019: Stacey Bliss, Improvising Through Non-mindful Moments
- Jan. 31, 2020, James Harley, Collaborational Issues Between Improvisers & Composers
- Feb. 26, 2020, James Wood, Plastic Time, Optimistic Criticism
- Mar. 12, 2020, Eric Fillion, Jazz Libre: The Musical-Political Praxis of the Quebec Left
2018 – 2019
SOFAM student Nathan Mejia demonstrates his project with Ambisonics.
- Oct. 15, 2018 : Yazz Ahmed post-TAN concert talk back
- Oct. 25, 2018 : Jesse Stewart, Improvising Inclusivity: Community Music, Accessibility, and Improvisation
- Nov. 15, 2018 : Edgar Landgraf, Improvisation and Posthumanism: Liberal, Radical, and Methodological Perspectives.
- Nov. 30, 2018 : Dawn Matheson, Dreaming at Land’s End
- Jan. 18, 2019: Night Improvisations: Ben Grossman, Kathryn Ladano, and Reza Yazdanpanah, curated by Ajay Heble, College of Arts 50th Anniversary: A Night at the Museum
- Feb. 7, 2019: Jay Reid and Ajay Heble, Improvisation Across Disciplines : from Theory to Practice
- Feb. 14, 2019: Nathan Mejia, Computer Vision Ambisonics
- Mar. 6, 2019 : Troy Hourie, Mervyn Horgan, and Kim McLeod, Improvisation and Public Space
- March 22, 2019 : Jim Harley, Ayac Village, Northern Uganda: Music and Dance as Community Building and Treatment for Trauma
- April 5, 2019 : Thinking-In-The-Making: A Conversation About Practice-Based Methodologies & Collaborations with IICSI’s 2018-2019 postdoctoral fellows, Dr. Leila Qashu & Dr. Teresa Connors.
2017 – 2018
Kade L. Twist and Collaborators : Priya Shah, Jeji Varghese, Madhur Anand, Cherish Blood, Lacey Hill and Heather Majaury performance at Silence.
- November 7, 2017 : Danielle Palardy Roger – workshop
- December 1, 2017 : Musical Improvisation at Land’s End/Coin-du-Banc en folie film screening
- December 1, 2017 : Dr. Michelle Stewart & Dr. Rebecca Caines, Improvenabled: Interdisciplinary Responses to Social Isolation
- December 8, 2017 : Kade Twist, “That’s Just Indians Being Indians”
- March 2, 2018, 2018 Improvisers-in-Residence Jen Reimer & Max Stein
- March 9, 2018 : Dr. Maisie Sum & I Dewa Made Suparta, Balinese Gamelan and Community: Composition, Practice, and Performance
- March 21, 2018 : Hafez Modirzadeh, Musical Compost, Consorts, and Collapsing Pyramids
- April 5, 2018 : Dolleen Tisawii’ashii Manning, Off the Cuff: Mnidoo Infinity Squeezed through Finite Modulations
2016 – 2017
- October 25, 2016 : Guelph Ukulele Club and Dr. Kati Szego, Guelph ON
- February 10, 2017 : Dr. Ellen Waterman, Improvisation and the Audibility of Difference: Safa, Canadian Multiculturalism, and the Politics of Recognition
- March 3, 2017 : Dr. Jeremy Matthew Glick, HAITIAN REVOLUTIONARY OUT-TAKES: BRECHT, FANON, BARAKA/HEGEL.
- March 10, 2017 : Brent Lee : Musical Improvisation within Audiovisual Installations
- April 7, 2017 : Hospitable Offbeats: Jazz Improvisation and the Unconditional Welcome
2015 – 2016
- Oct 23, 2015, Douglas R. Ewart, Improviser in Residence
- Nov 6, 2015, David Lee, Change of the Century: How Ornette Coleman Transformed Improvised Music
- Nov 20, 2015 : Documentary Film Screening: Amplified Gesture, Directed by Phil Hopkins (2009)
- Jan 29, 2016 : Georgia Simms, Freeing Frameworks: A Movement Improvisation Workshop
- March 4, 2016 : George E. Lewis in Conversation with Harald Kisiedu, How do you turn an academic book into an opera?
- March 14, 2016 : Harald Kisiedu, Like a Cry You Wanted to Answer: Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky and the Emergence of Jazz Experimentalism in East Germany
- April 1, 2016 : Session on Fluxus with Jeannette Hicks, Silence, 46 Essex St.
