Thinking Spaces

The culture and technology of Electronic Music has seen tremendous developments over the last decade. Thanks to the increased availability, affordability and accessibility of equipment, the artform’s popularity has exploded worldwide. One booming area is that of “Sequencer-based Improvisation”, which entails the synchronizing of one or more instruments together via a “Master Clock”, then using sequencers, sound design, audio mixers, and effects, to spontaneously compose fluid and spontaneous music in real-time.

Dr. Rashida K. Braggs screens and discusses “Amber in the City of Light,” a solo multimedia performance that shares and re-envisions the experiences of Black African diasporic women jazz artists who have migrated to Paris, France. Culling original interviews, field notes and archival research, Dr. Rashida K. Braggs enacts multiple narratives through an embodied performance that merges original song, dance, poetry and theatre.

DJ Zahra Habib takes you on the cosmic experience that is Lunar Rotations, blending musical selections with narrative overtones that connect the sounds with the theme of arriving at an eternally internal freedom: Eleutheria.

The stated purpose of the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation is “…to create positive social change through the confluence of improvisational arts, innovative scholarship, and collaborative action.” The purpose of this talk is to invite partnership and mutual sharing in Critical Studies in Improvisation to imagine uses and expansion in plantation societies.  Using art to confront complicated social issues is a long accepted and well received practice in plantation societies. Drumming, calypso, reggae music and parodies have been used by populations where other forms of expression such as newspapers and even social media are heavily policed to control dissent or calls for justice. 

Improvisation is a core element of some interventions in the emerging fields of dance for health and dance therapy, which have shown potential to slow progress or diminish symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alheimer’s. IMPROVment® is a dance-based improvisational movement practice for brain-body health developed at Wake Forest University. It has been used in several research studies, including a recently completed RCT (2017 – 2020) and a just-launched 5-year RCT investigating dose and frequency effects of dance interventions for adults with subjective memory loss. This talk explores how tools related to improvisation can be adapted to a research-ready scientific protocol while preserving their integrity and magic – includes a demonstration.

Improvisational exercises have been a key element of theatre training for decades. With minor modification, these same exercises can be used in training scientists (and future scientists) to be better communicators.

This Thinking Spaces session, “Chance as Co-Director: Working with the Whims of Children” with guest Darren O’Donnell, took place on January 18, 2023. MORE ABOUT THIS TALK: In this talk,…

This Thinking Spaces session, “Improvising the Archive: Medea Electronique’s Archive of Digital Art,” with guest Eric Lewis, took place on November 16, 2022. MORE ABOUT THIS TALK: Eric will discuss…

This Thinking Spaces session, “Improvisation, devising, songwriting and creativity in inclusive musical education” with guest Phil Mullen, took place on October 25, 2022. MORE ABOUT THIS TALK: In this session…

This Thinking Spaces session, “Why Music Festivals Now?: Ellen Waterman and Ajay Heble In Conversation,” took place on April 21, 2022. Description: Festival studies has become a vital and growing…