UBC Colloquium 2018
Sounding Promise in the Present Tense: Improvising Through Troubled Times
Friday, Saturday And Sunday—June 22-24, 2018, 10am – 4pm
UBC Robson Campus Room C420
Free and Open To The Public
Associated Concerts until June 29, 2018 (see listings below)
At this year’s colloquium, Sounding Promise in the Present Tense: Improvising Through Troubled Times, presented in collaboration with the Vancouver International Jazz Festival and Coastal Jazz, presentations and performances will address questions around what it means to improvise in a challenging and uncertain present. What roles can the improvising arts play to address cultural and social turbulence? How might improvisation both settle on and unsettle our senses of what matters now? How does improvising confront our enmeshments in a heavily mediated and diverse world? What sorts of connections and resistances does improvisation enact? How might improvisation involve practices of disruption and of reconciliation? Of protest and of healing? Of undoing, of re-mixing, of co-creation? What senses of promise can improvisations sound in a time of unease and displacement?
Schedule
FRIDAY, JUNE 22ND
A DAY IN HONOUR OF JO-ANN EPISKENEW
10:00-10:45am Roundtable 1
Socially-Engaged & Community-Driven Improv . . . in Practice!
This session brings together speakers using improvisation to respond to community needs or challenges. These projects include a strengths-based approach to addressing youth suicide and social isolation. The roundtable will discuss the challenges and strengths of this approach to research and community support. Projects discussed during the Roundtable will be explored further in the afternoon workshops!
Dustin Brass, First Nations University of Canada (Saskatchewan)
Erin Goodpipe, First Nations University of Canada (Saskatchewan)
Allison Pooley, Asante Centre (BC)
Michelle Stewart, University of Regina (Saskatchewan)
10:45-11:00:am On the Legacy of Jo-Ann Episkenew
Dustin Brass and Erin Goodpipe
11:00-11:30am Roundtable 2
Nothing About Us Without Us: Peer-Mentoring and Improvisation using “Playing to our Strengths: A Community Improv Toolkit
This session will bring together speakers that are adapting and evaluating a community improvisation toolkit to be used in a peer-mentoring program for individuals with a complex disability. Drawing on their own lived experiences as well as health research they have undertaken, the speakers will share how improvisation helps to deliver information about the disability in a positive and strengths-based environment. They will also talk about the critical need for individuals with disabilities to be placed at the center when developing and delivering resources in our communities.
Myles Himmelreich, Asante Centre (BC)
Krystal Glowatski, Simon Fraser University (BC)
Katrina Griffin, Asante Centre (BC)
11:30am-12:15pm Artist Keynote
Earth Revolution
Ta’Kaiya Blaney
1:00 -2:00pm Artist Presentation
Born of the Wild Rose Country
Blue Moon Marquee
2:00-2:30pm Networking Break
2:30-4:30pm Improvisation Workshops
This session will bring together two different community-based improvisation projects. Each project is socially-engaged and developed specific tools or resources for use in a community setting. For each session there will be a demonstration of games followed by a discussion about the activities.
2:30pm Acting Out! But in a Good Way
Dustin Brass, First Nations University of Canada (Saskatchewan)
Erin Goodpipe, First Nations University of Canada (Saskatchewan)
3:30pm Connecting, Creating, Calming: A Family Toolkit
Mia Bell, University of Regina (Saskatchewan)
Robyn Pitawanakwat, University of Regina (Saskatchewan)
Michelle Stewart, University of Regina (Saskatchewan)
4:15pm Closing Remarks
SATURDAY, JUNE 23RD
10:00 am Artist Talk
Improvising Community
Joe Sorbara with Peggy Lee and Bill Clark
11:00-12:00 Artist Talk
Can’t Lit Live! (live podcast recording)
Dina del Bucchia and Jen Sookfong Lee
1:00-2:00pm Artist Keynote
Stretch Woven
Scott Amendola
2:00 – 4:00 pm Critical Karaoke
Critics, artists and listeners offer in-the-moment discussions of selected recordings that take exactly the timing of the tracks. Music discussed will include recordings by Mary Margaret O’Hara, Kamasi Washington, John Coltrane, Tanya Tagaq, Dálava, Childish Gambino, Nels Cline and others
SUNDAY, JUNE 24TH
10:00 – 11:00 am Artist Talk
Music, Improvisation, and the Embodied Mind
Dylan van der Schyff
Exploring the phenomenon of musical improvisation through the lenses of embodied cognitive science and theoretical biology
11:00-12:00pm Poetry Reading and Discussion
Walking the City
Gillian Jerome
University of British Columbia
1pm-2pm Artist Keynote
Improvising from the get go
Nels Cline
2:00-3:00pm Artist Talk
Poetry and the Armenian Genocide
Aram Bajakian and Alan Semerdjian
3:00pm Artist Talk
Letters I Haven’t Written
CONCERTS FEATURING ARTIST SPEAKERS
Nels Cline & Scott Amendola
June 23, 9:30 pm, Ironworks
Cline/Amendola/Lee/Miller/Love
June 23, midnight, Ironworks
Gwyneth Herbert
June 24, 6:45 pm, Robson Stage (free)
Peggy Lee’s Echo Painting
June 25, 9:30 pm, Ironworks
Aram Bajakian & Julia Ulehla
June 27, 11:00 pm, China Cloud
Mary Margaret O’Hara
June 27, 7:30 pm, Performance Works
Davis/Bajakian/van der Schyff
June 29, 5:00 pm, Ironworks (free)
