UBC Colloquium 2023
Improvising Futures: Sound Futures, Future Sounds
Tuesday, June 27–Thursday, June 29, 2023
Western Front, 303 East 8th Ave, Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 1S1
Free and open to the public
The International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) has collaborated with Coastal Jazz since 2007 to host an annual colloquium in Vancouver: an open public gathering of artists, academics and community members to discuss and support the transformative work of the improvisational arts. In 2023, as part of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, IICSI is co-curating along with Coastal Jazz—and supported by Western Front—the first of five colloquia under the title “Improvising Futures,” which is the name of our new federally-funded research partnership. Improvising Futures aims to invite diverse cultural perspectives into conversation, to expand the scope and depth of interdisciplinary research on improvisation, and to put knowledge into practice through collaborative community initiatives. “Improvisation,” award-winning IICSI researchers Ajay Heble, Daniel Fischlin and George Lipsitz have written, “is the creation and development of new, unexpected, and productive cocreative relations among people. It cultivates the capacity to discern elements of possibility, potential, hope, and promise where none are readily apparent.” For this year’s colloquium, Western Front will host conversations around the theme of “Sound Futures, Future Sounds.”
Schedule of Events
Tuesday, June 22
11:00am
Live Comics Drawing Jam! (Featuring musical improvisations by trumpeter Bill Clark)
Improvising Futures has invited the UBC Comics Studies Research Cluster to take part in a live comics-drawing improv session, in collaboration with one of Vancouver’s finest improvising musicians. Everyone is welcome, regardless of skill level. Pens, pencils and paper will be provided. Come out and enjoy some creative fun!
12:30pm
Talk and Demonstration by Aram Bajakian, “Leo Tutunjian 1938: The Story of An Oud’s Journey to Vancouver.”
3:00pm
Artist Discussion with Sona Jobarteh, moderated by Julia Ulehla.
Wednesday June 28
3:00pm
Artist Workshop / Discussion with Zoh Amba and Farida Amadou, moderated by Dylan van der Schyff.
Thursday June 29
11:00am
Open Community Discussion of the Improvising Futures research initiative and partnership grant. This grant has research sites around the world, and focuses on four main research streams: (1) Improvisation, Media, and Stories of Change; (2) Improvisation, Public Spaces, and the Practice of Everyday Life; (3) Improvisation, Decolonization, and Making Peace; and (4) Improvisation, Wellbeing, and the Social Determinants of Health. We will discuss some of the aims and collaborative possibilities that Improvising Futures will put into practice in the coming five years, and will look for public, academic and creative input on what people might want to see happen around the study of improvisation and the support for the improvising arts. All are welcome to this table.
12:30pm
Artist Talk by Lisa Cay Miller, “Creative spaces and collective collaboration: hidden labour, public play.”
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Improvising Futures: Sound Futures, Future Sounds thanks the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funding support.
