Call For Papers

Interdisciplinary Conference & Festival – Improvisation and Mobility

May 8-15, 2017

The International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) invites interdisciplinary contributions to the 2017 IICSI conference and festival at the University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, on the theme of “Improvisation and Mobility”. The program will take place from May 8-15, 2017, with most events occurring from May 10-14, 2017. We are interested in the connections between critical studies in improvisation, contemporary improvisatory practice, and concepts of artistic, physical, technological and cultural mobility. We invite proposals for conference papers, panels, artistic contributions and other research formats. Presenters will be drawn from the fields of dance and performance studies, theatre, community-engaged art and music, ethnomusicology, creative technologies/new media art, intermedial studies, and critical studies in improvisation. Keynote speakers include George Lipsitz, Ajay Heble, Vida Midgelow, Isabella Stefanescu, and Frederique Arroyas.

We are particularly interested in presentations that address questions such as:

How (and why) do improvising artists and scholars of improvisation engage with mobility in and through their practice?
How can notions of real-time decision-making, risk, collaboration, active listening and the reconfiguration of mistakes into productive material model new types of engagement with difference and culture, through new kinds of mobility?
What are the new possibilities for improvisation opened by the ubiquity of hand-held mobile devices and new types of mobile interfaces for creative expression?
What are the possibilities for intersections between literatures and practices in somatic work, disability cultures, and improvised movement and performances?
Who is brought in, and who is left out, when improvisation mobilizes?
What are the possibilities and issues with improvisatory mobilization across disciplines?

Abstracts of 250 words, plus artist/author bio and web links, and including all tech requirements, should be emailed, with the subject line “Improvisation Conference Abstract”, to: [email protected] AND [email protected] by January 10. 2017. EXTENDED TO FEBRUARY 1, 2017.

NOTE: Graduate students from IICSI sites may be eligible for some limited support/reduced costs: please indicate on your proposal if you need this.

Download a PDF copy of the Improvisation and Mobility CFP.