Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium 2014

University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, September 3-5, 2014

Sounding Futures

This Colloquium was presented by the Guelph Jazz Festival, in conjunction with the Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice project, the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, and the University of Guelph.

All events were held at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre.
All events were free and open to the public.

Schedule of Events

Wednesday, September 3rd

9:00-9:15 Welcome and Opening Remarks

  • Ajay Heble (Director, International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation)
  • John Livernois (Interim Vice-President, Research and External Partnerships, University of Guelph)

9:15-10:30 Keynote – Sun Ra on Earth

John Szwed (Centre for Jazz Studies, Columbia University)

10:30-12:00 Roundtable 1 – AUMI Futurism: Adaptive Performance in ‘Turning the Page,’ ‘(Un)Rolling the Boulder’ … and Beyond!!!!

  • Kip Haaheim (School of Music, University of Kansas)
  • Jesse Stewart (School for Studies in Art and Culture, Carleton University)
  • Sherrie Tucker (American Studies, University of Kansas)
  • Pete Williams (American Studies, University of Kansas)

12:00-1:00 Lunch

1:00-2:00 Workshop / Performance – Other Stories: Sounding the Future (South Korea/USA/Ontario/Nova Scotia)
Dong-Won Kim, Dana Reason (Host), Ben Grossman, Matt Brubeck, Gary Diggins, and Paul Cram

2:15-3:45 Roundtable 2 – Improvisation, Community Health, and Social Practice

  • Moderator: Deborah Wong
  • Rebecca Caines (Creative Technologies, University of Regina), Rick Kotowich (Native Health Services, Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region), & Amanda Schenstead (Wascana Rehabilitation Centre), “Improvising with iPads: A Partnered Inquiry into Technology-based Music Therapy, Improvisation and Cultural Expression in Health Settings”
  • Sandra Paola Lopez and Chris Reyman (In2Improv), “Improvising New Realities: Movement, Sound and Social Therapeutics”
  • Sara Ramshaw (School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast) and Paul Stapleton (Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen’s University Belfast), “Sounding the Future: Transposing Musical Improvisation: The Case of Child Protection in Northern Ireland”

4:00-5:00 Roundtable 3: “What Will Listening Be Like in the Future?”: Jazz Journalists in Conversation

  • Moderator: John Corbett
  • Kurt Gottschalk
  • James Hale
  • Howard Mandel

8:00 Guelph Jazz Festival Ticketed Concert – John Heward and Barre Phillips 80th Birthday Celebration
$25/$23

Thursday, September 4th

9:00-10:15 Keynote: We Are In the Future: Fifteen Thoughts on the Next Phase

John Corbett (School of the Art Institute of Chicago)
10:30-12:00 Panel 1A: Sun Ra: Myth, History, Invention

  • Moderator: Brian Lefresne
  • Jonathan Adjemian (Social and Political Thought, York University), “Of Afterness and After”
  • Keith Cartwright (Literature, University of North Florida), “From “Magic City” to “Mayan Temples”: Muse, Musication, and Mythos in the Outer Spatial Reaches of Ra’s Arkestra”
  • Marcel Swiboda (School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds, UK) “Sun Ra’s Philosophical ‘Spiritual Exercises’ and the Improvisational ‘Permutation’ of the Present”

10:30-12:00 Panel 1B: Healthy Futures: Improvisation, Community, and Pedagogy

  • Moderator: Ingrid Mundel
  • Stephanie Khoury (Music Education, McGill University), “Re-imagining the Role of Improvisation in Music Education”
  • Matthew Neil (Ethnomusicology, University of California, Riverside), “Creative Agency, Musical Autonomy, and Post-Raciality in Temple University’s Jazz Studies Program”
  • Ariel Swan (McGill University), “Creativity and Chaos: Exploring a Community-Based Improvisation Workshop”

12:00-1:00 Lunch

1:00-2:00 Workshop / Performance – “We Lost Half the Forest and the Rest will Burn this Summer”

Postcommodity (USA)
2:15-4:00 Panel 2A: Afrofuturism

  • Moderator: Rob Wallace
  • Douglas Clarke (Social and Political Thought, York University), “Signifyin’ and Improvisin’: Papa Legba, Improvisation and Afrofuturism”
  • Daniel Marrone (Humanities and Cultural Studies, University of London), “Shadows of Tomorrow: Kool Keith, Madvillain, and Afrofuturist Historiography”
  • Chris Stover (Music Theory and Composition, New School), “‘Mau-Mao’: Afro-Futurism and Afro-Asian Activism in Fred Ho’s Sweet Science Suite”
  • Camille Turner (Art, Culture and Community Building, University of Toronto’s New College), “HUSH: Sonic Black Geographies Across Canada”

2:15-4:00 Panel 2B: Intermedial Influences

  • Moderator: Julie Cairnie
  • Carolyn Hart (Creative Writing, London Metropolitan University), “At the Crossroads: Trans-Atlantic Exchange, ‘Jazz Writing’ and Hybrid Literatures”
  • Brian Lefresne (School of English and Theatre Studies, University of Guelph), “A Fool in Space: Sun Ra the Jester”
  • Isabela Stefanescu (Globe Studios, Kitchener), “The Voices of Drawing”

Onstage Interview
Randy Weston interviewed by Vijay Iyer (Harvard University)

5:30 Guelph Jazz Festival Ticketed Concert – Pugs and Crows with Special Guest Tony Wilson (BC)
$13/$11

Friday September 5th

9:15-10:15 Performance

Dong-Won Kim and Jesse Stewart (South Korea/Ontario)

10:30-12:00 Panel 3A: Beyond Humanity

  • Moderator: Rachel Elliott
  • Kimber Sider (School of English and Theatre Studies, University of Guelph), “Playing in Silence: Exploring Inter-species Resonance through Human/Equine Improvisation”
  • Chris Tonelli (Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice, University of Guelph), “Chronologies and Conflicts: The Extra-Normal Voice in Free Jazz”
  • Tom Zlabinger (Music, York College/CUNY), “Robot Man, Will You Sing? Visions of Jazz Automatons”

10:30-12:00 Panel 3B: Sound Projections, Astral Projections: New Ways of Knowing, New Ways of Being

  • Moderator: Christine Bold
  • James Gordon Williams (African American Studies, Syracuse University), “Sun Ra Presentation/Performance: Sun Ra’s Epistemology”
  • Clelia Ciardulli (The Audacious Art Experiment, Sheffield, UK), “What Does My Future Sound Like?”
  • Jeff Schwartz & Charles Sharp (California State University, Fullerton), “The Decisive Instant and the Futures of Creative Music”

12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:00 Workshop / Performance – The Komagata Maru Project
Neelamjit Dhillon Quartet (BC)
2:15-3:15 Keynote – Black Utopia LP – A Cauleen Smith Movie
Cauleen Smith
5:00 Guelph Jazz Festival Ticketed Concert – Ernst Reijseger (Netherlands)
$22/$20

The 2014 Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium was generously sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Lloyd Carr-Harris Foundation, the Chawkers Foundation, the SOCAN Foundation, Canadian Heritage/Patrimoine canadien, OX, the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, the Office of the President, the Office of the Vice-President (Research), the Office of the Associate Vice-President (Student Affairs), the School of English and Theatre Studies, the School of Fine Art and Music, the School of Languages and Literatures, and the Central Student Association at the University of Guelph.