At this year’s Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra Festival (GIOFest), Concurrent hosted a workshop to explore improvised music and dance interaction. Wilson & MacDonald’s (2015) psychological model for the processes of choice during group improvisation was the subject of a Concurrent discussion at GIOFest 2015. This time round, the implications of that model for performance practice were tested through a series of workshop activities with an ensemble of music students and dancers brought together for the event. This led on to an audience discussion chaired by vibraphone improviser and researcher Corey Mwamba.
The model proposes a comprehensive set of options facing musical improvisers who are performing together: some are individually determined and some constitute responses to what others are doing. But if, say, a violinist and a dancer improvise together, how do they understand themselves to respond to one another? And what sense to they have of the other’s intentions at any given moment during the piece? In the theatre space at Centre for Contemporary Art in Glasgow, Graeme Wilson asked the musicians and dancers to undertake a series of improvisations taking each of the model’s categories of decision in turn, working towards greater individual choice and moving their focus from their own discipline (music or dance) to the other. You can see a video of one of the ensemble’s remarkable improvisations on our media page.
The audience responded with a range of questions about whether choices would be conscious or unconscious in other performing situations, and whether the participants felt that all potential actions within an improvisation could be captured by such a model. Some also expressed surprise that the musicians and dancers had not worked together before, given the fluent and nuanced interactions they displayed. Huge thanks go to all those who volunteered to take part: dancers Ana Almeida, Suzi Cunningham and Alma Lindenhovius, and musicians Harry Brown, Maria Donohoe, Kevin Henderson, Hei Ching Lem, Ana-Thea Panainte and Kornelijus Pukinskis.
You can see more exploration of Wilson & MacDonald’s model in workshops and performances at Concurrent#2 in Edinburgh, 13th & 14th January 2017; and at Concurrent#3 in Tate Liverpool, 24th & 25th February 2017 (details on Events page)
Links:
Wilson & MacDonald (2016) article
Concurrent#2 Edinburgh 13th & 14th January 2017
Concurrent#3 Tate Liverpool 19-25th February 2017