Featured image: Video still from Cast of Thousands performance (Emma Bowen)
In January 2017, Concurrent held its second public event highlighting the developing practice and ideas for interdisciplinary approaches of some of the leading improvisers in the field.
image from video by Emma Bowen
Kicking off an evening of performances on Friday 13th Graeme Wilson and Raymond MacDonald (ECA, University of Edinburgh) brought their collaboration Cast of Thousands onstage to improvise freely for the first time with artist Emma Bowen (Garage gallery, Edinburgh). In CoT the two saxophonists distil many years of playing together through the prism of their psychological model of choice within group improvisation, while the artist carefully manipulated abstract objects and backgrounds greatly enlarged through onstage projection. Their interaction rendered moments of sound or imagery meaningful beyond what either party could foresee, tracking flurries of notes to the shaking of a coloured wire, or framing descending notes becoming framed as the soundtrack to a ball rolling down paper.
image: Full Zoom Photography
Christian Ferlaino’s groundbreaking work Into the Pipe for improvising saxophone quartet and dancer explored nuances of pitch and dissonance as fuel for improvised movement. With the instrumental improvisation of Ferlaino, MacDonald , Wilson and alto player Tina Krekels (ECA, University of Edinburgh) constrained to narrow ranges of sustained pitches, dancer Tess Latham’s spontaneous and unconstrained responses at the front of the stage were thrown into sharp and spectacular relief.
images: Full Zoom Photography
Two interdisciplinary ensembles curated by collaborator PA Tremblay (University of Huddersfield) allowed improvisers to explore spontaneous practice through performance in unprecedented configurations. Nicky Haire and Philippa Derrington (violin & clarinet, Queen Margaret University) and Russell Wimbish and Una MacGlone (double bass, ECA, University of Edinburgh,) performed first with live drawing from Emma Bowen and Cath Keay (ECA, University of Edinburgh). Through a delicate interplay, shades of instrumental sound became cross-hatchings on the projected image as both drawn and played lines gravitated to similar speeds and trajectories. Closing the evening, dancers Suzi Cunningham (Edinburgh) and Vicky Karkou (Edge Hill University) joined trombonist Becky White (University of West of England), Jules Rawlinson (ECA, University of Edinburgh) on electronics and Tremblay on bass guitar and electronics, to match rich textures and sweeps of processed sound with a fluctuating spectrum of precise gesture and poise.
You can watch footage of performances from Concurrent#2 on the media page