Photograph above taken by Louise Allerton during the Multi Modal workshop.
Multi Modal Improvisation Workshop
On the 30th of November we held a workshop in Multi Modal Improvisation at the Vancouver Arts Centre in Albany as part of our Artist in Residence. The idea was to foster the practice of embodied performing arts research with a focus on working with improvisation across mediums.
Questions
Is improvisation across mediums possible?
If so....
What makes improvisation across mediums possible?
How can the Egyptian rhythm language and communication between musician and dancer inform work across other movement and visual forms?
We put out an open invitation to the Albany community to come and explore multi modal improvisation with us. We entered new territory.
If so....
What makes improvisation across mediums possible?
How can the Egyptian rhythm language and communication between musician and dancer inform work across other movement and visual forms?
We put out an open invitation to the Albany community to come and explore multi modal improvisation with us. We entered new territory.
Why Improvise?
Marianthe Loucataris
Over the past almost twenty years, I have been really lucky to work with people who learnt rhythm, drumming and dance traditions through oral transmission; rhythm, postures, drumming and dance were part of their daily - every day - experience of life. This every day contact with intangible cultural heritage embeds itself in the way that people see themselves and each other. By spending time with people and sharing rhythm with them, we change. Culture is imbued, imbibed and osmosed through rich, complex and beautiful creative languages which are spoken as freely as words. The arts - dance - music - visual - are means of transmitting culture, gently shifting the shared understandings we have of reality, altering the way we perceive and experience our world, effecting our physiology, psychology and relationships with ourselves, each other and our physical environment.
Improvisation between musicians and dancers in the Egyptian tradition is powerful and beautiful. My studies with the late drum master Ibrahim el Minyawi and European based Egyptian choreographer/dancer Suraya Hilal, have enabled me to develop a fluency in communication between dancer and musician. There is something utterly sublime in an improvised tradition which allows for freedom of expression and innovation within a rich language. I believe there is something significant about the nature of improvised traditions. 'Doing' improvisation enhances, develops and maintains particular human traits which are important to preserve, nurture and evolve. These traits or experiences or ways of being have something to do with gestural communication, synching rhythms, being in flow, multisensory integration and aligning with underlying patterns of life.
Over the past almost twenty years, I have been really lucky to work with people who learnt rhythm, drumming and dance traditions through oral transmission; rhythm, postures, drumming and dance were part of their daily - every day - experience of life. This every day contact with intangible cultural heritage embeds itself in the way that people see themselves and each other. By spending time with people and sharing rhythm with them, we change. Culture is imbued, imbibed and osmosed through rich, complex and beautiful creative languages which are spoken as freely as words. The arts - dance - music - visual - are means of transmitting culture, gently shifting the shared understandings we have of reality, altering the way we perceive and experience our world, effecting our physiology, psychology and relationships with ourselves, each other and our physical environment.
Improvisation between musicians and dancers in the Egyptian tradition is powerful and beautiful. My studies with the late drum master Ibrahim el Minyawi and European based Egyptian choreographer/dancer Suraya Hilal, have enabled me to develop a fluency in communication between dancer and musician. There is something utterly sublime in an improvised tradition which allows for freedom of expression and innovation within a rich language. I believe there is something significant about the nature of improvised traditions. 'Doing' improvisation enhances, develops and maintains particular human traits which are important to preserve, nurture and evolve. These traits or experiences or ways of being have something to do with gestural communication, synching rhythms, being in flow, multisensory integration and aligning with underlying patterns of life.
Turbulent Flow
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I am interested in the notion that the oral transmission of culture and improvised rhythm traditions have a circular, spiral or fluid process and form. When two players within an improvised field meet within a spiral configuration new pathways can emerge from the meeting or conversation. Through disparate elements joining together evolution can be inspired. These fluid spiral structures are encapsulated by the concept of turbulent flow. Read more about Turbulent Flow here http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/11/13/van-gogh-starry-night-fluid-dynamics-animation and in the video below. Short video to the right was shot by Louise Allerton during the Multi Modal workshop. It was a moment where the turbulent flow image above was projected on the the wall and Sacha Fawkes and I improvised movement and some spoken word in response. The music was an earlier improvisation recorded with fluidity in mind. Tom Street improvised guitar can be heard which was played live at the workshop along with a frame drum and shaker.
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