Improvisation and Mobility Conference a huge success

Thanks to everyone who made the Improvisation and Mobility Conference and Festival a huge success.

You can still see the schedule and speaker bios here:

https://improvmobility.blogspot.com/ 

We will let you know when the videos are available online.

Looking forward to the conference and festival this week!

It is getting close, we look forward to welcoming international researchers and artists to Regina May 10-15, 2017. Visit the conference website for the schedule and details.

Improvisation and Mobility Conference and Festival May 2017

We welcome applications to join us for the RISC/IICSI conference in May 2017. 


Call for Papers

Improvisation and Mobility

Interdisciplinary Conference and Festival

May 10-15, 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 10-15, 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 to Rebecca Caines and Helen Pridmore

 

 With the subject line “Improvisation Conference Abstract”, to by January 10. 2017.   EXTENDED TO FEB 1


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

Welcome to our newest researcher Dr Kathryn Ricketts

We are delighted to welcome dancer, educator, improviser Kathryn Ricketts to the team.

Don't miss her performance this Saturday!

See the CBC story here:
 
www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/saskatchewan/value-village-goodie-bags-dance-1.3890117

Welcome our new postdoc- I-Ying Wu to Regina!

We are very happy to welcome our new postdoctoral research fellow, I-Ying Wu to Regina this September. I-Ying has a PhD by practice-led research from the School of Arts in Northampton, and a MA in Performing Arts from the National Taiwan University of the Arts. Her postdoctoral research project rethinks the concept of improvisation from a Chinese perspective of qi-energy based on Daoism, aiming to fill the gap resulting from cultural differences between current concepts of improvisation inherited from American and European dance contexts and her specific cultural/social position as a Taiwanese somatic practitioner and improviser. The “nature” of improvisation, that is, what improvisation is, how it is characterised, and how it works, will be given a different interpretation in this study. Furthermore, how an improvisation practitioner/researcher’s work could be informed and shaped by the Daoist philosophy of qi will be revealed during the rethinking process by drawing on a practice-as-research methodology. I-Ying will also be working with the REACTING improv jam group, and become a part of the Regina Improv Studies Centre/IICSI activities over the year. We look forward to working with her, and hope everyone makes her feel very welcome in Regina.

Improvised Remembering in Wuhan, China

RISC director Rebecca Caines and artist John Campbell are currently in Wuhan, China. Their project "Improvising Remembering" includes two performances in Wuhan, and an installation of media arts in Hong Kong at the K11 Gallery. They are making this work as 2016 FUSE K11  ISEA2016 Artist Residency recipients for the 2016 International Symposium on Electronic Arts, held this year at City University Hong Kong.

Congratulations to the iPad Orchestra

 Amazing work by the students improvising with iPads and taking over the Administration building at the University

See the local news story and a video here:
http://leaderpost.com/news/local-news/u-of-r-ipad-orchestra-makes-untraditional-sounds-on-even-less-traditional-instruments