Performers

Colloquium Day 1

---

Click below to see participant biographies. All events at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre.

Welcome

Keynote Talk: "Improvisation and Diaspora: Why New Orleans Matters"

Panel: "Improvising Cities: Civic Space and Collective Agency"

Panel: "Rebuilding Community: New Orleans Perspectives"

Panel: "The Writing’s Off the Wall: Improvisation and Theories of Discourse"

Reception and Poster Session

---

Steven Liss

Welcome, Wednesday September 3, 9:00 am

Dr. Steven N. Liss is the Interim Vice-President (Research) for the University of Guelph. He is widely recognized for his work and research in the areas of environmental biotechnology and engineering, applied microbiology, wastewater and water microbiology, and microbial structures. He chairs the Peer Review Panel for the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation’s Research Excellence program and is a member of the College of Reviewers for the Canada Research Chair Program.

---

 

George Lipsitz

Keynote Talk, Wednesday September 3, 9:15 – 10:30 am

George Lipsitz is Professor of Black Studies and Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His publications include Footsteps in the Dark, Dangerous Passages, and Time Passages. Lipsitz is the editor of the Critical American Studies series at the University of Minnesota Press and co-editor of the American Crossroads series at the University of California Press. He has been active in struggles for fair housing and educational equity, and currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Fair Housing Alliance.

Abstract
“Improvisation and Diaspora: Why New Orleans Matters”

The history of expressive culture in New Orleans helps us rethink the idea of diaspora, to see how people who do not control the spaces in which they live can use music, visual art, speech, dance, and dress to fashion forms of world-transcending citizenship that become more important than temporal homelands. The flamboyant performance traditions of New Orleans can seem frivolous and even foolish to unknowing observers, but they serve serious social purposes in the context of systematic racial and class subordination.

---

 

Tamas Dobozy

Panel: “Improvising Cities: Civic Space and Collective Agency”
Wednesday, September 3, 10:45 am – noon

Tamas Dobozy is an associate professor in the Department of English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. He was the inaugural Fulbright Research Chair in Creative Writing at NYU, 2007. His creative and critical work has appeared in Canadian Literature, Colorado Review, Chicago Review, Modern Fiction Studies, Genre, Essays on Canadian Writing, Salamander and other journals. He has published two books of short stories, When X Equals Marylou (Arsenal Pulp, 2002) and Last Notes (HarperCollins, 2005). His work has won the "sub-Terrain" short fiction contest, the Governor's General Award (in translation), and received a "recommended citation" in the O. Henry Awards.

Abstract
“Improvising Chicago”

Aldo Rossi's The Architecture of the City articulates how civic space intersects with collective agency. Rossi's contention—that the development, or "transformation," of urban space is accomplished by a collective deploying memory in its struggle with material reality—is the scene of Stuart Dybek's south side Chicago in The Coast of Chicago.

The fragments of the city are used to enable collectivity, to remember what the city is for. The attempt of civic authority to wrest memory from its inhabitants by making it impermanent, fragmentary, demolished, is precisely what restores agency by giving way to a subjectivity that is the scene of salvage. In this way communities become aware of their ability to define landscape, to alter "perspective" and take possession of space, to regard ethnicity as a common instrument, as if out of material destruction it might be possible to make of memory something more powerful than memorization, defying institutional permanence—civic or ethnic—for a community that is elastic, responsive, aware of its relationships with and within the spaces it inhabits.

---

 

Natasha Pravaz

Panel: “Improvising Cities: Civic Space and Collective Agency”
Wednesday, September 3, 10:45 am – noon

Natasha Pravaz is assistant professor of Anthropology at Wilfrid Laurier University, where she teaches courses on performance, ritual, and gender, with a focus on Latin America. She has published her work on the role of Brazilian samba in the formation of national identity in the journals Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, the Journal of Latin American Anthropology, and Visual Anthropology among others. Natasha is also a musician who enjoys playing the tamborim and the guitar with the Brazilian musical community in Toronto.

Abstract
“Brazilian Music and Community Building in Toronto”

This paper explores the role of music practices in building community life and giving voice to experiences of displacement and exile in the Latin American diaspora of Canada. In particular, it focuses on the role of Brazilian music practices in a) the formation of diasporic communities in Toronto, and b) the enabling of immigrants’ adaptation to new settings. While the paper studies how immigrants use music performance practices to help them settle in their new country, it also looks at how Canadians both support this process and are influenced by it. I argue that recent immigrants turn to musical performance as a means to gain cultural capital, build support networks, and influence mainstream culture; and that the identity and community engagement of Canadians involved in Brazilian music practices are shaped by this participation.

---

 

Sally Booth

Panel: “Improvising Cities: Civic Space and Collective Agency”
Wednesday, September 3, 10:45 am – noon

Sally Booth is a second year PhD student in English. She has a B.A. and M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Western Ontario and a B.Ed from the University of Toronto. Her research focus is on urban narratives and discourses, specifically how constructions and perceptions of space and bodies relate to notions of citizenship, safety and counter-culture in New York City. In this vein, her secondary area of expertise is nineteenth-century American urban narratives, with a focus on Edith Wharton. Her primary area is on counter-culture in New York City from the 1960s to present, with a focus on Yippies, Fluxus, ACT UP, media virus and memes. She is the chair of the organizing committee for "Psychogeographies: the Terrain of Spectacle and Affect" -- an interdisciplinary graduate student conference and a participant in Cornell University's School of Criticism and Theory for 2008.

Abstract
“Interrupted Cityscape: David Wojnarowicz, Camouflage and Recognition”

My research investigates theories of architecture, in particular public spaces in New York City, as reflective of state ideologies and social discourses and David Wojnarowicz’s negotiation of these spaces and discourses. What a city like New York does in the name of safety and public good (for example, COMPSTAT and broken windows policing) results in restrictions, control and fixed definitions of “good” citizens. The perspectives that led to these restrictions can be seen in Rudy Giuliani’s assertion that: “The very reason laws exist in the first place is so that people’s rights can be protected and that includes the right not to be disturbed, agitated, and abused by others” (Miller 1). Evident in this statement is the governing officials’ tiered approach to residents of New York – there are citizens, and there are those who pose a threat to the peaceful existence of these citizens. I argue this regulation reflects the bracketing of “undesirable” bodies in society (such as disaffected urban youth, immigrants, and people with AIDS). Edmund Husserl argues this type of bracketing is necessary for constructing and conceiving the material world in a manner that preserves its desired “essence.” In other words, the construction and regulation of public spaces in New York reflects the governing body’s perception of liberal peace and freedom that is dependent on excluding (bracketing) what I am calling second-tier citizens.

---

 

Clyde Woods

Panel: “Rebuilding Community: New Orleans Perspectives”
Wednesday, September 3, 2:15 – 3:30 pm

Professor Clyde Woods worked with several community organizations in Baltimore before earning his PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from UCLA. His research focuses on regional poverty, power, race, and culture. His first book, Development Arrested examined these relationships in the rural Mississippi Delta; two upcoming books will address the role these social forces had in New Orleans, 1681-2008, and in Los Angeles, 1781 to the present. He is also engaged in a variety of projects associated with the reconstruction of New Orleans. His research is also focused on the philosophical contributions of Blues, Jazz, and Hip Hop. He recently co-edited Black Geographies and the Politics of Place with Katherine McKittrick at Queens University.

Abstract
Dr. Woods will address his work on the reconstruction of New Orleans

---

 

Sunni Patterson

Panel: “Rebuilding Community: New Orleans Perspectives”
Wednesday, September 3, 2:15 – 3:30 pm

Emerging from the musical womb that is New Orleans, artist and visionary Sunni Patterson combines the heritage and tradition of her Native town with an enlightened modern world-view to create music and poetry that is timeless in its groove. Sunni has been a featured performer at many of the U.S.’s premier spoken word venues, including HBO's Def Poetry Jam. She has also had the privilege of speaking at the Panafest in Ghana, West Africa. She has worked with several well known artists and performers including Hannibal Lokumbe, Kalamu Ya Salaam, Sonia Sanchez, Wanda Coleman, Amiri Baraka, the Laini Kuumba Afrikan Dance Company, and many more. An Aborisha and advocate of Holistic Health, Sunni has also trained with several noted local, national, and international healers. She has produced two acclaimed spoken word CDs: Porch Prophecies & Sunni Patterson. Sunni is a cultural, spiritual, and human rights leader in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Abstract
Ms. Patterson will reflect on the current conditions in New Orleans and also perform some of her work.

---

 

Kidd Jordan

Panel: “Rebuilding Community: New Orleans Perspectives”
Wednesday, September 3, 2:15 – 3:30 pm

See Kidd Jordan's bio.

Abstract
Mr. Jordan will discuss his lifetime’s work in the context of New Orleans.

---

 

Cesar Villavicencio

Panel: “The Writing’s Off the Wall: Improvisation and Theories of Discourse”
Wednesday, September 3, 3:45 – 5:00 pm

Cesar Villavicencio studied at the Royal Conservatory, The Hague, Netherlands. He completed a PhD (2008) at the University of East Anglia, UK, researching the application of rhetoric in free-improvised music. As a recorder player he performs ancient music and contemporary compositions. One of his main interests is the development of new techniques which give the recorder the possibilities of interacting with electro-acoustics. He created, in cooperation with the Institute of Sonology of the Royal Conservatory, a MIDI counter bass recorder (e-recorder) which interacts with the environment of improvisation and live electronic music. Villavicencio’s performances have been presented by Steim in Amsterdam, Metronom in Barcelona, Logos in Ghent, FIU in Miami, Sonorities Festival in Belfast, CPFL in São Paulo, WORM in Rotterdam, and Felix Meritis in Amsterdam. Periodically, he gives workshops and concerts throughout Europe, North and South America.

Abstract
“The Discourse of Free Improvisation: A Rhetorical Perspective on Free Improvised Music”

How can we talk about free improvised music? Would it be possible to teach free improvisation? This study presents rhetoric as a suitable area for establishing a discourse on free improvisation. Rhetoric is being tested in understanding this music in structural and intentional terms. This investigation has set out to propose that the social environment in which this music activity is realized is crucial for understanding this practice. The creation of form and content collectively has uncovered ethics as the primary force in establishing the style of free improvised music. Ethics, the driving force in rhetorical theory, helps us to understand this music aesthetically, opening ways for the development of pedagogical approaches.

---

 

Mark Zurawinski

Panel: “The Writing’s Off the Wall: Improvisation and Theories of Discourse”
Wednesday, September 3, 3:45 – 5:00 pm

Mark Zurawinski is currently pursuing an MA degree in ethnomusicology at York University. His research has so far been concentrated on free improvisation, examining historical and aesthetic perspectives. He is focusing his ethnographic work on the creative improvised music community in Toronto of which he is also an active member. He is a percussionist and has the pleasure of performing with a number of wonderful people.

Abstract
“Dialogue as an Aesthetic Dimension of Improvised Music”

My research involves looking closer at the concept of dialogue as it applies to ‘free’ improvisation. While dialogue exists to different degrees in all collective music making, free improvisation, as a mode where performers’ musical actions are not mediated by any immediate, predetermined compositional framework, brings dialogue to the forefront as an integral process in the music’s unfolding. Examining a specific performance, I intend to present a reading of this dialogical process by exploring the connections between the musical and the social in an effort to better understand how the aesthetic dimension of improvisation is indebted to both.

---

 

Peter Johnston

Panel: “The Writing’s Off the Wall: Improvisation and Theories of Discourse”
Wednesday, September 3, 3:45 – 5:00 pm

Pete Johnston was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, Canada, the son of a high school music teacher and a Baptist Church pianist. He studied music composition and double bass at Dalhousie University, alternating scholarly endeavours with tours of North America as part of the Johnny Favourite Swing Orchestra. After completing his studies at Dalhousie, Pete moved to Toronto in 2001 and began working as a freelance musician, teacher and novel editor. After several years in the part-time employment trenches in Toronto, Pete returned to the academic life, completing a Master’s degree in composition at York University in 2005. He is currently working on a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology at York University, and spent the 2006-2007 academic year in London, England, where he performed for Queen Elizabeth II. Now back in Toronto, Pete has resumed his studies at York while still maintaining an active career as a performer and composer. His Ph.D. research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, for which he is most grateful.

Abstract
“Getting the Music off the Page: Practice-based Research and the Construction of the Practitioner-Theorist”

This paper explores the relevance of the emerging field of practice-based research to the study of improvisation. As an active improvising musician, I have been looking for ways to integrate my practical experience in the field into the theoretical discourse surrounding the academic study of improvisation. Through an engagement with the identity formation of “practitioner-theorist”, as it has been adopted by practice-based research scholars, I will investigate ways of documenting, interpreting, and reflecting upon my own solo practice as a double-bassist, as a way of generating insight into the larger field of cultural production that surrounds improvised music.

---

 

Yvan Tétreault

Panel: “The Writing’s Off the Wall: Improvisation and Theories of Discourse”
Wednesday, September 3, 3:45 – 5:00 pm

Yvan Tétreault’s interest in books, not only for their contents, but also for their concrete physical features (typography, binding, etc.), has resulted in his pursuing studies in both philosophy and graphic design. After several years spent teaching various aspects of the graphic arts, Yvan is currently a doctoral candidate in philosophy at McGill University. He is especially interested in the cognitive resources involved in the production and appreciation of wit and humour.

Abstract
“Witty Music?”

This paper will investigate whether (and how) music, and especially improvised music, can appropriately be experienced as witty or humorous. As finding something funny (or not) is often argued to be constitutive of group identity, what is experienced as humorous or witty in improvised music is very likely to vary with improvising communities. Musical/improvisational tropes, for instance, can presumably be employed in an “insider” way, or so as to suggest satire, parody, or even irony. These may also be suggested by specific performance behaviors. How might the presence of humor in improvised music relate to the social aesthetics such music suggests, and to the manner in which its performance mediates cultural understanding?

---

 

Reception and Poster Session

Wednesday, September 3, 5:00 – 6:30 pm

Join participants in the inaugural Summer Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation who will display posters describing their research on improvisation and transcultural understanding, and improvisation and social aesthetics. This is an opportunity to talk to participants about their research and to enjoy an informal reception with cash bar. Participants include Jennifer Mc Manus (McGill U.), Chris Cogburn (Austin, Texas), Karl Coulthard (U. Guelph), Jason Wilson (U. Guelph), and Marielle Groven (McGill U.).