The Improvisor Festival – August 2010
by Robin Jackson
The Improvisor, the international magazine journal of free improvisation, holds its 30th anniversary festival in August in Birmingham, as well as in Chattanooga and New York City! Founded in 1980 as a medium for networking and sharing philosophy for the Improvisors Network (I.N.) of New York City, the Improvisor documents the earliest experiments and practices of free improvisation in America. Founded and published in Birmingham, Alabama, by Davey Williams and LaDonna Smith, and appearing in 11 hard copy editions during the 1980’s and 1990’s, it has been available for the past 15 years on the Improvisor’s website. The August Festival acknowledges and commemorates the contribution of this journal to the growth and development of free improvisation as a viable and now nearly mainstream art form.
Read on for some historical background on the improvisation movement in America, as well as some advance details of the schedule for the festival in August.
LaDonna Smith and Davey Williams
Birmingham musicians LaDonna Smith & Davey
Williams are widely recognized as pioneers of
free improvisation in America. Improvising music
together since 1973, they began performing and
recording, eventually touring internationally,
between 1976 and 1978. As the first improvisers
from the South to tour Europe, they responded by
hosting concerts of improvisational music in
Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, featuring pioneers in
European and Canadian music. Among the touring
improvisers hosted by Williams and Smith in
Birmingham at Southern Danceworks studio on 7th
Avenue South have been the great Derek Bailey,
Evan Parker, Tom Guralnick, Peter Brotzman,
Borbetomagus, Alex Schlippenbach, Phil Minton &
Roger Turner, and John Corbett, among many
others. Here “The Improvisation Series” included
workshops and sessions with both dance and
music.
The 1970’s and 1980’s:
Transcendprovisation , Transmuseq Records and
collaboration with dance and theater
Evolving out of the Dada based Raudelunas Group,
they formed a musical ensemble called
Transcendprovisation in 1976, this being the
first free improvisation project of Transmuseq
Records. A year later, Birmingham Creative Dance
Company pioneer, Laura Knox, invited
Transcendprovisation to do an improvised music
and dance collaboration at the CAM festival of
the Birmingham Festival of the Arts.
Subsequently, concerts, sessions and events were
organized at the Unitarian Church of Birmingham,
as well as other secular venues, such as the
University of Alabama Music Department,
Birmingham Southern College, Apple Book Store,
the Cavern on Morris Avenue, UAB Student
Government, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church,
Grundy’s Music Room, and the Birmingham Museum
of Art. Meanwhile, numerous improvisation
sessions were held in the collective studios at
6 Glen Iris Park, and collaborations between
surrealists and the Giant Puppet Workshop of
Lynn Spotswood & Murray Hayden led to a
dedicated commitment to the art. An empty lot on
the corner of 20th street and 11th Avenue at
Five Points South, the so-called “Community Art
Lot”, provided a venue where puppets and theater
were created, and anyone passing by was invited
to experiment with the form.
1990’s: Music Improvisation Series at
Birmingham Art Association & Festival series
In 1989, LaDonna Smith began to collaborate with
Meet the Composer (New York City) at the
Birmingham Art Association, creating a dedicated
Music Improvisation Series, beginning a concert
tradition which continued for another decade
before culminating in the collective
organization of the Birmingham Art Association’s
Birmingham Improv Festival, founded by then
president, Craig Hultgren. The large festivals
organized by Smith in 1994 and 1996 featured
Swedish, Danish and Russian artists, with Yuri
Zmorovitch from Ukraine receiving a key to the
city of Birmingham. In 2004, multi-disciplinary
artists from all over the region and country
converged at Virginia Samford Theater and
Caldwell Park presenting concerts and workshops
that exemplified the diversity of the art of
improvisation, including electronic music,
Indian music, dance, a large improv orchestra
and didgeridoo meditations. During this period
and on into the last decade, concerts &
activities in free improvisation have been
supported by many organizations and venues
including the Birmingham Art Association, Bare
Hands Gallery, the Birmingham Art Music
Alliance, Southern Danceworks, the Virginia
Samford Theater, Greencup Books, Bottletree
Cafe, “Music of the Moment” at Pilgrim United
Congregational Church and other local venues.
Practiced by many individuals, including
musicians, dancers, and spoken word artists,
free improvisation in Birmingham is alive today.
Post-2000: a growing improv movement
During the last decade, the improvisation
movement in America has suddenly burgeoned, as
evidenced, for example, by the formation of the
International
Society of Improvised Music (I.S.I.M.)
founded by Ed Sarath of the University of
Michigan at Ann Arbor.
New York City’s 1979 Improvisors Network (I.N.) dreamed of a support network for improvisers, and the I.S.I.M., where LaDonna Smith now serves on the Active Board, is a fulfillment of that dream. Meanwhile, the international journal, the Improvisor, has contributed for 30 years to support and provide networking for musicians across America, while also drawing attention to the active improv music scene in Birmingham.
What is happening in August?
Birmingham Headquarters for the
Improvisor Festival, celebrating its 30-year
anniversary, will be at Pepper Place on 2nd
Avenue South in Birmingham, Alabama. Venues will
include TNT Theater, the Ra Stage at Pepper
Place Winery, “The Listening Room,” The Red Cat
and the Farmer’s Market, with additional
concerts to take place at Bare Hands Gallery,
Workplay, the Bottletree Café and the Children’s
Dance Foundation.
Satellite Concerts will take place at Grey Gables in Montevallo, Alabama, Barking Legs in Chattanooga Tennessee (click here for more information, or see below), Cine’ in Athens, Georgia, Eyedrum in Atlanta, Georgia, Wayward Music Series in Seattle, Washington, and the grand opening of the festival celebration will take place in New York City at the Stone, August 1, 2010.
Confirmed HEADLINERS currently include:
Henry Kaiser, guitarist, pioneer American
improvised music
Andrea Centazzo , L.A. film score writer &
director, percussionist, improviser, ICTUS
Records, from Italy
Col. Bruce Hampton, well-known trailblazer of
crazy, improv bluegrass & Hampton Grease Band
Chris Cochrane President of Improvisor’s Network
(I.N.) 1980, improv, punk, rock guitarist
Wally Shoup founding improviser, critic,
saxophonist, historian
Gino Robair prolific producer, musician,
Rastacan Records, Oakland CA
Killick from Athens, Ga- “Father Quartertone,”
pioneer h’arppegione & inventions
Susan Hefner & Michael Evans- from
Birmingham/NYC dancer and drummer-percussionist
Shaking Ray Levis – Chattanooga “Barn storming
Ole’ Timey Avant-Garde” ensemble
Ut Gret –Louisville, KY masters of middle
eastern jazz, driftwood instruments & the
kitchen sink.
Jill Burton, vocalist “one of the great
foundation improvisors of America,” Gainesville,
FL
Claire Barratt, dancer-cellist-body sculpture
from Asheville, NC – founder of “Cilla Vee –
Life Arts”
a performing arts organization that specializes
in inter-disciplinary arts collaborations.
POETS-PERFORMANCE ART-MUSIC: Jess Marie
Walker, Johnny Coley, Jimmy Griffin, Neko Linda,
Laura Secord, Leisha Hultgren, Silvia Curbelo,
Diana Levenwood, Phyllis McEwen, Lucy Jaffe,
Anne Bailey,
Claire Barratt, Jill Burton, Pamela Plumber,
Delores Byrd-Smith, Redemptive Soul, Thandiwe.
Yttrbium: LP (table of the elements) LaDonna
Smith
Dance:
“The music does not exist only to accompany the dance. The dance is not merely a puppet which interprets the music. These are equal voices conversing in time, space, motion and rhythm.” – Claire Barratt
Ann Law (Chattanooga)
Claire Barratt (NC)
David Appel (NYC)
Celeste LaBourde (BHAM)
Deborah Mauldin and Ashley Muth (Harpersville,
AL)
Ginger Wyatt (BHAM)
Juanita Suarez & Mark Olivieri, Mary Foshee (NY)
Rhea Speights (BHAM)
Stella Nystrom , (BHAM)
Susan Hefner & Michael Evans (NY)
Si Reasoning (BHAM)
Sycamore (Huntsville)
For more information, contact:
LaDonna Smith, festival director 205-967-0392
Phone Improv streamed live over the
internet!