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the
improvisor Festival
(July 30-August 29, 2010),
celebrated a unique
underground movement of creative activity particular to the town
of Birmingham. Beginning in 1976 and continuing 34 years
to the present, dance, music and literary improvisation,
inspired by a collective of surrealist writers, musicians and
dancers native to Southside Birmingham, generated an indigenous,
authentic, groundbreaking period of imaginative work based on
collaborations between dance, music, and free writing artists.
In dance history books, this kind of movement was only noted by
scholars as taking place in New York City during the Judson
Church era of the 1970’s. Yet, dance history books have
proven not to be complete; a gap of knowledge exists in terms of
this particular creative era that was part of a national
improvisation movement.
Only known by local witnesses who watched or took part in the
work, this form of creative scholarship is noticeably absent
from national archives reflecting the history of dance
improvisation. When speaking of ‘those days,’ when dance
and music were performed as a freer form of expression, past
program director of the American Dance Festival, Arthur Schultz Waber,
made his point, stating how “the kind of dance and music
improvisation, the work you were doing back then (1978-80), was
way ahead of its time” (Raleigh, NC, 2000).
The dance and music artists he was referring to were Doug
Carroll, Susan Hefner, Mary Horn, Wally Shoup, LaDonna Smith,
Juanita Suarez, Sylvia Toffel (Sycamore),
and Davey Williams.
the
improvisor festival
created a historic period
of dynamic creative activity with 30 days of live dance, music
and poetry improvisation at myriad locales throughout the city.
Directed by Birmingham’s LaDonna Smith, international performer
and editor of
the
improvisor
International Journal
of Free Improvisation, the festival
drew from an extensive roster of national/international artists
from Alabama, New York, California, Washington, Georgia,
Florida, Italy, England, and India. Artists from a variety of
disciplines came together to not only perform but to remember,
reconnect and establish new, future improvisation
collaborations. During group performances and reflections, it
became apparent to all involved that improvisation had and
continues to be a vital part of creative growth. Still, there
is more to be said about this little known form of art making.
One might ask, “What is improvisation and why is it
significant?” First of all, improvisation is about creating out
of and being in the moment through performance and can be
achieved through voice, movement, text, music/sound. This
medium of expression is not per se function-oriented yet it is
very practical. No product is visible once an improvisation has
taken place. Even so, we (the improviser and viewer
participant) can come to know how to solve problems creatively
because this kind of work draws from imaginary worlds of
possibilities. Improvisation is not exclusive, since we all
improvise every day just to survive, but specifically in
reference to the professional improviser, this kind of
performer, like an alchemist, exercises a power to change one
thing into another.
By digging into a realm one might call ‘ambiguity,’ where ideas
have yet to emerge, the improviser creates a world of their own
making. In essence that is what art making is all about:
creating worlds. Art making is about playing with ideas.
Improvisation is also about critically engaging with the world.
Hence, improvisation is about empowerment, thinking critically,
solving one’s problems many different ways.
“Improv” is a healthy form of activity for the creative soul as
demonstrated at the Bottle Tree, August 13th, by
performers in “Pico Dorado” from Florida, The
Shaking Ray Levis from Tennessee with
the legendary chameleon southerner, Col. Bruce Hampton of
Georgia appearing in raw improvisation,
and another
assembled performing ensemble that has been part of,
or fundamental to the Birmingham
“improv” scene since the 1970’s. Four sets comprised the
repertory for the evening; engaged and inspired music exchanges
between players in tune with each other, playing off of each
other’s musical nuances generated a connection between player
and audience that was palpable. It was as if everyone took a
journey that ended only when an intuitive consensus had been
arrived at by each player, all taking place simultaneously.
“The Assembled” was visually
punctuated with an interesting counter point of imagery as
presented by Claire Barratt whose striking poses created a kind
of inter-textuality to the music. Jill Burton’s entrance,
seductive and enticing in terms of what might transpire added
another level of visual tension to the music. Doug Carroll’s
playing anchored the group’s musical foray into an anti-melodic
wilderness. What was most refreshing with all the music
presented was the purposeful intent to stay away from the
expected, the status quo.
Improvisation, as demonstrated at Children’s Dance Foundation
for “Just Move It!” is so much more than
dancers just ‘winging it’ for it involves a piercing
attention, a discerning self awareness of time, space and
action. The possibility of formulating unusual yet familiar
relationships between individuals/objects/text is intrinsic to
the heroic act of creating out of the moment.
This was
seen in a duet between Mary Horn and Sycamore Toffel.
Witty in their breathtaking interpretation of women wearing
different leveled shoes, the world they conveyed could have been
based on fashion models, or modern Asian geishas, or just two
clowns on parade. To multi-task in this kind of creative
environment can be overwhelming to the novice performer because
there are so many choices to draw from but for these seasoned
performers it is much like white water rafting; the improviser
navigates past inflexible ideas (rocks), while maneuvering
his/her way down pathways leading to new territories and fresh
opportunities.
The concert could also have been titled “Just Have Fun” for
Susan Hefner and Michael Evans created a comical narrative that
poked fun at the absurd boundaries existent between performer
and audience, and all was done while still keeping a beat.
Working with body limitations can be productive,
and offers unique ways of looking at
narrative renderings.
A new generation of “improv” performers performed as well;
rising to the occasion in terms of inventiveness was the work of
Stella Nystrom, Rhea Speights, Deborah Mauldin, and Ashley Muth.
Butoh entrances with suspensions of time created an interesting
tension between Mauldin and Muth.
A picnic was evoked with the help of food. A
cake. The success of this piece
rested in the interplay between the soloist,
and the absurdities that could be constrewed from the object of
desire, a live improvisation
performance art, call it dance without
music,
satisfying the appetite of both the audience and the performer.
If improvising is such an
exciting venture, one might ask: Why is it that many performers
do not perform improvisations? Is it because improvisation is
easy to do? I have heard performers comment, “I can do that!”
“Anyone can do that!” Yet I have noticed how few do. Why is
that? First of all, improv reveals to the viewer the nuances of
a performers’ life in a personal way, making the performer
vulnerable to the interpretation of others, since during an
improvisation, no time is available to negotiate our presence,
to re-design our selves. And so, what you see is what you get.
Such a relationship between performer and viewer has been
identified by film theorist, Laura Mulvey as “the male gaze”
(1973), when a performer evokes a sense of “to-
be-looked-at-ness.” Although the “male gaze” applies to anyone
who performs in any kind of venue, in improvisation it is
particularly applicable since the performer is creating
something out of “beingness.”
In
translation this means that the art of improvisation is risky
business and not for the faint of heart; the improviser has to
be confident, fearless and resourceful. I notice how control
freaks do not fare well with improv since the “known” and
“unknown” interface (Foster cited in Gere, xiii, 2003)
continuously, reconfiguring each new rising moment with another
to become something else.
Improvisation
is a kind of anarchy, a performer’s claim to artistic freedom,
oblivious to the restrictions of codified art making, and yet
sophisticated in how performer identities surface and are
negotiated. Thus, improvisation is the voice of an intelligence
that exhibits no vested interest in stereotypical thinking.
I have also heard audiences respond enthusiastically, in turn
asking, “How do you do that?” Audiences play a different role
during an improvisation because they are active participants in
the creation of an improv, which is why I refer to them as
viewer participants. Improvisation is shamelessly interactive,
engaging audiences by sharing narrative secrets, making the
audience a witness to the daring and cunning a performer works
to make manifest. At the culmination of a performance, viewer
participants cite moments during the performance that even the
performer was not aware of, sharing perspectives that privilege
the viewer.
As a guest artist for the Improvisor
Festival and entering the creative scene from the outside,
(I have been teaching in the north for 30 years), I had the
chance to see Birmingham again with fresh eyes. What I saw was
a whirlwind of activity that engaged a lot of familiar yet new
faces. Young people, new to the free music scene congregated on
floors, attentive to and positively responsive to what they were
hearing. I saw communities of artists come together and
exchanging their talents. I saw improvisations taking place in
alternative spaces as well as established venues like clubs and
restaurants, in open air parking lots, in children gallery sites
and the Children’s Dance Foundation Dance Theater. Birmingham
is an “improv” town that has a growing, vital, unique
improvisation history. The community outreach work LaDonna
Smith has invested in has inspired me to ignite this kind of
activity in the north.
In closing,
the most significant reason why improvisation matters is this:
Professional practitioners of improvisation are comfortable and
serious about ‘creative play.’ When a sense of child’s play is
evoked, one ‘is in the zone’ of an improvisation because the
artist is always striving to draw from child-like resources.
Pablo Picasso must have been thinking about the disposition of
the improviser when he once said, “All
children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist
once he grows up.”
Juanita Suarez
2010
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