'Out of the Box' is a practical deep dive into free improvisation, for instrumentalists and vocalists. We delve into strategies and simple 'pieces' that enable group improvisation, using 'chance' as the means to navigate our way through hundreds of approaches to playing.
Through a game devised by Hannah - throwing dice, pulling cards, and reaching into boxes and folders allows the workshop participants to explore borrowed, original and collected instructions, games & instigations taking cues from composers (such as La Monte Young, Pauline Oliveros, Karlheinz Stockhausen), and investigate areas such as Search & Reflect & conduction, as well as different approaches to 'free' playing, in an organic and playful way. Participants gain experience and insight into their own playing and listening processes and how that affects and creates the 'group' - as well as finding inspiration in music making and composition along the way.
Devising a game frees the direction and content of the workshop from a 'leader', or 'teacher', to become a playful interaction with chance at the centre, noticing what the present moment brings. This takes the pressure off, and invites the participant's trust in what the universe is guiding. This aims to be a useful tool for listening, to help personal creative practice, shake-up stale approaches to playing, or allow new ideas to bubble up, whether those be musical, or otherwise.
The workshop will be guided by Hannah Marshall who has been playing freely improvised music for many years in the UK and abroad, in small and large groups and solo. Material for the workshop has been gathered, collected and borrowed from her observations and experiences in improvised music, and theatre, as well as taking cues from the works of many composers, artists and philosophers. She is a facilitator with experience and sensibility for inclusive practice, and has held creative spaces with people of all ages and abilities.
In Out of The Box, we are allowed to just go with what happens, exercise our relationships to instruments, voice, rhythm, words and place, become aware of the changes we notice, and meet other people as we do this. Discovering connections to time, coincidence, people, feeling and listening, we will have some idea where we may begin, but where we go and the directions we take, will be unknown.
#1 at St John Baptist Church Hall - Hackney
#2 (minus Carlos) at Arch 1 Club - Star Lane
Game table
Comments from Participants :
" ...The style and framework allowed for thoughtful springboards/exploration into the work, and then creating something special and challenging as a group. I would like to do more, and particularly work on joint listening exercises"
"I particularly enjoyed playing with the randomness of the dice throw..... a welcoming, generous and open facilitator and this I feel really helped us all to feel safe and get involved despite any reluctance we might have carried into the room with us…I’d definitely be up for playing more..."
"...The box game has
definitely changed my conceptions of how to make and experience music...It was cathartic and I feel as though I’ve seen (and heard) a whole different world"
" I really enjoyed the Out Of The Box workshop. I was fascinated by the different techniques for setting up the conditions of improv...A very enjoyable weekend and time well spent! I’m looking forward using the experience to further my playing and my thinking around improv."