International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation

We’re thrilled to announce that Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation—IICSI’s open-source academic—has just published a new special issue: “Sound, Meaning, Education 23” (17.1)!

You can read the issue here: https://www.criticalimprov.com/index.php/csieci/issue/view/525

This special issue emerges from a collaboration between the international organization Sound, Meaning, Education (SME) and the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation’s Improvisation Festival (IF) at the University of Guelph, which took place between October 20–22, 2023.

In their editorial for this issue, “Revisiting the Interplays of Sound, Meaning, Education 23,” jashen edwards and Rebecca Rinsema explain: "Drawing upon a range of research methodologies, conceptual framings, and artistic practices, SME 23 nurtured a space for scholarship promoting exploration, curiosity, and dialogue. From improvisational games inviting musical creativity to sonic art integrating experimental electronics; from hearing newly designed musical instruments to listening to local ambience on a semi-guided soundwalk—SME 23 provided multisensory participation. The energy over those three days was infectious."

This special issue begins with a keynote address (originally presented at SME 23):
• Jonathan De Souza: “Improvising with Technology: Phenomenology, Pedagogy, and Performance”

This issue includes the following articles:
• Laura Jane Menard and Doug S. Friesen: “Allowing the A-loud: Sonic Permission, Power, and Agency in the Classroom"
• Jake Sokolov-Gonzalez, “Stimming and Steroescopy: Situating Improvisation at the Margins of Sensibility”
• Craig Dongoski: “Mental Radio"
• Walter Gershon, "Everything Improvised"
This issue also features the following Notes and Opinions piece:
• Elric Paauw: “Keying Into Ambient Music: Attending to Soundscapes as Phenomenological Practice"

The issue also includes three book reviews:
• Cisco Bradley reviews Milford Graves: a Mind-Body Deal, edited by Mark Christmann, Celeste DiNucci, and Anthony Elms
• Jeff Schwartz reviews European Echoes: Jazz Experimentalism in Germany, 1950-1975 by Harald Kisiedu
• Benjamin Barson reviews The Williamsburg Avant-Garde: Experimental Music and Sound on the Brooklyn Waterfront by Cisco Bradley

The cover of this issue features artwork by Esther Gámez. At the SME conference, Gámez and Dr. Wilfrido Terrazas led attendees in an exploration of collaborative sound improvisation in which tarot cards illustrated by Gámez served as inspiration. Gámez has generously allowed us to include her artwork from Tarot cards as part of this special issue; you can view the full set as a stand-alone PDF alongside the editorial.

Thank you to all the contributors, editors, proofreaders/copyeditors, peer reviewers, and community members who made this publication possible!

The program for this year's MILE Camp is out now! You can view it here: https://bit.ly/4uQbloq

Hosted by IICSI Director Emeritus Dr. Ajay Heble, led by percussionist Jesse Stewart, and featuring guest musicians Dong-Won Kim and Marianne Trudel, MILE Camp is your opportunity to hang out, make music, and otherwise enjoy community with other improvisers!

The original run of slots for MILE Camp filled up last month, but we have been able to open up one extra slot! This is your chance to get on board if you have been sitting on the fence about attending MILE Camp 2026!

If that sounds good to you, please do sign up ASAP! If you don’t manage to snag the last spot outright, we will maintain a waitlist moving forward! To learn more about signing up, see here: https://bit.ly/46fcLif

On May 1st, L'Ensemble Infini — an experimental, intergenerational Montréal octet — released its debut album, Volume ∞. The group's anchor is free jazz drummer extraordinaire and Québécois counter-culture figure Guy Thouin, a founding member of Jazz Libre, about which IICSI Director Dr. Eric Fillion wrote Soundtrack to the Revolution: Free Jazz and Leftist Nationalism in Quebec 1967-1975 (Véhicule Press, 2025).

Fittingly, the liner notes to Volume ∞ were also written by Dr. Fillion, who situates this release in Thouin's decades-long career (he recently turned 86). This record is a must-listen for fans of free improv and experimental music more generally. It is currently available through Bandcamp, with CD orders shipping now and the limited-edition double vinyl shipping this August!

Get your copy here: https://bit.ly/4tvwrXS

Drum & Tap Collaborations: Mentorship Sessions with Heather Cornell

Join us on May 15th at the ImprovLab at the University of Guelph for a day of rhythm, collaboration, and conversation between tap dancers and drummers!

After an initial period of collaboration, these artists will come together for a session under the mentorship of IMPR PhD student Heather Cornell, deepening their exploration of a shared language between these two forms. Each session offers a unique dialogue! Come for one or stay for all.

Schedule:
11-1: Aaron Blewett (drums), Brianna Maltais (taps), Victoria Miller (taps)

1:30-3:30: Matteo Romaniello (drums), Brianna Maltais (taps), Victoria Miller (taps)

4-6: Angelica Zavala (drums), Brianna Maltais (taps), Victoria Miller (taps)

Admission is free! We hope to see you there!

IICSI is thrilled to announce that Dr. Jordan Zalis, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at IICSI, has received a Partnership Engage Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). This grant will support Jordan's research project, “Learning from Public Basketball Courts—Building Better Communities,” in partnership with Adam Rutherford, Manager, Programming and Community Development, City of Guelph Recreation Services.

Jordan's research examines how pickup basketball models improvisatory behaviours that transcend social and cultural difference, facilitating pleasurable sociability among diverse populations in contexts where interpersonal trust is declining and social isolation is increasing across all demographics.
At a time when cities across Canada are struggling to create inclusive, welcoming public spaces, the social value of Jordan's project is clear: while many municipalities invest in programming and facilities, they often lack the capacity to understand how residents actually use these spaces, and what makes residents feel either welcome or excluded within them. By studying informal norms, contingent practices, and improvised communities emerging on public basketball courts, Jordan’s project will investigate mechanisms through which small-scale affinity groups—groups of individuals who take pleasure in similar activities—can build broader solidarity in everyday life.

Guelph provides particularly fertile ground for this research. Demographic shifts have seen the city diversify significantly over the past ten years, with 24% of residents now identifying as immigrants, and 18.9% identifying as visible minorities. The Norm Jary Park basketball complex, located in Guelph’s most diverse neighbourhood, will be the research site for “Learning from Public Basketball Courts.”

Here, the basketball court has become something special: players from diverse ethnic and language backgrounds, spanning multiple generations, come together for pickup games. They create teams on the spot, negotiate rules collectively, and work out disputes without external authorities. These processes foster social connection across significant cultural and linguistic differences in ways that formal programming often cannot.

By developing a deeper understanding how these complex social processes play out at Norm Jary Park, Jordan and collaborators Dr. Mervyn Horgan and Dr. Ajay Heble will provide information of urgent necessity to municipalities across Canada and beyond. If the research demonstrates that relatively modest municipal investments in accessible public infrastructure like basketball courts—which are free, do not require booking, and can thus be used spontaneously—can create spaces where diverse residents build and practice skills for living together, it will have a profound impact on how municipal governments think about infrastructure spending.

In this moment, as Canadians report declining trust in institutions, increasing social isolation, and growing difficulty connecting across cultural differences, Jordan’s research aims to guide local government initiatives towards improved community resilience, enhanced civic participation, and the all-important sense of belonging in places where you feel welcome.

The International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) invites proposals for presentations at our annual interdisciplinary international colloquium, taking place at the University of Guelph from September 10-11, 2026, alongside the Guelph Jazz Festival.

Featuring panel discussions, debates, performances, workshops, keynote presentations, and critical conversations among researchers, artists, and audiences, the colloquium fosters a spirit of collaborative, boundary-defying inquiry and dialogue, and an international exchange of cultural forms and knowledges.

Titled “Artists On/Off the Record: Living Archives and Embodied Memory,” this year’s colloquium asks:

• In what ways can/do artists engage with archival materials—those held in institutional and community archives as well as those typically referred to as ephemera—to interrogate the aesthetic and political dimensions of cultural memory?

• How can/do they generate new, future-oriented archives through creative practice, research, and community-based work?

• To what extent can/do they enact and expand repertoires of embodied memory to build and sustain community?

The 2026 edition of the Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium aims to create space for collective reflection on the notion of archival heritage as a dynamic, open-ended process. More specifically, it seeks to examine how archives are constituted, activated, contested, and transformed by—and in the hands of—artists engaged in improvisatory worldmaking.

We invite proposals for presentations and creative works that consider archives comprehensively, as both accrued and curated, inherited and self-generated, but also living and embodied. We welcome submissions that speak to both an academic audience and a general public, as well as reflect diverse perspectives, community engagement, experimental practices, and innovative methodologies, all of which are needed to see beyond the present, into its possibilities.

The deadline for submissions is May 31, 2026.

Submissions should include an abstract of 250–300 words and a short biography of 150 words.

For submissions and inquiries, please contact Dr. Eric Fillion at [email protected].

IMPR PhD Candidate Shaghayegh Yassemi presents a video installation, as an extension of her doctoral defence, on April 27-28 in the Blackbox Theatre at the University of Guelph! 🎞️👩🏻‍🎓

Shaghayegh’s dissertation reimagines poetry as an act of world-making, extending beyond private readings to become a dynamic, improvisational, and interdisciplinary practice. It introduces filmic poetry, a new form that fuses experimental film sequences, footage of improvisational performances, and poetic text to craft multilayered works that challenge conventional perceptions of art and its boundaries. By inviting audiences to co-create rather than merely observe, filmic poetry reframes poetry as a participatory process of seeing the world anew.

To learn more about Shaghayegh’s practice and research, drop by and see her video installation next week from the hours of 10 am to 6 pm in MacKinnon 101, the Blackbox theatre!

Join us this Thursday at 8 PM in ImprovLab for a performance of Jacob’s Ladder (2012), a composition by IMPR PhD student Matthew Endahl, presented by Audiopollination Guelph!

Matthew describes the piece as "a structured improvisation for 12+ performers. Solos, duets, trios and quartets emerge, overlap, and dissolve according to the structure of DNA🧬. A celebration of life itself, in all its variety and complexity!"

Thursday night's performance will feature Rick Boersma, Lois Cherry, Marcela Echeverri, Matthew Endahl, Benedict Hobson, Hayden Mesnick, David Lacalamita, Sally Ludwig, Ben O'Brien, Thomas Rolf, Joe Sorbara, and Matthew Tenedero.

PWYC, (suggested donation of $20)!

ImprovLab is located in Room 108 of the MacKinnon Building at the University of Guelph. On-campus parking is free after 5 PM! We look forward to seeing you there!

We’ll see you in ImprovLab this Friday, April 10th, at 10 AM, when Ms. Georgia Simms (she/her) will lead "choreographies of choice," a creative, interactive workshop that invites participants to engage in movement research framed by attention, shape, and momentum. Language, music, and the energy of the ensemble will create an atmosphere for experimentation, response, and reflection. This creative workshop is part of the Cacophonie series, curated by IICSI Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Sharon D. Engbrecht!

All are invited to join the Cacophonie creative workshops. These events are meant to be as accessible as possible, and they are open to everyone regardless of age, ability, ethnicity, religion, language, sexual orientation, gender identity, political beliefs, or status. Folks with children are also welcome to bring them along, and their participation will not be part of the study.

To confirm participation and/or for more information, including about consent forms, please email [email protected].

If you decide to join the event spontaneously, please do. Doors will be open 30 minutes before each event. There will be coffee, tea, and light snacks provided!

For more information, including Ms. Georgia Simms' bio, visit the Cacophonie website here: https://bit.ly/3NRNNQ9

Applications are now open for the 2026-2027 IICSI Postdoctoral Fellowship! Valued at $58,000 (not including benefits), this twelve-month, in-person fellowship with the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation at the University of Guelph is an excellent opportunity for recent and imminent PhD graduates interested in researching how improvised artistic practices can influence social change! The application deadline is April 10, 2026.

To view the full call, visit the fellowship webpage here: https://bit.ly/3ZVoZc6

Please feel free to share widely!