New audio-visual production – Daily into the Blue – from Geoff Bright and Gill Whiteley [the gathering…the chewing] plus our long-time collaborator, Walt Shaw – freely improvised soundscape produced under lockdown conditions and at a distance. Premiered on Saturday 27 March 2021 in Here, There, Everywhere at AC Institute, New York. See here….
Looking back to Pan-demonium in 2009
Just looking back to this project – Pan-demonium – created in 2009, first staged at the AC Institute in New York…consisting of a multimedia exhibition and accompanying publication exploring the notion of ‘pan-demons’, ‘pan-demics’ and all things ‘pan’ in the light of the global political, ecological and economic situation and viral forces of ‘contagion’ at the time….the notion of the pandemic was merely metaphorical then… how prescient it seems now…
Matriarchal Mopomoso Sunday 21 March 2pm
This Sunday’s Mopomoso online TV Channel improvisation session – Matriarchal Mopomoso – is dedicated to women in improvisation – and it will include the third lockdown video from Les Petroleuses ( Lyn Hodnett and Gill Whiteley) – as it happens, celebrating 150 years since the 1871 Paris Commune!
Join us ‘unruly women’ improvisers on the barricades….
Also see bricolagekitchen’s Resonating Women of the Paris Commune project – follow it over the next ten weeks, naming and honouring ten women communards…
The Improviser’s Experience: Knowledge, Methodology, Communication – online at University of Huddersfield 18/19 March 2021
Geoff Bright, Anton Hunter and Gill Whiteley performed and presented at this two-day online event exploring the improviser’s experience. Our intention was to problematise, through performance, how ‘power’ in different forms – in this case ‘instructions’ – might influence knowledge produced in improvised performance, and how that process may differ between structured or ‘free’ improvisation settings. ( For full abstracts of presentations at the event see here)
Following the 10 mins performance (5 mins with instructions not known to the other players + 5 mins free improv), we then conducted an in-depth reflective discussion of the subjectively experienced differences in power relations between the two performance phases. Time restrictions at the event meant we were unable to include the discussion in our presentation at the workshop but its available here below.
Three improvised exchanges from the [the gathering…the chewing]
Velvet bags, heart shaped scones and Bela Tarr’s Damnation…it must be 14 February 2021...
Les Petroleuses ride again…under the third lockdown…
Ripping it up, going for the burn and pumping the old chapel harmonium again at Stevenson Road, working on a free improvisation piece towards what Lyn and I hope will be our final lockdown project – apart but together – for Les Petroleuses…
Click! exploring free improvisation in duos 2021
Click! is an online series of free improvisation sessions started under lockdown and organised by Phil Morton – in each session duos are put (at random) into zoom breakout rooms to play for around 8 mins. Here on the Improvisers’ Networks Online website is a piece with Martin Hackett on Korg and myself (Gill Whiteley) on digital keyboard recorded live on zoom 15 January 2021
50:50 Online project The Blank Canvas Octet Live on Zoom 6/13/20/27 January 2021
Through last year, I have been part of the 50:50 online Blank Canvas Octet – a project exploring free improvisation in music in a large ensemble context. Since last March, we have done over 40 weekly zoom sessions. The ‘system 50:50` uses chess clocks to bring cohesion to the sound field which can often become cluttered. The result is a dynamic and shifting canvas of sound that allows small discreet sounds to be heard and deeper layers to be felt and expressed. Its been an exciting project to participate in.
Interested in just listening in/ being a member of the audience? Get more info here
Eagle Works, Attercliffe
bricolagekitchen is now based at CADS studios, Eagle Works, Stevenson Road, Attercliffe, Sheffield – pic features fabulous bit of steelworkers kitsch in the mirror mural on the staircase – maker unknown
[the gathering…the chewing] and Phil Morton’s 50:50 online project Blank Canvas Octet
Gillian Whiteley and Geoff Bright [the gathering…the chewing] have been part of Phil Morton’s weekly 50:50 online Blank Canvas Octet improvised music sessions since the first days of the lockdown in March 2020. Seventeen zoom sessions have taken place so far with the next live streamed session on Youtube on Wednesday 9th September 2020. Join us then and see/hear how we are working with the affordances and constraints of online platforms as a site for improvisation.