IICSI

Fall 2026 applications for the PhD Program in Critical Studies in Improvisation (IMPR) at the University of Guelph are open! A transformative, four-year program, IMPR blends rigorous academic research with arts-based community engagement. This interdisciplinary program emphasizes improvisation as a powerful tool for social change, fostering innovative research and creative methodologies. Applications will be accepted until January 31, 2026! The IMPR program incorporates foundations in critical inquiry, multidisciplinary improvisatory practices, performative agency, and community engagement, built on years of award-winning, arts-based research and training by the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI). Through study and experiential learning opportunities, students in the IMPR program will develop expertise in the primary research area of Critical Studies in Improvisation and a complementary secondary field, working toward a dissertation or a practice-based research creation output and gaining—in the process—broadly applicable practical skills in project development, management and implementation, leadership, collaboration, and pedagogy. This unique program opens up pathways to academic and professional publishing, teaching opportunities, community arts facilitation, and more! Learn more about program details and what you need to apply by visiting the program website (linktree in our bio)! If you would like more personalized information about the application process, please send an email to IICSI Director Eric Fillion at efillion[at]uoguelph[dot]ca!

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! You can find the Bandcamp link via our linktree (in bio)!

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.” (Continued in first comment)

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! #improvisation #iicsi #uofguelph

Join us Sunday afternoon for a performance by L CON in collaboration with Nina Vroemen, and an opening performance by legendary improviser Karen Ng. Co-presented with the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI). Sound artist and songwriter Lisa Conway (L CON) and multidisciplinary artist Nina Vroemen present an experimental audio-visual reel-to-reel tape loop set, incorporating elements of improvisation and composition, and exploring a variety of analog and digital technologies. Following the highly anticipated release of her debut LP Backwards Blue on boutique label Halocline Trance, Karen Ng delivers an improvised solo saxophone and electronics set utilizing a variety of material extracted from the album. Using free improvised vocabulary mixed with interactive patches, Ng explores the world of dynamics and relationships between the acoustic and electronic in a live setting. Sunday, May 10, 2026; 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm ImprovLab, University of Guelph FREE / No registration required.

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!

Tuesday, April 21st at 1pm Eastern: Will you join me for this research-creation performance? I am so excited to bring this project into the world 🫶🏾 Thank to @takeupspacedance for acting as the movement consultant on this performance ✨🎶 This Colloquium will serve as a step towards PhD candidacy in Critical Studies in Improvisation (@improvcommunity ) Here is some information about my performance: Can emancipatory discourse take on a musical form? The Wanderer, a musical dramatization engages with this question as it captures the meeting of musical worlds between Western Classical Musical traditions and African Diasporic drumming practices. Blending storytelling, historic research and autoethnographic and Arts-Based research methodologies, The Wanderer takes place within a fictional space: where musical voices from both of these traditions engage in dialogue in attempts of creating new learnings, interpretations and musical outcomes. Within the natural world, these two entities were separated by land, water, forced migration, and the bondage of slavery. Here within this alternate space and time, sounds from these musical practices find a meeting place in the sky. The Wanderer, who calls the sky home, is a being who weaves between time and space: speaking stories that are neither true, nor false, but fiction as an alternative reality through musical narrative. She listens, she waits, and responds to the sounds she encounters. Starting as a gentle hum, new sounds emerge between the clouds; The Wanderer ‘spins’ them together slowly. Some of the musical strands connect, while others bend and break, not wanting to be confined or bound. As the Wanderer moves amongst the ‘strands’ of sounds, her body takes on new movement, interpreting the collective identities. Through this dramatization, Kathryn Patricia Cobbler performs the character of The Wanderer, where she leads audience members through this musical dialogue and discussion with the aim of answering the question: can these musical ‘strands’ find home with one another? *Full reference list available on request (send me a DM 😊)

𝗔𝗡 𝗔𝗥𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗-𝗧𝗛𝗘-𝗖𝗟𝗢𝗖𝗞 𝗖𝗘𝗟𝗘𝗕𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗢𝗙 𝗜𝗠𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗩𝗜𝗦𝗘𝗗 𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗦 𝙒𝙚𝙙 15𝙩𝙝 – 𝙎𝙖𝙩 18𝙩𝙝 𝘼𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙡 2026 𝙊𝙉𝙇𝙄𝙉𝙀 The 7th annual Improvisation Festival (IF), presented by IICSI in collaboration with Sonorities Festival, will be streamed live throughout the festival. Featuring 35 online acts, with a full schedule and programme notes available via the Sonorities homepage. Link in bio for full programme

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 via our linktree (in bio)!

Make your way to ImprovLab tomorrow, April 1st, for a film festival curated by MA students in French and Francophone Studies at the University of Guelph! The students will present a selection of fiction and documentary films, spanning shorts and feature-lengths, all of which are in French with English subtitles. This free event will feature two screenings (afternoon and evening). The afternoon screening will run from 2:30 PM to 5 PM, with the evening screening running from 6:30 PM to 9 PM. The afternoon program will feature the following documentary films: * From here, elsewhere (Chadi Bennani, 2023) * Your call is important to us (Romy Boutin St-Pierre and Joe Nadeau, 2023) * There’s a star (Julien Cadieux, 2023) The evening program will highlight works of cinematic fiction: * Rosie (Gail Maurice, 2018) * You’re sleeping, Nicole (Stéphane Lafleur, 2014) Reserve your free spot on EventBrite via our Linktree (in bio)!