Damon Locks

The focus of this class will be on improvisation within and without traditions and in relationship and juxtaposition to genre and structure. There are many manifestations across cultures of freedom and transformation through improvisation. We will look at improvisational sound, music and performance and their potentials and outcomes -- from moments of imaginative exploration inside the form, to the search for freedom, discovery and re-contextualization. We will dig into the need for improvisation, its effect on the audience, and its power to provoke cultural change. Can improvisation be a practice as a whole, an approach to all forms? Improvisation in performance and practice takes us to new places that are of the moment and a way forward, as exemplified in the work of the provocative Egyptian vocalist Umm Kalsoum who broke gender norms; Sun Ra’s sonic storytelling and myth building based on Black American cultural signifiers; the genre-bending deconstructive electronic manipulations of Mixmaster Mike. The students’ individual and collective explorations of improvisation in their own practice will be fueled by discussions, recordings, performance documentation and texts by artists, practitioners, and writers, including Rob Mazurek, Tomeka Reid & Nicole Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Sun Ra, Umm Kalsoum, Kid Koala & Mixmaster Mike, and more. Students engage in a variety of in-class approaches to individual and collective improvisation. These include exercises on exploring and expanding one's instrument of choice, close-listening and responsive-listening projects aimed at increased attention to collaborators in the moment, and projects in which cross-cultural and historical approaches to improvisation are analyzed and mobilized towards individual interpretation. These are amplified by meetings with visiting artists who share their experiences of improvisation in a wide range of contexts.