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Welcome to the new ICASP Website!

Welcome to the newly redesigned ICASP website! The new website features a newly created, cutting-edge research collection, an online archive of research papers, film, performance footage and other contributions to the lively, emerging field of Improvisation Studies.

Improvisation, Gender & the Body research area supports adaptive use musical instruments

ICASP's research area on Improvisation, Gender and the Body is currently supporting the work of Pauline Oliveros (Distinguished Professor of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and ICASP Research Collaborator) on Adaptive Use Musical Instruments for the physically challenged.

Adaptive Use Musical Instruments allow people with very little physical mobility to create improvised music either by themselves or with others.

Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice project welcomes Musagetes Foundation as partner and sponsor

The Musagetes Foundation has joined the Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice (ICASP) project as a partner in the international research project. Musagetes is a public foundation focussing on the arts, creativity, and community.

“ICASP and Musagetes share a vision about the power and efficacy of the arts, about the role that creativity can play in sparking social change,” says Dr. Ajay Heble, project director of ICASP. “We are genuinely excited by the opportunities and collaborations that such a partnership will open up.”

Speakers announced for Lex Non Scripta, Ars Non Scripta: Law, Justice, and Improvisation conference

Scholar performers Nichole Mitchell and John Oswald will join ICASP researchers Ingrid Monson and Desmond Manderson as keynote speakers at Lex Non Scripta, Ars Non Scripta: Law, Justice, and Improvisation, an international, interdisciplinary conference to be held June 19 and 20 at McGill University, Montreal.

New project manager begins May 12

Kim Thorne joins the ICASP team as project manager. Kim has more than 10 years experience in project management, organizational development, outreach, and communications in the charitable and non-profit sectors. Her previous position was as the executive director of the Organic Council of Ontario, a non-profit organization representing the organic sector in Ontario. Kim holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Guelph.

Pauline Oliveros interview available as podcast

June 26: Tonight, ICASP research collaborator Pauline Oliveros discusses her life as a musician on the "Evening Music" program on WNYC . The first hour is available for streaming soon after 8 p.m. The composer, accordionist and founder of Deep Listening Institute, Oliveros joins David Garland in the studio to discuss her life as a musician, the sounds of her childhood, growing up as a teenager in 1940s Houston, Texas.

ICASP welcomes creative input of new partner, RENDER

Speculate, incubate, innovate, cultivate, and create are the catchwords of RENDER, ICASP’s latest partner. Based at the University of Waterloo, RENDER was established in 2006 with the goal of shifting the focus of the university’s art gallery away from a traditional public gallery model to a more innovative and relevant approach that positions art, design, critical thought, and creative research in a much broader context.

Call for papers issued for special journal issue on law, justice, and improvisation

The journal Critical Studies in Improvisation/Études critiques en improvisation has issued a call for papers for its special issues on Lex Non Scripta, Ars Non Scripta: Law, Justice and Improvisation. The deadline for submission is Dec. 15, 2009.

“Sexualities in Improvisation” theme of recently released journal

The much anticipated special issue of Critical Studies in Improvisation/Études critiques en improvisation on "Sexualities in Improvisation" is now available at www.criticalimprov.com.

Funding supports music program for at-risk youth

At-risk and disadvantaged youth in the Notre Dame de Grace (N.D.G.) neighborhood of Montreal will soon have access to ongoing music programs in a rehearsal space stocked with instruments and equipment with weekly instruction by a leading improviser. The Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice research project, with its partners La Société des Arts Libres et Actuels (SALA) and Head and Hands, received $18,500 from the City of Montreal – Programme de partenariat culture et communité and the Quebec Ministry of Culture, Communication and the Status of Women.

If people talked the way they drummed in improvisation, then I think the world would be a lot nicer…

– Youth participant, ICASP improvisation workshop