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Willow is an investigative performance project created by Amber Downie-Back, Tamar Tabori, Eliot Roby, Kurtis Mitchell, and Angus Gaffney. It is based on an exchange of somatic techniques between contemporary music and dance, pushing performers to eschew their practiced modes of presentation in favor of more intimate, unfamiliar, and vulnerable performance methods.
3 structured improvisations over the course of 2018 made up the first series of the Willow project: Montréal's Art Matters Festival as part of the Tender Teeth exhibition, KALYX Collective 's A Night Under the Canopy and at Blue Skies Turn Black 's Welcome Home Summer. An exhibition of creative process including collected footage, research, an artist panel and an hour-long performance was also hosted at Concordia University's black box studios.
Collaboration with other performers, observers, and mentors from Concordia's music and contemporary dance programs shaped Willow 's method. Willow received materials and support from more than 20 different collaborators. Each session was based on a hybrid of somatic techniques, including graphic scoring, response to selected source material, collaborative exercises, aleatorics, etc.
The continuing goal of the project is to study the commonalities between approaches to improvisation in different art forms, and to develop a somatic approach to creating cohesive interdisciplinary works that can be legible to performers of different artistic backgrounds.
For more information about Willow or the research and process involved, please contact me.
Logo design by Thom Bell.
© The Willow Project 2020
Willow is an investigative performance project created by Amber Downie-Back, Tamar Tabori, Eliot Roby, Kurtis Mitchell, and Angus Gaffney. It is based on an exchange of somatic techniques between contemporary music and dance, pushing performers to eschew their practiced modes of presentation in favor of more intimate, unfamiliar, and vulnerable performance methods.
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3 structured improvisations over the course of 2018 made up the first series of the Willow project: Montréal's Art Matters Festival as part of Catherine McRae's Tender Teeth exhibition, KALYX Collective's A Night Under the Canopy and at Blue Skies Turn Black's Welcome Home Summer. An exhibition of creative process including collected footage, research, an artist panel and an hour-long performance was also hosted at Concordia University's black box studios.
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Collaboration with other performers, observers, and mentors from Concordia's music and contemporary dance programs shaped Willow's method. Willow received materials and support from more than 20 different collaborators. Each session was based on a hybrid of somatic techniques, including graphic scoring, response to selected source material, collaborative exercises, aleatorics, etc.
-
The continuing goal of the project is to study the commonalities between approaches to improvisation in different art forms, and to develop a somatic approach to creating cohesive interdisciplinary works that can be legible to performers of different artistic backgrounds.
-
For more information about Willow or the research and process involved, please contact me.
Logo design by Thom Bell.
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© The Willow Project 2020