Some of you may already have visited and snooped around a bit. Sorry I’m late!! It was a pleasure to visit your class and watch you work on April 2nd. As I said then, you woke me up!! I’m looking forward to mixing it up with you on Tuesday, April 7th. We’ll see what unfolds!!
Welcome to those new (and old) to the Performance Improvisation website.
You will find content in the menu. I don’t necessarily use this as a blog, but as an archive for writings, photographs, links, etc. But, feel free to leave a comment.
More photos of Peter
Still researching dates, photos, other people in the pictures, etc., but here are more! From late ’80s, Dreams of Vegetable Origin. From 1995-2005, Work in the Performance of Improvisation summer intensive at Bennington College. From who-knows-when to at least 2005, Giants of Sciants. Midgets of Metaphysics to come, if I can find photos!! Luxuriate in Peter! I am!
Celebrating Peter B. Schmitz
I’ve begun to accumulate and post photos of Peter from his many incarnations in our work and teaching together, beginning in 1986. It’s been a long time since I’ve constructed a page on this site. It’s a rocky road!! Look in the menu. Onward!! I’ve begun with photos from Andrea Olsen’s The Birdhouse Project (2005)–colorful and funny! Enjoy! I’ll keep working on it!
Reawakening!
Welcome to what has been a very quiet blog/archive for the past couple of years. A special welcome to any of you who will be joining us at the improvisation festival at Tori Lawrence and Ellie Goudy-Averill’s home and art community in July. Not a real blog, this site is more an archive for history, principles, and miscellaneous other stuff related to the practice we call Performance Improvisation. It’s all in the menus. Take a look at our principles. I’m looking forward to mixing it up with you to see what is relevant to your dance/music lives now (or not!) and how. Talk about feeling rusty. I’m reading it, too!
Hello and Welcome
Welcome to all, but especially to those of you linking from the freeskewl/movement crossings and Thinking Dance sites. I’m grateful to Tori Lawrence and Ellie Goudy-Averill for including me in both of these “activities.” This is an archive of my writing and all the content is accessible via the menus. I wrote it originally to remind dancers and musicians who have studied with me over the years of the rigor of this particular approach to improvisation as a performing art. I hope it is useful to you. Be in touch if you wish.
Hello!
Not really a blog; more an archive. Click on a menu topic and select from the drop down list to see what I really think! I return now and then to see what I said and I don’t change much–a misspelling or punctuation. More may emerge soon. May I suggest beginning with “Some Basic Principles.” I’m glad to hear from you. Comments?
A couple of things:
A. All the good stuff (I hope!) is archived in the Menu. So click on a topic and see what interests you, if anything.
B. I forgot to mention to Dr. Sean Wayne yesterday that there is at least one article on improvisation and oncology: “The Improvisational Oncologist” by Siddhartha Mukherjee in the NYT on May 12, 2016. I’ll do a closer reading and see where we intersect.
A new post: a workshop in music and dance ensemble
Under Technique Training, a compendium of exercises and attitudes specific to Performance Improvisation (PI) that I would have shared on March 18 in the Flynn/UVM/Middlebury College Looking Deeper workshop. But, I couldn’t make it. So I wrote it. An Ensemble of Musicians and Dancers. There is quite a lot there; probably more somewhere. I’ll get after it!! Thoughts always welcome.
Both/And. . .
Both/And: Collectivity and Individual Agency; Ensemble and Solo
So, reading some Angela Y. Davis spurred me into thinking/writing action. I’ve been pondering and talking to friends recently about my sense that cooperation and collectivity was taking precedence over individual agency in improvised ensemble performing. Here are some first thoughts and some citations to Davis. I should mention that this entry is posted under “Raps.”
Update: I should also mention that I am aware of the ebb and flow, the dialectics of foci in improvisational work (aka “life!). My old “disco ball” explanation of things comes to mind–later for that. But, if the agency of the soloist is lost from this approach to improvisation, or if we forget the mechanics of self-awareness and innovation in our work, we are on a slippery slope.
Performance Improvisation 