2009 JazzLab Events
- Thursday, June 11
- Friday, June 12
- Saturday, June 13
- 3 pm – 8 pm
- @ The Firehouse Center for the Visual Arts
A contemporary, collaborative, community creation project at the Firehouse Center for Visual Arts during the Discover Jazz Festival. JazzLab brings together an all-star cast of visual and performing artists with members of the community to create a multimedia performance each day using a purely organic process. The program entertains the artist in all of us, inviting observation and participation from lab visitors of all ages.
The second annual installment of the JAZZLAB features a Festival-inspired, contemporary new work under the direction of free jazz innovator Arthur Brooks.
Brooks, an instigator in the regional free jazz scene, is an avant-garde improviser and disciple of Bill Dixon and Cecil Taylor and National Endowment for the Arts grant recipient. He has toured Europe extensively with his group Ensemble V, birthed though improvisational classes at Bennington College. The group now features local luminaries, Michael Chorney on prepared guitar; Anthony Santor on upright bass; P.J. Davidian, percussion, and Polly Vanderputten and Nelson Caldwell on cello.
Brooks enlists the collaborative skills of dance quartet The Architects. While established choreographers in their own right, these dancers come together in the spirit of improvisation to flow and savor the uniqueness of each moment. Watch them unfold into an evolving physical dialogue—movement driven by the recognition of known forms and the exploration of the unfamiliar.
The scene will develop visually in similar fashion. Sculptor and set designer Sue Rees brings her improvisational design approach to the look of this year’s JAZZLAB. One can expect her action-inspired work to incorporate live audio visual elements and will enlist the assistance of all who enter the JAZZLAB for a living and breathing installation that will develop as the lab evolves.
Brooks has carefully cultivated highly reactionary improvisers across three different artistic mediums to entertain and enlighten us to live experimentation. Come witness the creation of this situational new body of work, commissioned by JAZZLAB.
