My second collaborative remote ensemble for this year’s CURRENT is with Juana Beltrán & Michael McNab.
CURRENT
Collaboration with Jenny Green & Mimi Kind
CURRENT 2020: Householders
“Perform your duties in an unselfish spirit…without desiring any result” – Sri Ramakrishna “Advice to householders”
CURRENT is a communal inter-disciplinary event that has taken place for several years on a roughly-annual basis. Initially forming as celebration of music improvisation from trios who had never played together before, CURRENT evolved to welcome a range of disciplines, including variously focussing on dance, visual art, and domestic ritual. CURRENT as a live performance event cannot take place under the current COVID-19 situation, but rather than see this as a restriction, CURRENT 2020 will be an opportunity to break those barriers previously imposed by being present at a particularly venue on a particular date. The 2020 theme is ‘Householders’: how can we relate, create, collaborate in new ways whilst largely confined to our homes. As in the past new ensembles will be formed to create a new work, but instead of a live performance, the new work will be conveyed via a video on a dedicated YouTube channel. Stay tuned as the results appear online over coming weeks and months.
CURRENT 2018 #2
CURRENT, the interdisciplinary improvisation festival, returns for it’s second instalment of the year on 10-11 November. This time it is curated by Michael McNab and Candice Boyd.
Here is the full schedule. I’m playing at 3pm on Saturday (10 November) in a trio with Sergei Tumanov and Troy Rainbow:
CURRENT #2 2018
Saturday 10 & Sunday 11 November @ The Burrow, 83 Brunswick St Fitzroy (enter rear lane). $10 entry, or $15 for both days.
CURRENT 2017/18 – video
I guest-curated this shebang in February with Michael McNab at the behest of Grand CURRENT Poobah, Ren Walters.
CURRENT 2017/18
CURRENT 2017/18
Saturday 17 & Sunday 18 February 2018, 1:30-10:30pm
Aeso Studio, 83 Brunswick St, Fitzroy (enter through laneway at rear via Palmer St)
$10 per day, or $15 for both days.
CURRENT has been a significant event in the Melbourne improvised music and performance calendar for several years now, and this year I’ve been humbled in being asked by founder Ren Walters to guest curate it along with Michael McNab.
Michael and I have spent that past few months planning a two day structure that will see a ragtag bunch of 30 performers (musicians, poets, dancers, visual artists, performance artists, and ‘in-betweeners’) divided up into new ensembles to improvise. Each performer will perform twice, once on Saturday and then again on Sunday in a completely different ensemble. We were on PBS-FM’s The Sound Barrier last night discussing it – listen here.
Performers:
Juana Beltran
Georgia Bettens
Jennifer Callaway
Mick Douglas
Matt Faisander
Simon Fisher
Susan Frykberg
Cor Fuhler
Llara Goodall
Dale Gorfinkel
Clinton Green
Martin Kay
Kim Kerze
Cam Love
Scott McConnachie
Derek McCormack
Siobhan McKenna
Michael McNab
Sage Pbbbt
Amaara Raheem
Emma Riches
Allanah Stewart
Erin K Taylor
Josh Twee
Ren Walters
Giles Warren
Mitchell Welch
Samuel Harnett Welk
CURRENT 2016 video
Here’s some video of the first-time improvising trios that played at CURRENT 2015, last December at Cross Street. CURRENT is a roughly annual event organised by Ren Walters, built around new trios of improvisers. This instalment’s theme was young drummers matched with more…ahem…experienced players.
I joined Myfanwy Hunter and Zeke Ruckman for my trio, which is the last trio in the video from about 10:25.
CURRENT – Fri 16 Dec 2016
I have performed at many CURRENT events since it began in 2012, and I’m pleased to be a part of this year’s iteration, taking place next Friday (16 December 2016, from 6pm) at Moreland City Band Hall. CURRENT began with the basic premise of creating new trios of improvisers who had never played together previously, and has developed over the years to also include dancers and visual artists. This year, CURRENT returns to its musical roots featuring only instrumentalists, with each trio based around a young up-and-coming drummer. None of us know who we will be playing with, until Ren Walters tells us on the night.
Clinton Green 