"Is That Jazz?"
Three international guest musicians from three different continents meet for the first time as they set up for this gig, spontaneously composing a soft opening for Improvention; Canberra's international festival of improvised theatre arts.
For the following five nights, they will be the house musicians for a festival (at The Street Theatre early, then Smiths late) that asks audiences and actors alike to "Reimagine Theatre". For any participant improvisers who have arrived early for Improvention, the gig is a chance to meet, socialise, and perhaps join the musicians on stage to improvise who knows what? Is That Jazz?
Goran Zavrsnik is a Slovenian performance artist, who combines keyboards, sampling, and other magic, to soundscape the instant dreams of actors. Kevin McHugh is a Tokyo-based jazz pianist, too good not to invite back to his his second Improvention running. Gary France swapped somewhere like New York for Canberra and sounded the gong on what we thought percussion was about, now operating the Groove Warehouse, and occasionally filling theatre stages with so many instruments that no set-design is necessary.
If you have an Improvention Festival Pass, you don’t need to buy tickets to this event.