Art Metropole

#15244

Improvising Places Improvising Time

Artists

Devon Fornelli and Thomas Ayouti

Price

$10.00

Date

2021

Publisher

Small Walker Press

Format

Monographs

ISBN

9781777145064

Size

15 × 21 cm

Length

48 pp

Genre

Music, Dance, Creative Writing

Dance and musical improvisation are ephemeral expressions urging us to embrace the moment in thoughtful joy. Devon Fornelli’s improvisations documented here are two performances: his CitySounds, created on 18 September 2015 for the opening of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts in downtown St. Catharines, Ontario; and his Garden Performance, five years later, on 9 May 2020, offered as a reflection on the COVID-19 pandemic and the
temporary lockdown of the MIWSFPA. This documentation includes music notations, three short essays and the only remaining photograph of Fornelli’s improv’ in September 2015. Thomas Ayouti’s short story ‘Aux corps cassés’ – roughly translated, ‘broken bodies’ – offers a counterpoint to Fornelli’s practice. Thematizing the creation of a dance performance, the narrative grows, gains speed, intertwines the dancers’ movements and the narrator’s loving characterization of his friend. Whereas Fornelli’s improvisations express the persisting flow of our environment, Ayouti’s piece follows the fervid crescendo of emotions.