Collaboration and Improvisation
col·lab·o·ra·tion/kəˌlabəˈrāSHən/ noun
The action of working with someone to produce or create something.
Something produced or created in this way.
Collaboration is the word of the week here at Portland Ovations.
It all started on Saturday with a mask-making workshop with our new friends at Oak Street Studios hosted by our long-time collaborator the Portland Public Library in advance of our Family Series presentation of Masked Marvels & Wondertales by Maine’s own Michael Cooper.
Then things really heated up with the concurrent residencies with India Jazz Suites and Shuffle.Play.Listen – both projects rooted in collaboration.
India Jazz Suites brings together different art forms, cultures and generations to celebrate and thrill. Through the trust and deep respect between these artists, improvisation can take flight and the possibilities are boundless. Through this project, we’ve collaborated with Portland High School on a cultural sharing workshop where more than 70 students engaged in a conversation about cultural differences and similarities, how to come together when you don’t know much about “the other,” and what it means to pursue one’s passions with discipline and integrity. Later that day, our partners at the Portland Museum of Art hosted a teachers’ workshop that explored tradition and contemporary practice followed that evening by a free, public discussion with dancers Jason Samuels Smith and Pandit Chitresh Das that was incredibly stimulating.
Over the next two days we host pianist Christopher O’Riley and cellist Matt Haimovitz, who are in the midst of their own collaboration – Shuffle.Play.Listen – that bridges the classical canon with more contemporary sounds. Their deep investigation of music and openness sets off yet another series of collaborative activities here in Portland: a “flash concert” with Matt at SPACE Gallery, a masterclass with our friends at 317 Main Street Community Music Center in Yarmouth, and the continuation of a longstanding partnership with MPBN, including an in-studio interview with Suzanne Nance, Matt and Chris.
Collaboration is not always easy and it should never be forced. We are incredibly fortunate to have a number of partners in the community who seek us out as collaborators — and us them— to create something more than either of us could achieve on our own. And when artists further inspire how we approach collaboration the results exceed all of our expectations.
We hope you too will be swept up in the thrill of these collaborations and seek out the new and unexpected.
Mary Jane Whitney says:
India Jazz Suites was just amazing! I can’t stop raving about the performance. Thank you so much for making it available to us this year…