January 13 to 17, 2025
9:30 am to 12:30 pm (Mon-Fri)
Full week: $95 (taxes included)
Drop-in: $28 (available one month prior)
Language of instruction: English
Questions can be asked in English and French. I have had good experiences in this context working in English and having the group translate to French when needed.
This workshop is mask-friendly to accommodate teachers and participants with accessibility needs. Learn more about our Accessibility & Masking policy.
CATEGORY
OBJECTIVE
What is a score and what exceeds it? Beyond a means of preserving the ideas of its author(s), a score invites other people to interpret those ideas into new experiences. A score asks its readers to become curious, to listen, play, take action or break the rules, and in the process develop shared questions and navigate agency. A score has living in mind. And so, in a way, a score always has some kind of collaborative process at its core.
This workshop will explore interdisciplinary conceptions and uses of scores within collaborative performance making. Through reading, discussion, and experimentation we will examine different approaches to score making, and discover the ethical, practical, and aesthetic questions that working with scores can draw out. Conceived of as a five-day facilitated study group, we will encounter different histories and practices of score making––from events scores, sound-making scores, movement scores, and orally transmitted forms of score making. And each session will oscillate between a period of “studying” (discussing and performing historical examples together) and “making” (creating and workshopping new scores).
CONTENT
This workshop will involve reading, writing/drawing, discussion, sound making (no experience required), and movement. We will practice scores together and for each other. My approach to facilitating will be informed by my background in experimental music, dance and interdisciplinary performance, along with current studies in Conflict Coaching (University of Waterloo).
The workshop will be facilitated in English, but I will do my best to encourage collective translation and will gladly slow down when needed. Processes of facilitation and learning are not distinct from issues of social justice, democracy, and community cohesion. Active listening, care, consent, and responsibility to the group are values that as a facilitator I will work hard to continuously center throughout our time together.
| Workshop Pace | Workshop Features |
| Variable Adaptable to the group’s needs | Visual support (i.e., documentation, texts…) Short verbal applications Exercises are adaptable Subgroups exercises Physical contact between participants High music or sound level |
BIOGRAPHY
Christopher Willes is an artist, musician/composer, and facilitator based in Toronto and Montreal. His interdisciplinary artistic work centers on the subject and practice of listening. He is an associate artist and producer with Public Recordings (Toronto), with whom he developed the ongoing workshop What’s Collective?. Since 2013, he has co-created several works with Montréal based artist Adam Kinner, including the one-to-one performance MANUAL. And he has worked as a dance dramaturg and sound designer for over a decade. He studied music at the University of Toronto and received an MFA from Bard College. He is currently studying Conflict Coaching and Meditation at the University of Waterloo.
Provides some useful perspectives on the subject of scores and collaborative work. There is an abundance of skills that I will find as I continue this work.
— Lee