The Excursionists: Keefe Jackson, Lindsay Hopkins, Wilson Tanner Smith – Week 1 – Hello

Jun 13, 2023

Keefe Jackson (reeds), Wilson Tanner Smith (cello, flutes, etc.) and Lindsay Hopkins (movement/theatre) are coming together this summer at SASSO to develop our approach to improvised music & movement moment-making. We have been more formally working together as a constellation since fall of 2021 with a series of exploratory rehearsals in Chicago and have a history of working together that dates back to a project “Radical Bodies” at Links Hall, Chicago, in 2017.
We create improvisational performances which allow compositions of movement and sound to evolve as we explore the energetic connections and pathways between body and instrument. Our rehearsal process is supported by somatic meditation and embodiment practices and games in order to wake up our creative instincts with an acknowledgement of our subtle energies. We’re interested in creating tangible atmospheres within which our movement and sound compositions live, allowing sound to shape the body and the body to shape sound.
Our time at SASSO is giving us the opportunity to explore and develop movement-and-sound structures for performance. Our goal is to share our research from this residency with additional collaborators for future performances, and within workshops for educational purposes to support other artists in the development of holistic rehearsal processes.

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In our first week we acquainted ourselves with the place SASSO, and with each other, who haven’t worked together for over a year, or lived together ever.

Learning about the place through our feet and legs: walking uphill and downhill, side to side.
And about each other through practice(s) and being informed by different spaces at Casa Sasso.

Through meals, trust, communal living, planning ahead…being city folks in more rural places: when is the store open, how do we get there, how much can we carry back with us?

Through cheese…and a swim.

We asked, who are you/me/we in this house?
Colliding our US contexts, European contexts; adjusting from our places to this place and to the voices we use: not overly analyzing these things but trying to be aware.

Finding our way in: through the body, meditation, group juggling.

Week 1 ended with performances at Mullbau (Lucerne) and WIM (Zürich)… reflections on these shows and returning to Sasso coming in blog post #2!

Individual Bios:
Lindsay Hopkins is a performer, facilitator and healing practitioner. Her interdisciplinary practice focuses on improvisational movement, physical theatre and curating socially engaged art with opportunities for active participation in somatic practices and participatory activities. She draws on her training with: improvisational movement, social mapping, Theater of the Oppressed, and Playback Theatre to bring embodiment, creativity, intuition and sensory awareness into her workshops, events and performance works. She is trained in energy healing, breathwork, bodywork and Somatic Trauma Therapy approaches and also works as a teaching artist. She has performed, facilitated workshops and participated in residencies both in the US and Europe.

Wilson Tanner Smith is a composer, improviser, and performance artist originally from Philadelphia, with creative roots in the improvised/experimental music & dance communities of Chicago. My work is most often rooted in a sense of Presence and a process of reflecting: mirroring the alienating, absurd, silly or senseless signals we receive from the world around us, in order to cultivate an awareness of the relationships we have with the people, systems, and structures around us. As a cellist/improviser he frequently collaborates across music, theatre, and dance projects, and has performed at formal and informal venues in the US and Europe.

Keefe Jackson, saxophonist and clarinetist, has lived in Chicago since 2001 (originally from Fayettevile, Arkansas). He performs regularly in the Americas and in Europe in different groups, both musical and interdisciplinary. Among the primary considerations of his work is the intersection between improvisation and composition.