Playing with time to escape time and space: Slow Music Improvisation in an online space for Mindfulness

Abstract

This article is an exegetical look at a series of improvisational concert/performance/co-creations that started in the lockdown of March 2020 in New Zealand. This informal series of livestream concerts has continued to develop since that time, with a range of collaborative performers. This article serves to unpick some of the creative practice and conceptual framework that outline this series from the point of view of individual creative reflection and mindfulness. This series of events were designed to provide space for shared improvisation as a tool for mindfulness in uncertain times. It was also designed to provide some collective moments of reflection through a shared remote experience. But at the core, this series is in exploring ideas of slow improvisation. Working in a purely online context utilising the limitations of video and sound sharing technology to create specific new performative experiences. As a part of this process we as performers are places into a situation that works between individual awareness (as you are in a space by yourself) and collective experience (as you perform together online). This experience is very intuitive and the participants are forced to embrace the uncertainty of the environment and technology, and recognise the spontaneity of improvisational experiences that are mediated through the experience of shifting time, and the disembodied nature of Zoom to create music that has a sense of release and connection.