Workshop | Christopher Willes — Asking Through a Score

What is a score, and what goes beyond it? Beyond being a means to preserve the ideas of its author(s), a score invites others to interpret these ideas and turn them into new experiences. A score asks its readers to become curious, to listen, to play, to act, or to break the rules, and in doing so, to develop common questions and navigate our capacity to act. A score has life in mind. And so, in a way, a score inherently involves a collaborative process.

This workshop will explore interdisciplinary concepts and the use of scores in the context of creating collaborative performance. Through reading, discussion, and experimentation, we will examine different approaches to score creation and uncover the ethical, practical, and aesthetic questions that this work can raise. Designed as a five-day study group, we will explore different histories and practices of score creation, including event scores, sound creation scores, movement scores, and orally transmitted score-making forms. Each session will oscillate between a “study” period (discussion and interpretation of historical examples) and a “creation” period (creating and developing new scores).

CONTENT

This workshop will include reading, writing/drawing, discussion, sound creation (no experience required), and movement. We will practice scores together and for each other. My approach to facilitation will draw on my experience in experimental music, dance, and interdisciplinary performance, as well as my current studies in conflict coaching (University of Waterloo).