7 DAYS IN VARIOUS LOCATIONS: SCHAUMBAD – FREIES ATELIERHAUS GRAZ / DIE FLÖSSEREI / AKROSPHÄRE / CAFÉ STOCKWERK / FORUM STADTPARK

 

The Graz Improfest Episode 04 invites you to experience the power and potential of improvisation in all its facets. The focus is on creative spontaneity and the collective exploration of sound, expression, and presence. In addition to a lecture-performance on a floating raft, we invite you to blind dates with outstanding improvisers, workshops, play-fights, acrobatics and yoga, audiovisual and open improv sessions, listening sessions, and interdisciplinary performances! Graz will become a meeting place for musicians, performers, and anyone interested in improvisation—or simply curious— who wants to try something new beyond fixed structures!

 

CONCERTS + GATHERINGS + WORKSHOPS + LECTURES + TALKS + PERFORMANCES

 

We kick off the first day of the festival with a lecture-performance at the “Flösserei” featuring improvisation and nature expert, sound artist, and flutist Sabine Vogel. We’ll drift along the Mur River on a raft and immerse ourselves deeply in nature.

As every year, one of the special highlights at the GIF is the Styrian Improvisers Orchestra, which, with its collective musical language, impressively demonstrates just how multifaceted and dynamic improvised music can be when performed by an ensemble. This time, the British guest conductor is the legendary improviser Steve Beresford, who is also a co-founder of the London Improvisers Orchestra.

 

BLIND DATE – Meet, greet, and play: An evening dedicated to performances by outstanding improvisational musicians in a blind date format. The concept of the gathering is an open, participatory practice that focuses on making music together, listening, and spontaneous interaction. Regardless of prior musical experience, everyone is invited to become part of this lively process – body awareness, listening exercises, and participation with instruments, voice, or movement are at the center. In play-fight sessions set to improvised music, forces can be tested playfully and in a safe space to foster conscious encounters.

 

The Vienna Soundpainting Collective’s program promises to be particularly exciting, featuring an artist talk, workshop, performance, and improv session throughout the entire Sunday. As always, the Grazer Impro Fest offers a week full of collective experiences: open digital and analog spaces, workshops, gatherings, concerts, and performances. Roles blur: performers become listeners, the stage dissolves, the audience intervenes, objects begin to speak, bodies respond. Everything is in flux.

 

ARTISTS:

AKROSPHÄRE, ANA OSTOJIĆ, ANABEL SCHEFFOLD, ANIRBAN GHOSH, ANNA GRENZNER, ANNETTE GIESRIEGL, BINTANG MANIRA MANIK, CERAMIC ARTFOOD CONCEPT, COINCIDENCE ENSEMBLE, DEAE, DIEGO KOHN, DJ SNIFF, ELISABETH HARNIK, EUNHYE KIM, FELIX MARTL, FILIP NOVAKOVIĆ, GABRIELA GORDILLO, GERHARD HAMMERL, JAN JACHMANN, JOSEPH BÖHM, JUGEND AM WERK, JULIA LUSSER, KASHO CHUALAN, KATHARINA KLEMENT, MIA ZABELKA, MURI ANDA, OLA RZEPKA, OSZILOT, RADIO HELSINKI, SABINE VOGEL, SÁRKÁNY LÁSZLÓ, STEFAN TIEFENGRABER, STEVE BERESFORD, STYRIAN IMPROVISERS ORCHESTRA, SUSANNA GARTMAYER, TONY ELIEH, VIENNA SOUNDPAINTING COLLECTIVE, VINCENT PONGRACZ, VIKTORIA LIEB, ZOFIA ILNICKA …

 

Curators: Keyvan Paydar, Annette Giesriegl Sound design/Website: Denovaire Production management: Jasmin Haselsteiner-Scharner, Michael Sladek, Josephine Brunner Grafik design: Viktoria Lieb

 

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