The process behind the all-new series Understory is a blend of spontaneity and reflection. Having assembled an ultra-eclectic cast featuring some of Canada’s most nimble-minded exploratory musicians (as well as artists in parallel disciplines), its founders Nicole Rampersaud, Parmela Attariwala, and Germaine Liu have carefully arranged 14 sets’ worth of performances that will unfold over seven monthly online presentations, including the present collaboration with CMC Presents.

The project emerges from a belief in the potential of the ‘virtual performance’ paradigm to engender new performance ecologies—ones that are complementary to, and can ultimately come to inform in-person presentations. In addition to employing technology to build a fertile province-spanning creative community within Canada, Understory is equally invested in exploring it as a means to envision new forms of exchange. Unlike conventional improvised music concerts, the gestation of this series’ unique encounters is a cumulative process, producing a completely different collaborative energy. One performer initiates, recording their element, and the others follow, adding their contributions in succession in layers that are eventually reconciled in post-production. The crucial final ingredient: everyone involved has to sign off before the final product can be offered publicly.

Understory’s curatorial spirit is as curious and community-minded as its methodology. All of its participants are fluent and agile in the art of improvisational exchange, but intentionally represent an array of disparate aesthetic perspectives. A key aspect of the series’ ethos is to dissolving an “us” and “them” mentality around improvisation into, as their website states, “an abundance of artistic possibility and potency.” “The understory will be always changing,” the site notes elsewhere, “nourishing new and different connections.”

Artists
Program 1 | SlowPitchSound . Lan Tung . Gabriel Dharmoo
Program 2 | Bianca Palmer . Nilan Perera . Randy Raine-Reusch

understorysound.ca
Facebook / Instagram / Youtube