SPU Professor Contributes Art Piece to 24-Hour Online Festival of Improvised Arts

Tuesday, July 21, 2020 – Saint Paul University professor Lauren Michelle Levesque will be participating in the IF 2020 festival, which takes place from August 7 to 8, 2020.

Levesque, an assistant professor in the Providence School of Transformative Leadership and Spirituality, is contributing Sounds in Small Places, a short audio piece that explores sounds recorded from her apartment during the COVID-19 crisis.

“In my own research, I am very interested in the relationship between the arts and social change, including how the arts can be a vehicle for leadership and community engagement,” explains Levesque. “It is an honour to participate in this exciting project that showcases the ways in which artists have continued to create and collaborate in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

IF 2020 is a 24-hour online festival that will be streaming improvisational arts, including music, spoken word, dance and theatre. The event is organized by the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) in partnership with the University of Guelph and will feature over 150 artists from more than 15 countries.

“Music and the arts have long been important catalysts for imagining, and indeed often enacting, new ways of living together in the world,” says Dr. Ajay Heble, Director of the IICSI, in the event’s press release. “I’ve been particularly struck by the way artists, arts presenters, and other organizations around the world have improvised community during these challenging times, how they have encouraged us to imagine the world anew.”

The event begins streaming on August 7 at 8 p.m. (EST). For more information about IF 2020, please visit: improvfest.ca