WE LOVE TO IMPROVISE

magazine

JUNE 2010

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Charles H. Rivkin, the US Ambassador to France, invited Christoph A. Geiseler to speak about MIMA to 150 French cultural entrepreneurs at a symposium entitled, “Create Today”, on 24 June 2010 in Paris, France

NEWS

PAGESTHE MIMA CONFERENCE 4CONFERENCE TALKING POINTS 5NEW VIDEOS ONLINE 6ESSAY by Caleb Dance 7-9

Photographs by Christoph A. Geiseler 1-7, 9Photograph by Magali Canan 2Photographs by Annabelle Dunne 8-9

Edited and Published by Christoph A. Geiseler

CONTENT

NOTEWORTHY

Buenos Aires 1 June 2010Argentina

Dear MIMA:

We’re halfway down the road of this first musical experience in Villas 21 / 24 in the south of Buenos Aires. We’re working with 20 kids who are 8-12 years old and in a state of urgent need. Of course, there are conflicts and operational challenges, but there is a tremendous force of creativity and commitment from our new team of volunteers because they bring their talent and emotional en-ergy to the workshop every Saturday morning.

In this moment we are starting to create our own songs. The ideas are fresh and legitimate. I do not cease to get surprised how the muse and Art always comes from the hand in the social margins, like the Blues of slaves, fla-menco from Gypsies and Tango that was born in prisons and bordellos. Fresh and legitimate sounds are getting born in Barracas between other things, thanks to MIMA.

MATIAS ZLOTO MIMA TeacherBuenos Aires

the magazine JUNE 2010

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Manicured lawns and gothic buildings decorate the campus of Princeton Univer-

sity. The fortress-like dormitories give the impenetrable feeling that people on the

outside can’t get in, or people on the inside can’t get out.

What can we do to help?

INSPIRE: Expose students to international musicians and social entrepreneurs.

TRANSFORM: Empower talented students with opportunities to become leaders.

CREATE: Send campus leaders to needy communities to enact long-term change.

CELEBRATE: An international conference culminates years of preparation.

PRINCETON

CONTEXT

MIMA teachers from Argentina, Brazil, Cyprus and the USA will host a week-long music leadership training for musicians and stu-dents at Princeton. At the end of the week, participants will cul-minate their creative journey with a public concert celebration.

PROCESSThe daily training program utilizes the MIMA Method, an interac-tive teaching method developed by MIMA teachers in US-Embas-sy-sponsored social projects around the world. The Method has four steps: INSPIRE; TRANSFORM; CREATE; CELEBRATE.

LEADERSHIP TRAININGOctober 11-15, 2010

PURPOSE

PEOPLELeaders in academia, business, and the social sector will unite with students, musicians and the Grammy Award winner and for-mer Brazilian Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil.

To inspire student leaders with knowledge and empower them with opportunities to engage in civic action.

SCHOLAR’S SYMPOSIUMOctober 16, 2010

THE CONFERENCEPRINCETON UNIVERSITY

11-16 October 2010

TALKING POINTS:The MIMA

CONFERENCE

Princeton Professors Dr. Anthony D.J. Branker, Dr. Scott Burnham, Dr. Stanley Katz and Rev. Paul Raushenbush discussed MIMA’s long term goals and answered Christoph’s questions about identifying talking points about improvisation for the Princeton Conference.

Christoph Geiseler: What are pedagogical goals when improvi-sation becomes part of a teach-ing curriculum / classroom pro-cess?

Anthony Branker: Collaboration. Development of the student’s voice. Empowerment through sharing and exchange. It is very much interactive and interde-pendent. Teaching objectives are crucial, such as learning through social interaction and construc-tivism. Constructivism means students should have an integral role in the development of their own knowledge and should be provided with opportunities to create their own understanding; places value on the experiential. When teachers empower stu-dents in this way it gives students

the much-deserved permission to take a larger role in the devel-opment of their own experience and in the process discover how to create themselves.

Stanley Katz: Reading Howard Gardner’s “Multiple-intelligenc-es” is a must. I also recommend literature by Paolo Freire and Maxine Greene. We must ask if improvisation makes a cognitive difference.

Scott Burnham: Improvisation develops creative capacity and there is a cognitive benefit to studying music.

Paul Raushenbush: The social power of improvisation and lib-eration theology are examples of how learning takes place through social interaction; specifically, reflection follows praxis.

Viola Spolin’s Improvisational Theater in the 1960’s is impor-tant. I suggest learning about Augusto Boal. The theme of cul-tural diplomacy and theories of democracy are also noteworthy. Is there a connection between improvisation and democracy, and is this something that the US State Department wants to sponsor at an international lev-el?

NEW HD MIMA VIDEOS @ MIMAMUSIC.ORG

“TALK OF THE TOWN” (BRISTOL)

SONGWRITING IN HARLEM

THE SKY KINGDOM

MIMA Music releases 29 HD videos on its private YouTube channel YOUTUBE CHANNEL: MIMAMusicInc

MEETING MR. WENZEL

by Caleb Dance

I’m the once-a-week MIMA guy. I ex-change a hand-shake with Jeymani at the beginning of every session. Often there is a one-armed “bro hug” with Eduardo. Maybe some “low-fives” with Anorvia Jackie, and Desirlee. I get to be casual, wearing jeans and a MIMA shirt. To the kids, I’m “Caleb.”

It’s a different story for Kevin. He’ll see many of the same students in his classroom during normal school hours the following week. He’ll teach them music theory, grade their homework assignments and exams, and meet with their parents when student-teacher conferences come around. He’s a full-time faculty member and the director of the music program at the Cristo Rey High School in New York, rarely seen by students without a tie around his neck. Though Kevin is also a MIMA Teacher, he remains “Mr. Wenzel” throughout our ses-sions.

I come each Friday shortly before 4 pm and find Kevin already setting up the classroom.

Whatever it is, “Mr. Wenzel” will keep working.

We push the rest of the chairs and desks to the walls in order to make space for the day’s activities. The kids arrive. We make music. We laugh. The kids leave. Their week-end officially begins when our regular Fri-day MIMA session ends. Some of the students linger until the instru-ments are all packed up, but they eventually file out to get on the subway and return home.

Kevin and I stick around a little longer and put the desks back in order. We chat for a few min-utes about the MIMA ses-sion. What worked? What didn’t? We may make plans to meet up over the weekend. Then I get on my bike and return home.

Kevin stays. He has a few more things to do. Maybe he will prepare music for the choir (which he directs). Or perhaps he will edit live recordings of songs the students performed for the school play. Whatever it is, “Mr. Wenzel” will keep work-ing.

I’ve known Kevin for nearly 10 years. We went to high school together and played in the jazz band and pit band for school musicals. I was a guest musician on the first record that he made with his high school band. (We played a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Battle of Evermore.”) During our university years, we saw each other in Colorado over summers, and I occasion-ally had the pleasure of performing with his bluegrass band The Medicinal Strings, which was registered as a non-profit and offered performances and free lessons at homeless shelters and community centers.

In 2008 I moved to New York City to pursue a gradu-ate degree in Classical languages and literature, and there I met our fellow MIMA Teacher Christina Char-alambidou from Cyprus. We started to lay the ground-work for a Harlem music program. A friend reminded me that Kevin worked as a faculty member at Cristo Rey High School in Spanish Harlem. I mentioned our plans for a MIMA program to him, and he was on-board immediately.

Since our first class in 2008, Kevin has become in-creasingly involved and committed to MIMA. Christi-na and I noticed in our first session that the students were more at ease when “Mr. Wenzel” was participat-ing, and Kevin was always ready to contribute. After Christina returned to Cyprus to start her MIMA pro-gram, Kevin began working with me to develop new exercises and coordinate our weekly MIMA sessions. In the summer of 2009, Kevin attended the MIMA Thinktank in Florianopolis, Brazil and worked with the other MIMA teachers, musicians, and staff to formal-ize the MIMA Methodology. That summer he also chose to adopt elements of the MIMA Methodology for the standard curriculum at Cristo Rey High School.

This past April, Kevin and I traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina to support Mat-ias Zloto as he launched his musical outreach pro-gram in Villas 21 and 24. The very next week Kevin lead a very successful week-long program with Alex Mitnick and Jona-than Barnes in Bristol, England.

Kevin has improved the quality and broadened the scope of the music program at Cristo Rey. His contributions to the school are too many to enumerate in total, but the annual end-of-year theatrical production

at Cristo Rey offers a telling snapshot of how the mu-sical culture of the school has grown under Kevin’s leadership. In 2008 (Kevin’s first year), he asked me to perform in the play’s pit band with him and another faculty member. No students were in the band with us, but four of his choir members sang a song. Last year, Kevin asked our MIMA class to perform as the pit band. Musical numbers by Duke Ellington were added to the play to showcase the students’ musical abilities, and the choir had a featured role. This year (2010) I attended the production of “The Buddy Holly Story”—a full-fledged musical, and I was delighted to see (and hear) MIMA students playing electric bass and guitar in the pit band. The production’s cast was filled with MIMA students who sang, danced, and played music in nearly every scene.

By integrating the MIMA Methodology into the curric-ulum at Cristo Rey, Kevin has empowered his students and given them the opportunity to create and share musical experiences. He has done so while expertly navigating the challenges of acting as a professional employee of the school and an improvisation-loving MIMA Teacher. It is in the work of teachers like Kevin, Erik, Christina, Alan and Matias that I see the true strength and promise of MIMA. The unwavering sup-port that the teachers receive from Christoph, Jona-than, and the rest of the MIMA staff is testament to this. I am honored to call all of the MIMA Teachers my colleagues. I’m privileged to call them my friends.

Kevin has been my friend for almost a decade, but it is through our relationship as MIMA Teachers that this friendship has acquired a new depth. I see Kevin em-ploy the MIMA Methodology every day: he inspires, transforms, creates, and celebrates with each lesson that he teaches (and through each of the many in-struments he plays). He is dedicated to his students, their musical education, and most importantly, their empowerment through improvisation. This dedica-tion and his boundless good nature make Kevin an invaluable member of the MIMA community.

Kevin has been my friend for almost a de-cade, but it is through our relationship as MIMA Teachers that this friendship has acquired a new depth.

After our most recent MIMA session at Cristo Rey, Jeymani (a student who has been one of the most consistent and enthusiastic participants in our weekly meetings) informed me that Kevin no longer goes by “Mr. Wenzel” among the MIMA students.

I was surprised. Only earlier that day I had begun writing this essay and thinking about how Kevin’s title at school reflected his unique (and successful) balancing act.

“What does he go by?” I asked, curious.

Jeymani paused for dramatic effect.“Grand Master Wenzel.”

I nodded. That sounded about right.

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