“An adept improviser can find ways forward amid impasse, agency amid oppression, and community amid division.”
– The Improviser’s Classroom

Join us on April 3, 2025 at ImprovLab for a full-day symposium investigating ways to re-imagine pedagogy through the prisms of activism, reciprocity, and communal care. This free, open-to-everyone event is focused around the launch of The Improviser’s Classroom: Pedagogies for Cocreative Worldmaking, the new collection edited by Daniel Fischlin and Mark Lomanno and published through Temple University Press.

Demonstrating how improvisation can inform scenes of teaching and learning, The Improviser’s Classroom also outlines how improvisatory techniques offer powerful, if not vital, tools for producing connection, creativity, accompaniment, reciprocity, meaningful revelation, and lifelong curiosity. This event will explore the ideas brought up in this book through several offerings, including:

• presentations by the Critical Studies in Improvisation graduate program’s newest cohort: Simon Flint, Mark Leroy, Emma Bortolon-Vettor, and Georgia Simms
• the book launch for The Improviser’s Classroom: Pedagogies for Cocreative Worldmaking, featuring a conversation with jashen edwards, Daniel Fischlin, Mark Lomanno, and Carey West
• a keynote by David L. Clark, featuring improvised musical responses by annais linares and Germaine Liu
• closing reflections by Fred Moten, professor of performance studies and comparative literature at New York University

Find the full schedule for the day’s events below:

• 9 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. – Coffee and Gathering
• 9:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. – Welcome (IICSI)
• 9:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. – IMPR 6010/6410 Student Presentations on Emergent/Embodied Teaching Philosophies and Multidisciplinary Approaches to Improvisation; moderated by Jashen Edwards and Daniel Fischlin;
• 11:45 a.m. – 1 p.m. – Lunch Break
• 1 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. – Book Launch: The Improviser’s Classroom: Pedagogies for Cocreative Worldmaking (“Insubordinate Spaces” series edited by George Lipsitz; Temple UP, Edited by Daniel Fischlin and Mark Lomanno; featuring contributors Carey West and Jashen Edwards)
• 2:30 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. – Coffee Break
• 2:45 p.m. – 4:15 p.m. – Keynote David L. Clark “I do not know how to teach: scenes from a life, made up” with improvised musical response from annaïs linares and Germaine Liu. Moderated by Daniel Fischlin.
• 4:15 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. – Break
• 4:30 p.m. – 5:15 p.m. – Fred Moten (Closing Reflections). Moderated by Mark Lomanno.
• 6 p.m. – Downtown Gathering for Food and Conversation – TBA