Today the iron wood ensemble who are in residence over at Bundanon’s other site came to visit.  They are a group of classical musicians who are here to experiment and try out new repertoire and new ideas for three weeks.  They are in a similar head-space to us, wanting to take risks, play, try new things, get to know each other better, make discoveries. There was a surprising number of connections and cross overs in the things we are all doing – they are thinking about playing with and through their bodies more. They talked about flow and the felt experience of playing compared to the imagined or planned experience. I can’t wait to see them play at Angel Place in March and watch their arms and hands and their feet as they put their whole bodies into their playing. It was a real testament to the value of a place like this – conversations can happen here that couldn’t happen anywhere else.

Interestingly for me, they are also being joined by a phd researcher from UWS who is doing think-aloud,  video-cued recall and diary research with them about their playing and learning, similarly to the way i worked in my phd.  More on this later.