About

IF is an around-the-clock celebration of improvised arts.

Founded by Dr. Ajay Heble (Founder and former Artistic Director, Guelph Jazz Festival) and presented by the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation, IF (Improvisation Festival) is a 24-hour celebration of creative art-making showcasing new, improvised works. Created in response to the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, this annual Festival is dedicated to showcasing an incredible array of new, original performances by improvising artists of all disciplines, for audiences residing around our home in Guelph, Ontario, as well as digital attendees from all around the world.

Since the Festival’s inception in 2020, IF has featured 400+ artists of all artistic disciplines hailing from over 25 countries. Through digital video livestreams and simultaneous international radio broadcasts, IF has reached thousands of attendees from 55+ countries.

IF 2024

Our fifth annual Improvisation Festival ran from June 26–29, 2024, featuring robust, in-person programming inside the Fonoteca Nacional de México, in Mexico City, and folks around the globe tuned in online for a stream of live events.

Centred on the theme Silence-Producing Machine, IF 2024 showcased legendary and emerging improvisational performers from “the territories of the ñ.”

Check the schedule page to catch any performances or panels you may have missed

IF 2024 was a partnered project between the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, and 17, Institute of Critical Studies in Mexico City, Mexico.

Our teams are proud to have worked in coordination to bring IF 2024 to life.

Our team in Mexico is comprised of:
Benjamin Mayer Foulkes and Ricardo Lomnitz – Coordinators
Gonzalo Biffarella, Alain Derbez, Wade Matthews, Ana Ruiz, and Ana Ruiz Valencia – Organizing Board

Our team in Guelph is comprised of:
Ajay Heble, Julia Busatto, Jordan Zalis, Chris Worden, Sam Boer, Emma Bortolon-Vettor, Taylor Graham, and Grey Scott.

History

Every year, IF takes on new significance.

The festival originated as an instinctive response to the emergence of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The goal was clear: to immediately commission new, improvised performances, and showcase these innovative pieces for a global audience via online streaming. Within just three months, this idea became a reality. The response was overwhelming: dozens of partners and sponsors from across the globe came together to sponsor over 150 artists working across nearly every artistic discipline, including music, dance, poetry, film, theatre, comedy, multi-media, and everything in between.

The works presented at IF 2020 became an early, ephemeral archive of the first few months of the pandemic. Over 24 hours, international audiences came together to bond over these performances. Praised as “a huge, cathartic rite” (Musica Jazz), IF 2020 saw improvisers use this moment of singular societal change to chase emerging ideas and feelings with profound honesty and vulnerability. These stuck-at-home improvisers substituted with abandon, using the limited resources in their homes and local environs to make magic.

Following the success of our initial festival, IF 2021 went even bigger: more international co-presenters, more radio broadcasters, and more performances! There was so much exciting new work to present that this edition of the festival ended up including over a full day of performances—stretching to 25.5 hours, to be exact!

Set against the backdrop of a tentative emergence from the pandemic, IF 2022 took on the theme Towards New Futures: Improvising in Transition. This festival expanded beyond its all-night digital performances to include—as its grand finale—an in-person (and livestreamed) performance at the University of Guelph by the enthralling Toronto-based taiko group Nagata Shachu. This was also the first iteration of IF that was connected to an academic conference. IF 2022 dovetailed with Curating for Change: The Work that Music Festivals Do in the World (presented by IICSI, Queen’s University, and the University of Guelph), which brought together scholars, artists, organizers, and patrons to reflect on the role that music festivals play in our communities; this conference’s keynote address and performance by William Parker and Patricia Nicholson launched IF 2022.

IF 2023, our fourth iteration, featured robust, in-person programming at IICSI’s new state-of-the-art performance space, ImprovLab, and in other spaces across the University of Guelph campus—all while continuing to offer the Festival’s distinctive online stream. The Festival also coincided with two other stellar events: an exhibition celebrating 15 years of research in the field of Critical Studies in Improvisation, titled Improvising Communities: A Retrospective Exhibition, and the 2023 Sound, Meaning, Education conference: CONVERSATIONS & improvisations. Centred on the theme Restless Imagination: Improvising the New Normal, IF 2023 showcased legendary and emerging improvisational performers mixing skill, vulnerability, and daring to make meaning out of this moment.

Built from the theme Silence-Producing Machine, IF 2024 showcased legendary and emerging improvisational performers from “the territories of the ñ.” This was our first in-person festival outside of Canada— was a partnered project between the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, and 17, Institute of Critical Studies in Mexico City, Mexico.

Explore IF!

Check out the previous Festival line-ups in our archives: IF 2020 / IF 2021 / IF 2022 / IF 2023 / IF 2024
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