IMPORTANT UPDATE:

In response to the city-wide mandates incurred to curb COVID infections, the Institute for Contemporary Art will close on Friday evening until January 2021.

In lieu of this and at the same time, we'll watch Milford Graves Documentary: Full Mantis

Sunday November 22, 2020 

3:45 - 5pm

Here's a trailer for the film:

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/milfordgravesfullmantis

I'll share my screen for the documentary and then we can discuss it afterward! 

Here's the Zoom link we'll use:

https://upenn.zoom.us/j/4504740295
Meeting ID: 450 474 0295

RSVP Here for a winter warm drink grab bag (limit 20):

https://forms.gle/gXoSAa8HMQik8MBZ8

Please RSVP here for the event:

https://forms.gle/iCKQ3K64nSL9qz6Q8

"As a young drummer, Milford performed at John Coltrane’s funeral and led successful Latin music combos, drawing on his Afro-Caribbean roots. When he was barely old enough to vote, his life had taken off in a half-dozen different directions that led to revolutions in music, activism, medicine, botany, and even martial arts. He led the charge in bringing the drums out from the back of the bandstand, to a position equal with the “melodic” instruments. An anchor in the New York Art Quartet with Amiri Baraka, he was also active in the collective-bargaining movement of the Jazz Composers Guild. At the same time, he began his training as a cardiac technician with zeal; he invented a martial art form called Yara based on the movements of the Praying Mantis, boxing, West African ritual dance, and Lindy Hop; and he had an abiding interest in botany and herbology, inherited from his grandmother. By the time he began his nearly 40-year career at Bennington College, as a professor of music and holistic medicine, his fecund intellect had begun to explore radical connections between rhythm and the universe: in music, in movement, in healing, in the subatomic, in the activity of the heart and other organs.

This exhibition, presented by Ars Nova Workshop, gathers the many-layered and multi-faceted work of Milford Graves, exploring the practices and predilections of this extraordinary “jazz mind.” Mention Milford’s name to anyone who follows progressive jazz and they know him from landmark recordings such as Albert Ayler’s Love Cry, Sonny Sharrock’s Black Woman, his groundbreaking work as a leader, including the Milford Graves Percussion Ensemble, and his performances with the likes of Lou Reed, Min Tanaka, and John Zorn. He has been a revelatory force in music since the mid-1960s, liberating the role of the drummer from “timekeeper” to instrumental improviser and giving rise to the Free Jazz movement. But even his musical practice cannot contain the energies of his creativity and intellect."

- ICA exhibition Website Text

Here is a link to the exhibition:

https://icaphila.org/exhibitions/milford-graves-a-mind-body-deal/

Here is a link to the health guidelines the ICA is prescribing upon entering the space which we will follow: