code: P173 category: E, Performance options full title: Safety First: strategies towards minimizing danger in improvisation staff: Mr Han-earl Park credits: 5 teaching period: 1-2 day, hour, venue: Classes on Wednesdays at 12, in the O Riada Hall (basement, Music Building).  module coordinator: Dr Paul Everett description: The art of improvisation may be something akin to the art of living: learning to improvise is to learn to be creative and to be social. But how can an improvisation be concise, interesting and entertaining while being spontaneous? How can an improviser take, as Steve Lacy said, "a leap into the unknown" safely? We will engineer and negotiate strategies to help prepare the improviser in the context of experimental, non-idiomatic (pan-idiomatic or idiom-agnostic), open improvisation. In a creative, collaborative environment, and while practicing improvisation in small groups, we will examine and discuss approaches and topics including, for example, games, social organization and musical lexicons. Open to any instrumental or vocal (or cargo-cult) musician. Prior experience of improvisation is desireable, but not necessary. About the teacher: Han-earl Park works from/within/around the traditions of idiom-agnostic, experimental improvised musics, sometimes engineering theater, sometimes inventing ritual. He prefers collaborative, multi-authored contexts, and has worked with animators, film makers, poets, theater and mime performers, dancers and installation artists. See http://music.calarts.edu/~hpark/