Into 2016, and into New Jamming Hands!
Dear Jammers!!
Happy New Year! Here at @TheGlasgowJam we wish you all the best for 2016!!
It is also time for us to publicly announce a change of jamming hands. Tom heads back to Australia, bringing Laura Gonzalez to the forefront of growing into the role of Co-Director of @TheGlasgowJam alongside myself. It is with sadness that I bid Tom farewell, but with great joy I welcome Laura into the fold of the work. I am entirely sure that Laura's passion, joy and knowledge will see us in good stead in 2016.
Tom, Laura and I have written some words on the change over to share with you.
(Your normal newsletter will be on its way in a few days, next jam 8th of Jan, from 6pm, KPC with Nina!)
Penny xx
Tom
It is with a mixture of emotions that I announce my departure as Co-Director of @TGJ. Doing so will make the space necessary for Penny and Laura to move the organisation forward into what promises to be an exciting and varied future.
Three years ago, I invited Penny to join me in this bold endeavour. We felt a need for more structure, organisation and accessibility around CI, improvisation and multi-art form improvisation in Glasgow. My desire was to offer this wonderful stuff to you, the wider public, hoping you would be as enthused as I have always been by this work. That we are still here shows us that thankfully you have been!
With your support we have been permitted to explore all manner of possibilities. Bringing in experimental collaborations of forms and teachers, as well as learning how to steer this thing as we went, you have accepted and encouraged our curious wonderings and well-meaning efforts. Now it feels @TGJ has a presence that makes it almost a tangible and knowable entity.
But I have come to realise that @TGJ is the kind of organisation run in the mind and not on the page, directed with hands searching in the communal soil. It needs facilitators who are close by, knitted into the fabric. As I prepare to depart from Scotland once more for an indefinite period I must acknowledge that living this way and maintaining the role I have crafted is unsustainable and a barrier to progress. I only hope another chance will arrive for me in the future to invest in a project that is so close to my heart and outlook on the world.
Personally I reflect particularly proudly on the Autumn Workshop Festivals and our unbroken record of jams, alongside Penny’s brainchild of the New Jammers programme. These activities reflected most strongly what I believe @TGJ has been and should be at its core. I am proud that they directly reflect what I first set out to do: uncover and nurture a community through all its layers.
I can only wish @TGJ success as it looks to grow and branch out into new areas including more outreach work and an ever more varied programme. To grow requires the energy generated by opened space, by a vacuum and the consequent need for incorporation of new energies. With Laura joining Penny you have two women of enthusiasm, passion, patience and wisdom. They are the right people to carry @TGJ forward and I would trust few others with such a task.
So to you all thank you. Thank you for supporting us. Thank you for turning up on cold evenings and wearing jumpers to make do. Thank you to Kinning Park Complex for your support and enthusiasm as a partner. Thank you to Dance House for helping us, particularly in those early days. Thank you to our board, who pull us ever up to greater degrees of professionalism. Thank you to Laura, for taking the reins with enthusiasm and respect. And thank you Penny, for so passionately continuing this commitment we made together.
Thank you for taking the risk. I hope it is not long before we dance together again.
—
Footnote:
I plan to attend Nina’s jam on January 8th at KPC and would love to see anyone who will be there. If you wish to keep up with what else I’ll be doing and offering then please do visit my website www.onthestageofthepresent.com or do the facebook thing.
Penny
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the energy, knowledge and passion that Tom has brought to the work of @TheGlasgowJam over the past two years, and to thank him as a co-director, but also most importantly, as a friend and colleague.
A little over three years ago, Tom presented me with a plan to develop and grow the contact improvisation community in Glasgow. Unsure of what exactly what might unfold we began, sharing our skills with a burgeoning community, and not just physical skills, but also organisational, planning and understanding what this community may need. The needs of the community have always driven @TGJ forwards, and it has been a Tom's attention to detail on many aspects that has helped us develop.
I also wish to recognise that Tom's work over the last two years will only continue to grow, his skills deeply embedded not only in the organisational aspects of the jam, but also in the teaching practices and warm-ups of the jams. Tom's involvement on the New Jammers programme too is a very practical way of demonstrating how his work will continue to flourish.
Tom will be sorely missed, and I sincerely wish him well in his future endeavours.
Laura
Together with Penny, Tom set up @TheGlasgowJam. This was a momentous time for our city’s cultural development and provided many of us with a space to meet, dance, play, learn and enjoy being alive in our bodies. So I meet today’s announcement with mixed emotions but the one that prevails is gratitude for what Tom helped achieve, and which now he hands over to me.
I am a visual artist and have danced for many years. Not so long ago, I discovered contact improvisation and immediately wanted to get deeper into its technique. Often, what I lived through improvised work was so magical that it could not be easily replicated in any other way. The opportunity to engage further with this work arose for me with the New Jammers programme in 2015. My passion is for what play—on the dance floor, as vocal or musical work, on the writing or drawing page—can bring as an inquiry.
I am really honoured to join Penny in @TGJ. Her experience and clarity of vision makes the task a lot less daunting and I know already I will enjoy my work. As I grow into the role as co-director, I hope to help @TGJ follow the path it has built for itself, developing our community and providing support for our practitioners and jammers. I will do this from the floor as much as behind the scenes and I hope to see you in your next jam.
Happy New Year! Here at @TheGlasgowJam we wish you all the best for 2016!!
It is also time for us to publicly announce a change of jamming hands. Tom heads back to Australia, bringing Laura Gonzalez to the forefront of growing into the role of Co-Director of @TheGlasgowJam alongside myself. It is with sadness that I bid Tom farewell, but with great joy I welcome Laura into the fold of the work. I am entirely sure that Laura's passion, joy and knowledge will see us in good stead in 2016.
Tom, Laura and I have written some words on the change over to share with you.
(Your normal newsletter will be on its way in a few days, next jam 8th of Jan, from 6pm, KPC with Nina!)
Penny xx
Tom
It is with a mixture of emotions that I announce my departure as Co-Director of @TGJ. Doing so will make the space necessary for Penny and Laura to move the organisation forward into what promises to be an exciting and varied future.
Three years ago, I invited Penny to join me in this bold endeavour. We felt a need for more structure, organisation and accessibility around CI, improvisation and multi-art form improvisation in Glasgow. My desire was to offer this wonderful stuff to you, the wider public, hoping you would be as enthused as I have always been by this work. That we are still here shows us that thankfully you have been!
With your support we have been permitted to explore all manner of possibilities. Bringing in experimental collaborations of forms and teachers, as well as learning how to steer this thing as we went, you have accepted and encouraged our curious wonderings and well-meaning efforts. Now it feels @TGJ has a presence that makes it almost a tangible and knowable entity.
But I have come to realise that @TGJ is the kind of organisation run in the mind and not on the page, directed with hands searching in the communal soil. It needs facilitators who are close by, knitted into the fabric. As I prepare to depart from Scotland once more for an indefinite period I must acknowledge that living this way and maintaining the role I have crafted is unsustainable and a barrier to progress. I only hope another chance will arrive for me in the future to invest in a project that is so close to my heart and outlook on the world.
Personally I reflect particularly proudly on the Autumn Workshop Festivals and our unbroken record of jams, alongside Penny’s brainchild of the New Jammers programme. These activities reflected most strongly what I believe @TGJ has been and should be at its core. I am proud that they directly reflect what I first set out to do: uncover and nurture a community through all its layers.
I can only wish @TGJ success as it looks to grow and branch out into new areas including more outreach work and an ever more varied programme. To grow requires the energy generated by opened space, by a vacuum and the consequent need for incorporation of new energies. With Laura joining Penny you have two women of enthusiasm, passion, patience and wisdom. They are the right people to carry @TGJ forward and I would trust few others with such a task.
So to you all thank you. Thank you for supporting us. Thank you for turning up on cold evenings and wearing jumpers to make do. Thank you to Kinning Park Complex for your support and enthusiasm as a partner. Thank you to Dance House for helping us, particularly in those early days. Thank you to our board, who pull us ever up to greater degrees of professionalism. Thank you to Laura, for taking the reins with enthusiasm and respect. And thank you Penny, for so passionately continuing this commitment we made together.
Thank you for taking the risk. I hope it is not long before we dance together again.
—
Footnote:
I plan to attend Nina’s jam on January 8th at KPC and would love to see anyone who will be there. If you wish to keep up with what else I’ll be doing and offering then please do visit my website www.onthestageofthepresent.com or do the facebook thing.
Penny
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the energy, knowledge and passion that Tom has brought to the work of @TheGlasgowJam over the past two years, and to thank him as a co-director, but also most importantly, as a friend and colleague.
A little over three years ago, Tom presented me with a plan to develop and grow the contact improvisation community in Glasgow. Unsure of what exactly what might unfold we began, sharing our skills with a burgeoning community, and not just physical skills, but also organisational, planning and understanding what this community may need. The needs of the community have always driven @TGJ forwards, and it has been a Tom's attention to detail on many aspects that has helped us develop.
I also wish to recognise that Tom's work over the last two years will only continue to grow, his skills deeply embedded not only in the organisational aspects of the jam, but also in the teaching practices and warm-ups of the jams. Tom's involvement on the New Jammers programme too is a very practical way of demonstrating how his work will continue to flourish.
Tom will be sorely missed, and I sincerely wish him well in his future endeavours.
Laura
Together with Penny, Tom set up @TheGlasgowJam. This was a momentous time for our city’s cultural development and provided many of us with a space to meet, dance, play, learn and enjoy being alive in our bodies. So I meet today’s announcement with mixed emotions but the one that prevails is gratitude for what Tom helped achieve, and which now he hands over to me.
I am a visual artist and have danced for many years. Not so long ago, I discovered contact improvisation and immediately wanted to get deeper into its technique. Often, what I lived through improvised work was so magical that it could not be easily replicated in any other way. The opportunity to engage further with this work arose for me with the New Jammers programme in 2015. My passion is for what play—on the dance floor, as vocal or musical work, on the writing or drawing page—can bring as an inquiry.
I am really honoured to join Penny in @TGJ. Her experience and clarity of vision makes the task a lot less daunting and I know already I will enjoy my work. As I grow into the role as co-director, I hope to help @TGJ follow the path it has built for itself, developing our community and providing support for our practitioners and jammers. I will do this from the floor as much as behind the scenes and I hope to see you in your next jam.