Photo by Peter Nieblas
Audio By Carbonatix
“The world is a slightly better place for having improvisation in it than it was before,” the late writer, actor, coach, and comedy raconteur Del Close — a Second City legend who trained most the early Saturday Night Live cast — once said. “There’s something about it that says something positive about the human spirit, that a bunch of people can get together and by following a few simple traffic rules can create art and can entertain an audience and can thrill and exalt each other.”
If that utopia-adjacent vibe sounds alluring, join the Frost Art Museum at FIU and brilliant composer/guitarist Diego Melgar — seriously, his dizzyingly eclectic 2025 album Swamp Lily will refract and reconfigure your conception of music — on Wednesday, March 4 and March 11 for MOVE, a two-part “communal improvisation workshop” that “combines guided movement, live music, and intuitive exploration” and invites participants, regardless of medium, to “move, listen, and explore at their own pace—no prior movement experience required!”
“When we did these workshops at Miami Light Project last year,” Melgar tells New Times, “the most interesting feedback I got was that people felt the space we established gave them permission to try new things, to explore creatively with their peers in a safe space, to try new mediums or to look at their craft through a new lens.”
Attendees of the series — part of the popular Frost After Dark programming and funded by Art Bridges Access for All — can expect conversations about the fundamentals of composition across mediums and “should come ready to dance or play some music,” but, Melgar further notes, “visual artists, poets and people who’d like to observe are welcome! We will do some improvisational exercises that foster personal expression while maintaining a group cohesion.”
Diego Melgar Photo.
Melgar is passionate about the power of improvisation because, at least in part, it has unlocked greater depths of his own creativity.
“I’m [about to premiere] a ballet called Swamp Lily as part of Miami Light Project’s Here and Now program,” he says. “I wrote and directed the piece, composed the twenty-five-minute score, but also am dancing in the ballet as well! Choreographing and moving like this is new to me, but it doesn’t feel scary at all because of the tools I’ve developed in my musical practice. Understanding the fundamentals of an art form allows you to transfer that knowledge to other mediums and this is what I’d like to share with everyone who attends the workshops.”
For more information and tickets visit the Frost Art Museum website.
