Normally MXTW plays Word Jazz like this
Groups of four are arranged with two people sitting on chairs facing side by side in the same direction with a person standing directly behind them. The director gives them a simple sentence—hopefully with lots of juicy syllables and different types of sounds—and assists the group in memorizing the sentence. The group assigns a leader who leads the quartet in a call and response three times before any member of the group can speak at any time. They group improvises with the sounds of the words in the sentence to create a musical or at least sound-ey composition that is then performed for the larger company.
Usually, each quartet is given a different sentence. This year, however, I led them all with the same sentence:
“I was so surprised to see that at the bottom of the sealskin.”
As we talked about the experience of doing and listening, I wanted to try to do it again with the whole company. We formed two straight lines with the red yellow chairs in front and a standing line behind them. Here’s a video of the magic:
If we were to attempt a full company word-jazz again, I would probably adjust them into a circle so they could hear each other. And I would probably pick sentences with a wider range of sounds.
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