XFest 2027 will be August 13-15.
XFest groups performers in unfamiliar configurations, challenging them to collaborate and explore their sonic and physical dynamics within an unexpected group. XFest provides the space and time to experiment with interactions within an attuned audience of your peers; musicians, sound artists, dancers, video, and visual artists at all career levels discuss techniques, inspirations, curiosities, and evolution.
XFest is an annual weekend workshop of deep listening and observation, with performers assigned to ensembles during the event. Each performance is an opportunity for improvisation, experimentation, adaptation and shenanigans. Genre styles include classical, DIY and self-taught, jazz to noise, rock to avant-garde.
XFest is a labor of community, funded by the organizers and participants. Are you interested in performing, organizing your own XFest, helping out, or learning about future XFest events? Contact xfestma @ gmail . com
“Improvisation can give us the skills to deal with many social and aesthetic issues of the twenty-first century. Although we have become adept at talking about aesthetic hybridity, cultural alterity, crossing borders (both earthly and cyber), and global fusion, few of us have really studied what physical and intellectual practice will make our bodies and minds ready for this brave new world … Improvisation can lead us out of our habitual responses by opening up alternative experiences — new physical sensations and appetites … Although this practice begins with attentiveness to corporeal experience it also develops a mental flexibility that can provide an intellectual map with which to chart new pathways for negotiating awkward and difficult crossings.” ~ ANN COOPER ALBRIGHT, TAKEN BY SURPRISE