IMDL #5: Acclimation
Improvised Music and Dance Laboratory
The Improvised Music and Dance Laboratory (IMDL) is a collective creating performances through real-time composition and shared experimentation. Every process is digitally archived, building a space for innovation, deepening, and connection.
Now in its fifth edition since launching in 2025, IMDL is curated this season by dancer Miri Lee and musician Michael Moore, continuing a long-running curatorial collaboration between the two. The edition focuses on the improvised encounter between dance and music. Its theme, Acclimation, draws on the body's gradual adjustment to shifting conditions of temperature, proximity, and rhythm. In summer's open heat, performers meet in shared air and adapt in real time.
The musical line-up brings together Michael Moore (sax/clarinet), Jodi Gilbert (voice), Alan Purves (drum), and Mary Oliver (violin), three long-standing masters in European improvised music. Joining them on the dance side are Vincent Verburg and Melvin Fraenk, both rooted in street dance and active in the Dutch contemporary scene, entering IMDL for the first time this edition.
This year IMDL also opens outward. International special guests Jee Ahn (US, faculty at the University of Texas) and Sandie Hehal (Belgium, visual and performance artist) join the series, bringing the lab's exchanges beyond the Netherlands.
Music:
Michael Moore – alto sax / clarinet
Jodi Gilbert – voice
Alan Purves – drum
Mary Oliver – violin
Dance:
Vincent Verburg
Melvin Fraenk
Jee Ahn
Sandie Brischler
Miri Lee