This month Seraphine Collective presents: Creative Women [Music] Incubator (Thursday, November 20) at the Detroit Contemporary. We did a quick Q & A with the curator of the event, Augusta Morrison, to give y’all an idea of what to expect. Augusta Morrison is an art educator living in Hamtramck. Along with her passion for the arts, Augusta also devotes time to playing with Double Winter, a garage rock – psychedelic do-wop band. She focuses her art on social practice by collaborating with other artists and curating a revolving emerging artist platform called Neue Haus Detroit.
CWmusic
Seraphine Collective: What is the Creative [ ] Incubator?
Augusta Morrison: The Creative [ ] Incubator invites creatives to experiment with the low and the high technology while exploring new possibilities in an improvised, collaborative performance. Each month has a different [focus] discipline, with [music] happening every other month. The space that this event is held at is called Spread Art @ Detroit Contemporary. Spread Art is a “by artists, for artists” grassroots nonprofit organization. Co-Directors Thomas Bell and Christina deRoos are multidisciplinary artists (sound, video, photography, mixed media), curators and event producers. Spread Art @detroit contemporary offers a multi-use, fully outfitted performance, rehearsal, exhibition and creative space with core program components that supports and fosters self-producing artists and artist-run organizations, which are critical to Detroit’s vibrant arts community. Spread Art presents multidisciplinary art events in Detroit and beyond. We focus on experimentation and innovation. We support work that pushes creative boundaries, incorporates technology, invites public participation, and/or explores immediately-relevant social themes. 
 
SC: How will this event be structured?
AM: The basic structure for the event is that I find the musicians and group them with other musicians that they have never played with.
 

SC: Who are the musicians you invited to participate, and why did you select them?
AM: Some of the musicians I invited I met through Seraphine Collective meetings 🙂 (Thanks Lauren!), that include Cait Ash from Sros Lords. Cait will be playing the keys for this show. Erin Norris from Casual Sweetheart will be kicking it on the drums.  Shelly Salant aka Shells  will be swooning the stage with her guitar.  Holly Johnson and I have been playing music together for several years. We used to be in a band called Yogurt Culture and now we play together in Double Winter.

The first music incubator I played James Cornish, an incredibly talented brass trumpet and baritone and flute musician organized the show. I reached out to him to see if had any female musicians to recommend and Sara Grosky, an avant opera singer was on his list. Leslie Wacker, I met through Thom Bell.  Leslie and I met up for coffee, she plays with The Detroit Marching Band and for this performance will be playing alto sax. Sophie Tulip messaged me on facebook and asked to join. She sent me some of her songs and sounds and I was like YES! Tess Tennessee Miller I first saw perform at Noise Brunch. She had this glitchy electronic punk guitar dissonant style going… she experiments with a lot of electronics, loops, synths and sound engineering. Angelina Cicchella is a music major at Wayne State studying cello. Enough said. Deekah Wyatt is a funkadelic rockstar and plays in a band called Roxolydian. 
 
SC: What about the pairing of musicians — can you talk about how you chose who to pair up?
AM: Good question and this was something that I thought about a lot as I was lining up the musicians.  I asked each musician if they had a preference of instruments considering who they would want to play with or what sounds good with each other… based on those two factors I am imagining many different ideas to come out, maybe something that reflects the sounds of Detroit. Something that resonates with the audiences own experiences. 
 
SC: Do you have any expectations for what the musicians might do?
AM: Experiment, let loose, try new things, be excited, be yourself and have fun! When you are put in these types of situations you have to overcome the challenge of something new and problem solve together through music. 
 
SC: What do you hope viewers will take away from this experience?
AM: I’m not sure, hopefully they will come to the next one.
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Don’t miss
Creative Women [Music] Incubator
Thursday, November 20 at 8:00pm
at the Detroit Contemporary (5141 Rosa Parks Blvd, Detroit, Michigan 48208)
$5-$10 donation
All proceeds will go to the musicians and Seraphine Collective