Personal Information
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Given name: Jaa









Surname: Sikk









Email: jaak.sikk@eamt.ee









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Your contribution
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Title: Endangered Inner Worlds: From Individual Creative Space to Inclusive Transcultural Exchange through Ensemble Improvisation









Format: Workshop (3)









Main language: English









Abstract:
In higher music education, assessment regimes and norms of “correctness” can narrow what counts as artistic knowledge, marginalising individual artistic and cultural sense-making. This artistic research develops and tests a reproducible practice format—Self-Determined Mental Creative Space Through Improvisation—in which structured improvisation supports participants’ “inner worlds” as resources for artistic agency and cooperative invention under uncertainty.

The workshop transposes this format into an experiential artistic-research session for musicians and non-musicians alike, adaptable across art forms. Participants engage a sequence of short, constraint-based scores that operationalise four interlinked methods: guided imagination; translating imagery into sound, movement, or other material; reframing “error” as divergence between imagined intention and outcome; and shifting core values via multisensory attention. Constraints function as compositional scaffolds that reduce decision overload, temper dominance/withdrawal, and enable a workable shared “common language” through real-time negotiation.

Reflection links the shared practice to the project’s questions: how structured improvisation reshapes capacities to initiate, refrain, and respond (“alone together”); how reframing error redistributes authority and supports collective adaptation; and how often-marginalised expressive vocabularies (timbre, gesture, texture, silence) can operate as epistemic resources for equitable participation and early-stage transcultural exchange without flattening difference.

The underlying research is based on two iterative three-day courses with mixed-instrument, multilingual cohorts at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre; data (field notes, open questionnaires, follow-up interviews) are analysed abductively in ATLAS.ti. The contribution is a transferable artistic-research framework and score-based method for cultivating safe creative space in collective practice.











Image: https://www.sar2026.ie/system/files/webform/submit_contribution/376/Jaak%20Sikk.png









Short biographies of the presenter(s):
- Jaak Sikk (PhD) is an improvisation lecturer at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre and leader of Ministry of Culture–funded artistic research projects. His research examines how guided imagination, constraints and the reframing of “error” shape agency, cooperation and emergent form in collective improvisation. He has presented at ISME/CEPROM and EPARM, taught masterclasses internationally (e.g., Rome, Helsinki), publishes internationally (Palgrave; ISME Proceedings), and is a member of the Estonian Young Academy of Sciences.
- Sergio Castrillón
  Lecturer at Sibelius Academy University of the Arts Helsinki (Helsinki, Finland)
  sergio.castrillon.arcila@uniarts.fi
  Sergio Castrillón (PhD, Helsinki University) is a cellist and composer deeply dedicated to
  improvised and experimental music. Within his career Sergio has collaborated with a big
  number of Finnish and international improvisers and composers, from diverse music genres and
  in a variety of ensembles. Sergio performs actively as a solo improviser, featuring in
  festivals, series of concerts, and happenings around the globe. In his performances and
  recordings, Sergio uses different kinds of self made cello modifications, a "campanula" made by
  Eero Ristilä, the "skillo" built by Andrew Bentley, and the "
- Marju Raju (PhD) is a Research Fellow in music psychology at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre and a member of its Ethics Committee, serving as a research ethics consultant. Trained in both psychology (MSc, Tallinn University) and musicology (PhD, EAMT), she studies how voice, timbre and musical culture shape perception, development and well-being, and how evidence can inform arts and cultural policy. She co-founded EAMT’s music psychology micro-degree and publishes on singing, text intelligibility, and music-related mental health.










Previous presentations or iterations of the research:
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Requirements
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Additional information:
The training session is structured into four 20-minute sections, each combining a short guided practice with discussion and reflection. Each section foregrounds a different sensitising concept—(1) uncertainty, (2) constraints, (3) safety/acceptance, and (4) agency and transcultural interaction—so that participants can both experience the score-based tasks and articulate what emerges in individual and collective practice. The workshop is open to artists working in any field; exercises are adaptable to sound, movement, text, and other materials, and no musical training is required.










Spatial and technical requirements :
Quiet room with open floor space and movable chairs. If available, an acoustic piano (preferred) or keyboard, and a cello (if possible). Participants may bring their own instruments/objects, but none are required. Requirements are flexible and can be adapted to the space and available resources.










Potential risks or ethical concerns:
Participation may involve creative risk-taking and may elicit mild discomfort (performance anxiety, vulnerability, or sensitivity to group dynamics). All activities are opt-in, with options to pause or observe. No personal data will be collected; discussion can remain non-disclosive and is art-oriented. The facilitator will establish shared safety/consent guidelines and support inclusive participation.










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