As part of Eaves­drop­ping, Liquid Archi­tec­ture and Mel­bourne Law School are taking over Make it Up Club for a night of impro­vi­sa­tions in the key of jus­tice.

Legal scholar Sara Ramshaw will recount the famous 1997 encounter between musician Ornette Cole­man and philoso­pher Jacques Der­rida and what this meeting might have to say about ideas of law and jus­tice.

Following this, Ramshaw will lead per­for­mances of Hydra, an exper­i­men­t in legal advo­cacy adap­ted from John Zorn’s clas­sic 1984 impro­vised musi­cal game piece Cobra. Hydra is at once about oral agility and deep lis­ten­ing. It is con­cerned with rules more than rhythms and prin­ci­ples more than pitches, but always the neces­sity of judg­ment to per­for­mance, no matter the con­text.

This event will also feature short performances by members of the ALL EARS Eavesdropping read­ing group includ­ing Bruce Mowson, Ceri Hann, Fina Po, Debris Facil­ity, Bryan Phillips, Klare Lanson, Thomas Ragnar, Georgina Crid­dle and Norie Neu­mark.

SARA RAMSHAW is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­sity of Vic­to­ria Fac­ulty of Law with a spe­cial inter­est in impro­vi­sa­tion. Her mono­graph, Jus­tice as Impro­vi­sa­tion: The Law of the Extem­pore (Rout­ledge 2013) exam­ined the legal reg­u­la­tion of jazz musi­cians in New York City (1940−1967) through the lens of post­struc­tural theory informed by feminism,critical race theory and crit­i­cal impro­vi­sa­tion stud­ies.