Erica Dawn Lyle is a musician, artist, writer, and cultural instigator. During her artist residency at Oberlin last week, she hosted a reading of her prose and poetry and a writing workshop, and she put on a largely guitar-based improvised musical performance at the Cat in the Cream. She is currently touring in support of her new album, On Fire, and continuing to develop her improvisational skills and sensibilities.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What brings you to Oberlin?
It’s an opportunity to connect with younger people and see how they’re weathering this current moment that we’re living through together. I like to do gigs at schools because I really enjoy checking in with students. Young people in this country are broadly pretty well-informed and enlightened in various ways. They’re really interested in the world changing in a really profound way. It’s invigorating for me to be surrounded by that energy because I also like to provoke change in a great way.
What drives your creative process?
Right now, I’m trying to figure out how to align my political and creative values entirely, within performance and writing. A lot of that is around the practice of moving into the unknown without fear. There’s training for living and moving into the unknown in the uncertain times that we’re living through, and I’m trying to somatically and mentally prepare myself at all times for that uncertainty. Improvisational music often creates a space of presence for listeners that can help them to be in that place of preparation.
How did you start making improvisational music?
I was kind of afraid to. I had a joke with my friend: “Why is it so much harder to come out as a noise musician than as a trans person?” I’d been playing ordinary songs that were composed, and there was a real nervousness around stepping into the unknown and doing whatever comes out. I was improvising a lot alone in my room for a long time, kind of shamefully, and then occasionally, I would try improvisation in public. Then I finally changed my name to “Improviser,” and told my friends and family.
You move around and travel a lot. How have the places where you’ve spent time influenced you and your work?
The biggest influence is Florida, where I’m from. I started returning to Florida more regularly maybe 10 years ago, spending a lot of time there, and realizing that my love for it was really profound and that there was a lot that interested me there. I started making art with Florida, writing about Florida, and doing a lot of exploration in Florida. It was reconfronting the place where I’m from, which is a place that people love to hate, but owning up to how important it is to me.
There’s a kind of place in Florida — they call it an empty lot. It’s full of white sand, pine trees, and Florida saw palmetto. It’s undeveloped land that crops up between places in these kinds of suburban towns in Florida. It’s like this irrepressible state of Florida that’s always reemerging. I was visiting one of those empty lots — I used to play in these a lot when I was a kid. I had this really profound, somatic awareness of myself as a young girl and remembered these feelings of what it was like for me to be four and be like, “I’m in the wrong body.” It was such a profound experience of femininity from such an early childhood place. It really hit me as a huge truth — like, “I was supposed to forget this, but this is real.” That was what really marched me into the path of transformation.
I go to Florida as much as I can, but not as much lately. It is true that some of the fun of Florida has been leeched out by fascism, but I remain connected. This poem that I did as a broadsheet is going to benefit Florida mutual aid groups. I’m still trying to do stuff for them.
What are you currently working on?
The main thing has been what kind of performance to bring on this tour. We’re in such a moment of political upheaval, confusion, and sadness. I wanted to figure out how to acknowledge that and connect with people on the road rather than pretend it’s not happening. I spent a lot of time developing a performance that directly addresses the audience and tries to find ways to engage with the moment. Because it’s improv, it’s something that’s constantly growing and changing, and, hopefully, it will change me.
How do you resist the urge to hesitate when you’re improvising?
I’ve just been practicing for a long time. I’ve been trying hard to avoid that impulse to stop the flow inside and to not be afraid to see what comes out. I wonder how much that’s attached to gender transition; if you’re a trans person, you lived part of your life greatly repressing your true self out of fear, and then when you start transitioning, you unleash all this vitality that comes from feeling your true self. Yet, sometimes, there’s still that reflexive urge to clamp down on yourself. I think that can apply in all areas of life. I’ve been trying to unlearn that as much as possible. I’ve been doing it through playing music and through gender transition and through all the forms of seeking freedom that I can.
What do you want people to understand about improvised music?
The key to it is listening and being present. It’s really about being with others. That’s something that I think has great political potential. Improvisational music fosters this sense of collaboration — people learning to vibe off each other and anticipate each other’s moves.
