For many musicians improvisation is an embrace of – or a demand for – freedom. In South Africa, improvised music has served both the struggle against and the recovery from the restrictions on basic freedom that were in place until the fall of the apartheid regime in 1994. Jazz piano student Nate May will discuss and illustrate his personal experience and research during a year in Cape Town, with a focus on a Khoisan performance poetry group, Methodist church music, and local jazz traditions. This event is part of the Examining Ubuntu conference which takes place all week (http://www.examiningubuntu.org).