Walking the Streets

by educ95si

I lived one of my dreams yesterday. Of performing without preparation on the street. I always thought street theatre had a kind of raw power that couldn’t be matched by showcased work on a stage. Its true. The connection you make with people on the street can be very very moving. If someone stops to watch you on the street, its an honor. A privilege because they dont have to. They do so voluntarily. On the flip side, if someone walks away, it might be a sign. Raw… thats the best way I can describe it. Stripped of all decorations. 

So here’s what we were doing. 4 person free-form improv on the street at Lytton Plaza in downtown Palo Alto. We had a guy from out of two watch our whole show and give us suggestions. We had two teenagers that asked to be in scenes and games with us of their own accord! We had a guy randomly jump in and join a scene midway. We had a baby and mother watch us doing a scene that had a mother giving birth in a hospital. 

Was definitely a win, I thought. We had people give us their email addresses so they could come back and play with us. At one point one of the teenagers was like “What is this?” … he was clearly intrigued. I loved it. 

 

I’ll post the date for the next event here on the blog in case some of you wanna come out and be part of it! Hope everyone is having a nice weekend. 

 

-Saif

Don’t Put Your Daughter On the Stage, Mrs. Worthington

by educ95si

I thought you guys might enjoy Noel Coward’s original rendition instead of my boisterous-yet-somewhat-monstrous reinterpretation in class. Fast forward to 3:25

Connecting with the moment and the people in it

by educ95si

This was posted on “Improv Connection” LinkedIn group by Paul Levy who is Founder,Director of FringeReview. He describes his experience facilitating a workshop on leadership. This highlights, i think, the very important fact that improv is about noticing what is in the field of now. It is about laughter, making a connection and fun…of course but most importantly, fundamentally…it is about the acknowledgment and non-denial of what is happening right now.

 

Working through misery using Applied Improvisation

– Paul Levy

So, you are the facilitator of a workshop on leadership. A group of managers sit in the room, ready for the session. They look miserable as sin. The company has been in recession crisis and there have been job losses and there’s been uncertainty. They really look demoralised. They really look like they could do with cheering up. Some improv games would SO tickle the funny bones and bring some healing laughter. The brief is to help them become better leaders of change; and there’s plenty of challenging change ahead for the company. They look like they haven’t smiled for weeks…

So here I am – the facilitator… I’m feeling tempted to reach into my improvisation kit bag and “get them” laughing. Now, THAT game always works.. It would be so easy to do. I could shake them out of it. And then the voice inside speaks …

“That misery is theirs and it is sacred. It is there for a reason and it is not yours to so easily and casually tamper with. Do not take their misery away, nor go around it. Work THROUGH it. Even if your feedback sheets at the end are the worse for it.”

Improv and its cult of “yes and” lends itself far too easily in my view to laughter. It’s become a bias in the field of applied improvisation. I am a pretty joyful person, but I also know the value of pain in reflection and learning. In some ways a physical frown is a kind of spiritual smile, especially when it leads to a deeper physical smile of realisation further down the line. Laughter should not be the too-ready default for applied improvisation – it should sit in a more balanced way on the shelf of possibility. Suddenly my traditional improv kit bag feels much emptier and I am now standing in THIS specific context and needing to encounter, not this misery, but THESE people. THESE individuals and THIS UNIQUE SITUATION. Oh, indeed, joy will most likely figure in this. I often find that to be the case. But now we have to step through this misery together, respecting it, acknowledging it, working with it, towards some understanding and practising of the leadership THESE people need in THIS situation. And, of course, the kit bag is put aside as I become an improviser in the room. I lead by example by BEING improvisational in meeting these challenges in the present. A new exercise is invented there and then. Some new thoughts arise linked to a new set of questions. Tears flow. Frowns are further creased. And then, towards the end of the last hour, the dawning light of realisation and the twinkling of a few pairs of eyes. But not all.

And then – a smile…

Welcome Winter Quarter 2012 Students!

by educ95si

This is our second quarter teaching this course and we have made improvements to focus and strengthen the course structure and material based on what we have learned. This course will be a blend of learning through improv exercises and scenes, two integral components of improvisational practice.  The exercises are intended to focus on specific skills while scenework allows us to put all of those skills together and learn from the experience of being on stage with our fellow players. We thank you for taking the initiative to enroll and hope that together we will have a lot of fun!

This is the class blog which we think is a crucial part of the coursework. Many (almost all) who do improv describe it later on as a transformative experience. We would love to hear all your thoughts as you take this journey with us!

 

Remember to mark all your posts with the category “winter2012”!

See you in class!

-Instructors

Status

by educ95si

An example of projecting high status with eye contact. Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) talks to Agent Starling ( Jodie Foster)

George Bush talking about his future in politics. See if you can observe anything. I don’t have anything that you’re supposed to find, just putting this here for you to consider.

Lady GaGa on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Put your observations in the comments.

Brotip!

by educ95si

Happy Halloween Class!

by educ95si

 

Source: http://www.gocomics.com/culdesac/2011/10/22

 

 

Be scary! Be creative!

– Saif

Super Scenes Tonight!

by educ95si

I really enjoyed freeze tag tonight. Two of my favorite scenes were something as follows:

Improvisers M and B start the scene with M standing up with both her hands up like she’s gripping something and B lying down on the floor.

M: (starts to move her hands like she’s climbing a ladder)

B: God, it sucks to fall off the ladder.

 

It could have been the other way roun but it doesnt matter because it was amazing! It totally cracked me up. They started from their physical poses and neither of them had any idea what they were in for but within the first line spoken they had justified it perfectly.

 

Improvisers M and P start out by M pointing something at P.

M: (makes shooting noise)

P: AAAh, you have wounded me

M: (accepts the offer of “wounding”) Yes, I will keep you alive because I want you to spend your life in pain because you poisoned my fish.

P: (accepting the offer of poisoning fish) Your fish laughed at me…

 

It was great. Each improviser built on top of what the last one said working together to create the scene. I think this speaks directly to Lindsay’s last post titled “When you have nothing to say…”

 

Thanks for a great class everyone!

Here’s My Idea

by educ95si

We all have plans for how things could be better. We have exciting ideas for the perfect restaurant and movie,  how to re-decorate the living room, or how to improve sales figures. More often than not, others have ideas of their own and when we pitch our idea to the rest of the folks it doesn’t quite pack the same punch for them as it did for us. In the worst case scenario they think its an awful idea. In the average case we arrive at some sort of compromise. Its a process of negotiation that is always playing out in any collaborative environment. In the improvisational setting, every idea is “good.” Which is not to say that it will benefit us in some way but it is good in that it is worth our attention. Sharp improvisers pay attention to every idea that is thrown out as if it was gold, the best idea that could possibly have been generated at that point. No idea is ignored, judged, debated, just totally embraced and built upon. In a traditional setting, everyone’s ideas are collated and each idea is analyzed and compared. Rational analysis and comparison are somewhat antithetical to improv. In improvisation, we want to take the first idea that comes up and totally go with it. It then becomes the property of the group as a whole, not only the person who came up with it. The group as a whole then adds to it and shapes it working together as a unit. For this, it is also important for hte idea-generator to not become attached to their idea and instead be delighted in how it changes and morphs. These are two central skills in improvisation. To accept every idea if you are receiving and to immediately let go if you are generating.

Do we really know how our minds work?

by educ95si

As a society, we are trained not say everything we think. Yet thoughts emerge in our heads continuously. Part of the process of “growing up” is that we must develop sophisticated filters for what is shared and what is kept private. This conditioning could be put in place at home when we are taught “good manners” or could be learned at school when we see how our peers react to various things we say. We quickly learn to say the right things that have the right kind of effect on people. Maybe we want them to like us, admire us, approve of us, forgive us. We can tailor our conversations and responses based on what we want.

In an improvisational setting, one of the things that we will benefit greatly from is embracing ALL of our thoughts and removing the value judgments from them. Part of improvisation is discovering how our minds work. To loosen the filters and working on the premise that all thoughts are “useful” and not necessarily “true.” Sometimes, a thought that will come up that might be potentially offensive, obscene or rude. Thats OK. Because we are in the process of experimenting, everything is fair game and if you think someone might have been offended by something you did or said, just check in with them later and chances are they will forgive you.

For example, in a game of 3-Things! the following exchange happened:

L: 3 things that you wouldn’t tell anyone.

K: <First thing> <Second thing> … and …your smile is …really fake!

 

This surprised both improvisers. The first one was surprised and perhaps mildly offended because the second was looking straight at her while she said the thing about her smile. The second one was surprised (it seemed to me) as to how that kind of thing could have come up. This may not be welcome in other situations but in an improvisational setting, this is magic. When we surprise ourselves. It is a gift and is very very useful to learn about ourselves and also if you are performing for a crowd.