These are from this week's Monday night workshop on Presence. Largely influenced by a combination of Patsy Rodenburg's book Presence and Keith Johnstone's chapter on Being There, with a bit of John Wright's Why is that so Funny thrown in.
Patsy's book goes more into theory so I won't write about that much here, but very briefly she splits presence into three circles of energy:
1st Circle - energy is going inwards, withdrawn, wanting to retreat from the space. Defending by retreat.
3rd Circle - broadcast mode, energy is going outwards but with no connection back to the actor, they are defending themselves by controlling.
So she says to aim for 2nd Circle energy, where there is a constant flow of energy outwards and inwards, a connection, and the person is present in the space and with other actors and audience.
So on to the exercises:
Stretches. Unlocking the knees. Reaching up with hands. Flopping down from waist. Hanging with head and arms low and nice and relaxed. Rising from base of spine. This happens at the start of loads of workshops I go to and it actually originates from Patsy Rodenburg.
Sounds outside the room. Do straight after the stretches. The actors have their eyes closed and in silence listed for sounds coming from outside the room. It's amazing how many sounds there are. This is excellent at making people present in the space and is very relaxing. I do it just before a show I'm worried about.
Looking at things in the room. Actors open their eyes and just look at things in the room. Then they walk around naming them and touching them. It's amazing how many things we normally miss.
Mirroring. Actors are in pairs and act as if there is a mirror between them. One leads and the other follows as mirror image. Do in silence and remind them to unlock their ankles and knees so the whole body can follow. Swap roles. Then do it where no one in the pairs is leading, they both copy each other at the same time and build on what is already happening. This makes people very connected to each other.
We then did it where the whole group would copy each other if pairs were close, it seemed to create one big creature.
Stimulus and response. Keep the same set up and energy as mirroring, except this time people can have a reaction to the move rather than just coming. It doesn't matter what they do, just keep the connection. This is now the energy of 2nd circle, give and take of energy with constant flow between the two people.
We continued this but with the whole group doing it together, working together as machines creating whole devices, and then flowing from one machine to the other. Keith Johnstone actually belittles machines in his book but I find them the most useful physical impro game going.
Then something completely different, about being present with an audience. This game is either loved or hated. Some people do it and they don't see the point, some people do it really easily, some people find it the hardest most frightening thing ever.
You have to go up in front of the audience, by yourself, and without retreating just stand there nice and relaxed and repeatedly tell them "I'm not doing anything, I'm just stood here, I'm not doing anything, I'm just stood here, not doing anything." But the thing is you actually have to mean it, and not do anything, just be yourself.
Some people go up straight away and play it and there is a presence about them where we feel drawn into them, and feel like we know them even if this is the first time we've seen them.
Some people go up and it feels like they are lying, for some reason we can sense a shield of defense that has been put up. So we keep the game going uncomfortably long. At some point, usually at the point where they are thinking 'what's the fucking point in this?' they drop their defenses with a sigh or a giggle and suddenly we are momentarily let into their world and the audience laugh warmly. After that they hopefully stay there for a bit, and realise it's fine to just be and they are not in danger.
After that, quite an abstract game, I decided to do a more scene based Keith Johnstone game. I chose 3 words at a time from his Being There chapter. I don't usually like word restriction games. My least favourite impro game in the whole world is the alphabet game - I mean have you ever seen this work in a show, ever? Who actually likes the alphabet game?
Anyway, we started with the 3 word at a time game but I found it was actually making the actors un-present as they were just thinking about the words. So we switched to the 1 word at a time game and it was awesome, all the scenes were excellent. With only 1 word at a time there is less to worry about and the word that spurts out is usually summing up the overall feeling, or the most important stuff, or moving things on.
Saying 'keep the same energy and connection you had in the mirror game' seemed to be a useful direction, and it meant that inbetween speaking the actors were emotionally connected and also very physical.
Lots of fun scenes produced including a sailor desperately convincing a captain that an iceberg was coming, two teenagers on an awkward date on a farm, and a wife having an affair. All had platforms and action that were clear and fun, decreasing the words lead to really fun scenes that were easy to follow.
This bit is where a conclusion would go, but I haven't got one. Other than impro done well with people focussing on the deeper things is fun to watch and magical.
Hoopla. Workshops every Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Shows Tuesday and Wednesday. www.HooplaImpro.com
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Monday, 17 October 2011
Impro or Improv? What's in a v?
This could be the biggest impro (or improv) geek out known to man! I know at least 2 people who might find this interesting, so I'm going to write it.
Some people say Impro.
Some people say Improv.
In London it used to be largely Impro, but now there's a growing trend in the use of Improv.
Why?
I decided to conduct my own investigation using, errr, me as a case study. I was surprised to see so much meaning loaded into one letter, or lack of letter, and that it's actually all wrapped up in my own personal experience of impro/improv.
My first experience of anything like impro had been watching Whose Line Is It Anyway on TV in the early 1990s. Usually after I had got back from scouts on a Friday evening. I'd actually cycle back quickly in order not to miss it. I also had a massive crush on my babysitter who would also watch it, so impro was wrapped up in sexual desire for me right from the start! Unavoidably written into my subconscious. And no, I didn't have sex with my babysitter, you perverts!
But back then I don't think I called it impro, or improv or even use the word improvised. It was just a fun TV show in my eyes, not part of a larger overall movement or art form.
A few years later I was doing drama GCSE with Edgar and we'd do improvisation exercises in class. They would usually be war based and his would usually end up with him throwing chairs at people and attacking enemy lines head on, mine would usually end up with me mock crying and talking about war issues. Everyone would die in the end.
Again these were just standalone exercises to us, we didn't call it impro or improv and didn't think it was part of some bigger thing. Also strangely enough we didn't connect what we were doing to Whose Line is it Anyway or anything.
I didn't think about it again until years later, in about 2006.
I'd been taken to see The Maydays perform in Brighton, as a break from attempting to write sketch comedy. They were making up things on the spot that were far funnier than anything I was trying to write, so I became addicted.
I went to all the workshops I could, and became a massive impro addict. Back then John Cremer was calling it impro without the v, as they hadn't been to Chicago yet. So as far as I was concerned I was doing impro. He'll probably deny this, but I have flyers to prove it!
When I moved back to London I did some courses with Sprout Ideas and The Crunchy Frog, both of whom used the word Impro for their workshops and websites (Crunchy Frog has since added the v, Sprout is still impro).
Then when I got even more into it and started reading books, the first books I read were 'Impro' and 'Impro for Storytellers' by Keith Johnstone. So right from the start the word Impro was the word for me.
Well meaning but non-improvising university friends and family members would ask me "how's the improv coming along?" and I would correct them by saying "actually, it's impro" like a massive twat. I felt that people who used the word 'improv' were belittling something that was important to me. I really felt like I was part of something new, and those who weren't quite into it often used the v by 'mistake' and it was a badge of honour to use the word 'impro' instead, as it showed that the person had read the right books and was going to workshops.
However over the years the use of the 'v' appeared not just from outsiders and beginners, but from experienced improvisers. This seemed to first start when The Maydays went to Chicago for the summer, and then came back calling everything improv. This then continued with various other people going to America, and people reading more North American books.
Before I knew it there were people saying improv improv improv improv everywhere! At first I hated it, it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. The 'v' that had meant one thing was now being used to show a greater understanding of improvisation, not less, and was indeed reflective of a new style of doing things.
But it's not just that, I find the actual letter 'v' such a nasty letter. It's so angular and harsh. Ending things with an 'o' is so much more polite, it's like a word that ends with a kiss rather than the sound of an insect. Also I'd already called my group Hoopla, which goes really well with Impro as there are lots of 'o's all making love to each other and having a kiss and a cuddle. I'd already built a website dammit!
But the v's kept coming. There was then a rapid increase of North American improvisers coming to the UK over the last year or so, and the London impro/improv scene was flourishing with new people and new ideas and new ompah. It seemed only polite to refer to improvisation as improv in their presence, even though they seemed to be doing the same and referred to it as impro in front of me. The use of a 'v' or an 'o' was becoming a matter of international relations.
Then, the crunch came for me. I read a book on Search Engine Optimization. I wanted to get Hoopla further up google for certain keywords. Within about five minutes of investigations I realised that the number of people typing 'impro' into google per month could be measured in hundreds, yet the numbers typing 'improv' into google was in the thousands. I'd been flying the flag of 'impro' for so long yet the public were looking for something else. I changed the website links immediately, without a moment's hesitation.
I felt like I'd betrayed an old friend.
So now I have improv splashed across my website, the actual url is impro because I'm too lazy to change it, if I'm speaking to an American or Canadian I use improv, if I'm talking to a class I'm leading I use impro, if it's someone I knew at Crunchy Frog four years ago I use impro, if it's a long form group doing Harolds I use improv.
But in the inside for me, I admit it, it's impro. That's right, no v. Impro for me is friendly, sunny, huggy, unknown, new.
Also for me impro is British. I look at impro borrowing things from improv, but not treating improv as a gold standard or glass ceiling. I think rather than being behind America, impro in the UK is more like the Japanese car industry of the 1970s - we can look and learn and then use our own culture, skills and methods to create something new.
So I don't regard impro and improv as being in competition, I think they both have things that the other could really do with.
What's in a v? A massively geeky impro/improv blog, that's what.
Workshops Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Shows every Tuesday and Wednesday. www.HooplaImpro.com
Some people say Impro.
Some people say Improv.
In London it used to be largely Impro, but now there's a growing trend in the use of Improv.
Why?
I decided to conduct my own investigation using, errr, me as a case study. I was surprised to see so much meaning loaded into one letter, or lack of letter, and that it's actually all wrapped up in my own personal experience of impro/improv.
My first experience of anything like impro had been watching Whose Line Is It Anyway on TV in the early 1990s. Usually after I had got back from scouts on a Friday evening. I'd actually cycle back quickly in order not to miss it. I also had a massive crush on my babysitter who would also watch it, so impro was wrapped up in sexual desire for me right from the start! Unavoidably written into my subconscious. And no, I didn't have sex with my babysitter, you perverts!
But back then I don't think I called it impro, or improv or even use the word improvised. It was just a fun TV show in my eyes, not part of a larger overall movement or art form.
A few years later I was doing drama GCSE with Edgar and we'd do improvisation exercises in class. They would usually be war based and his would usually end up with him throwing chairs at people and attacking enemy lines head on, mine would usually end up with me mock crying and talking about war issues. Everyone would die in the end.
Again these were just standalone exercises to us, we didn't call it impro or improv and didn't think it was part of some bigger thing. Also strangely enough we didn't connect what we were doing to Whose Line is it Anyway or anything.
I didn't think about it again until years later, in about 2006.
I'd been taken to see The Maydays perform in Brighton, as a break from attempting to write sketch comedy. They were making up things on the spot that were far funnier than anything I was trying to write, so I became addicted.
I went to all the workshops I could, and became a massive impro addict. Back then John Cremer was calling it impro without the v, as they hadn't been to Chicago yet. So as far as I was concerned I was doing impro. He'll probably deny this, but I have flyers to prove it!
When I moved back to London I did some courses with Sprout Ideas and The Crunchy Frog, both of whom used the word Impro for their workshops and websites (Crunchy Frog has since added the v, Sprout is still impro).
Then when I got even more into it and started reading books, the first books I read were 'Impro' and 'Impro for Storytellers' by Keith Johnstone. So right from the start the word Impro was the word for me.
Well meaning but non-improvising university friends and family members would ask me "how's the improv coming along?" and I would correct them by saying "actually, it's impro" like a massive twat. I felt that people who used the word 'improv' were belittling something that was important to me. I really felt like I was part of something new, and those who weren't quite into it often used the v by 'mistake' and it was a badge of honour to use the word 'impro' instead, as it showed that the person had read the right books and was going to workshops.
However over the years the use of the 'v' appeared not just from outsiders and beginners, but from experienced improvisers. This seemed to first start when The Maydays went to Chicago for the summer, and then came back calling everything improv. This then continued with various other people going to America, and people reading more North American books.
Before I knew it there were people saying improv improv improv improv everywhere! At first I hated it, it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. The 'v' that had meant one thing was now being used to show a greater understanding of improvisation, not less, and was indeed reflective of a new style of doing things.
But it's not just that, I find the actual letter 'v' such a nasty letter. It's so angular and harsh. Ending things with an 'o' is so much more polite, it's like a word that ends with a kiss rather than the sound of an insect. Also I'd already called my group Hoopla, which goes really well with Impro as there are lots of 'o's all making love to each other and having a kiss and a cuddle. I'd already built a website dammit!
But the v's kept coming. There was then a rapid increase of North American improvisers coming to the UK over the last year or so, and the London impro/improv scene was flourishing with new people and new ideas and new ompah. It seemed only polite to refer to improvisation as improv in their presence, even though they seemed to be doing the same and referred to it as impro in front of me. The use of a 'v' or an 'o' was becoming a matter of international relations.
Then, the crunch came for me. I read a book on Search Engine Optimization. I wanted to get Hoopla further up google for certain keywords. Within about five minutes of investigations I realised that the number of people typing 'impro' into google per month could be measured in hundreds, yet the numbers typing 'improv' into google was in the thousands. I'd been flying the flag of 'impro' for so long yet the public were looking for something else. I changed the website links immediately, without a moment's hesitation.
I felt like I'd betrayed an old friend.
So now I have improv splashed across my website, the actual url is impro because I'm too lazy to change it, if I'm speaking to an American or Canadian I use improv, if I'm talking to a class I'm leading I use impro, if it's someone I knew at Crunchy Frog four years ago I use impro, if it's a long form group doing Harolds I use improv.
But in the inside for me, I admit it, it's impro. That's right, no v. Impro for me is friendly, sunny, huggy, unknown, new.
Also for me impro is British. I look at impro borrowing things from improv, but not treating improv as a gold standard or glass ceiling. I think rather than being behind America, impro in the UK is more like the Japanese car industry of the 1970s - we can look and learn and then use our own culture, skills and methods to create something new.
So I don't regard impro and improv as being in competition, I think they both have things that the other could really do with.
What's in a v? A massively geeky impro/improv blog, that's what.
Workshops Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Shows every Tuesday and Wednesday. www.HooplaImpro.com
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Circle of Expectation Workshop Notes
These are from the Monday night 'Being Obvious' workshop from a few weeks ago.
I seem to be specialising at the moment in taking basic Keith Johnstone exercises and then expanding them and modifying them. At some point I'll tell him and he'll be like "WHATTTTTT??? HOW DARE YOU! YOU MUST DIE STEVE ROE, YOU MUST DIE!" I'm sure he wouldn't be like that.
So being obvious and circle of expectation.
In a nutshell 'being creative' in improvisation is not usually a very good creative strategy. When people try to be creative and original they end up putting in offers from a list of thought up creative ideas that actually turn out to be boring, distracting or blocking. When we're trying to hard to be creative the act of building up on each others offers and building a greater whole can full apart.
So often being obvious can actually be more helpful, as it builds up on other people's ideas and allows the improviser to be a proper human on stage.
Also for every offer that an improviser puts on, or every suggestion an audience gives, there is a 'circle of expectation' from the audience of what might happen from that offer or suggestion. It's not just a one track story, or pre-planned ideas, more a circle of possible things that might happen. Being obvious means allowing yourself to be in this circle and inhabiting this world so that everything is being discovered with the audience. Trying too hard to be creative can lead to be jumping outside of this circle, abandoning the gifts they had, and desperately clutching at straws.
For instance:
"Please can we get a location?"
"A bar"
"Hey look, I'm standing on a long metal bar. Please come and stand on my bar with me."
"Hello, I hope you don't mind but I've brought my pole"
"Sure, put it on my BAR! Ha ha ha ha"
Please just shut up and get off the stage, please. The people above are trying to be creative, but it's just idiotic, and nobody wants to act with them. The audience wanted to see a bar. It could have been a Wild West Bar, a Chicago Gangster Bar, a Charles Dickens novel bar, an American diner bar. There could have been policemen walking into the bar looking for a mob boss. There could have been a love affair between burger flipper and waitress. There could have been an orphan boy cleaning glasses out back. But instead the actors gave the audience two idiots balancing on a metal pole, the scene has lasted about a minute, one person laughed because they felt sorry for them and two people clapped once using one hand. It actually saddens me.
Teaching circle of expectation is really fun:
1. Get a massive circle of paper, I sellotape loads together so it covers a large chunk of floor.
2. Explain that the group is going to make up a story together.
3. Explain that the current circle of expectation is infinite, as it's made up of everyone's whole life experiences, all the media and education we've absorbed, our subconcious, the collective sub concious, everything.
4. Ask for a location.
5. The location immediately creates a circle of expectation. So draw and actual circle encompassing all the paper, and write the location.
6. Ask people to be obvious and name what they see at this location. Asking people to imagine is not helpful, asking people to see is better.
7. Write down all the offers within a smaller circle. For each bunch of offers draw concentric circles as the circle of expectation shrinks.
8. Ask helpful questions like When is it? Where exactly are we? What room are we in?
9. If it hasn't happened already put some characters in - who is there? Who are they? What do they look like? What are they doing?
10. Now go back and expand things. I call it zooming in. Let's zoom in on this character, what is there name. Etc Etc.
11. Zoom in on more things and connections happen already. The group can't help but tell stories.
12. When a story presents itself ask questions like 'What is the most obvious thing to happen?' etc. Get people to reincorporate details. If something happens it's because of this other thing that has already been said. If someone meets a character it's someone who has already popped up.
This always produces such colourful scenes. If some people aren't saying anything don't point them out directly but mention to the group that if you aren't saying much it's because you're putting too much pressure on each individual offer. Not every offer has to be ground breaking or move the story together. If you aren't saying much just take it easy, and add a small detail to each offer. If a door gets mentioned, say what colour it is, if a sandwich gets mentioned, say what's in it.
After a couple of rounds on paper you can then stand up as a group and play without writing it down, with the group remembering offers to reincorporate.
You can then play in pairs, with one person being obvious and the other asking helpful questions and encouraging.
You can then play solo, playing both roles out loud.
You can then play solo, just being obvious, and before you know it everyone is able to make up whole stories on the spot.
Well done!
Workshops every Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Shows Tuesday and Wednesday. www.HooplaImpro.com
I seem to be specialising at the moment in taking basic Keith Johnstone exercises and then expanding them and modifying them. At some point I'll tell him and he'll be like "WHATTTTTT??? HOW DARE YOU! YOU MUST DIE STEVE ROE, YOU MUST DIE!" I'm sure he wouldn't be like that.
So being obvious and circle of expectation.
In a nutshell 'being creative' in improvisation is not usually a very good creative strategy. When people try to be creative and original they end up putting in offers from a list of thought up creative ideas that actually turn out to be boring, distracting or blocking. When we're trying to hard to be creative the act of building up on each others offers and building a greater whole can full apart.
So often being obvious can actually be more helpful, as it builds up on other people's ideas and allows the improviser to be a proper human on stage.
Also for every offer that an improviser puts on, or every suggestion an audience gives, there is a 'circle of expectation' from the audience of what might happen from that offer or suggestion. It's not just a one track story, or pre-planned ideas, more a circle of possible things that might happen. Being obvious means allowing yourself to be in this circle and inhabiting this world so that everything is being discovered with the audience. Trying too hard to be creative can lead to be jumping outside of this circle, abandoning the gifts they had, and desperately clutching at straws.
For instance:
"Please can we get a location?"
"A bar"
"Hey look, I'm standing on a long metal bar. Please come and stand on my bar with me."
"Hello, I hope you don't mind but I've brought my pole"
"Sure, put it on my BAR! Ha ha ha ha"
Please just shut up and get off the stage, please. The people above are trying to be creative, but it's just idiotic, and nobody wants to act with them. The audience wanted to see a bar. It could have been a Wild West Bar, a Chicago Gangster Bar, a Charles Dickens novel bar, an American diner bar. There could have been policemen walking into the bar looking for a mob boss. There could have been a love affair between burger flipper and waitress. There could have been an orphan boy cleaning glasses out back. But instead the actors gave the audience two idiots balancing on a metal pole, the scene has lasted about a minute, one person laughed because they felt sorry for them and two people clapped once using one hand. It actually saddens me.
Teaching circle of expectation is really fun:
1. Get a massive circle of paper, I sellotape loads together so it covers a large chunk of floor.
2. Explain that the group is going to make up a story together.
3. Explain that the current circle of expectation is infinite, as it's made up of everyone's whole life experiences, all the media and education we've absorbed, our subconcious, the collective sub concious, everything.
4. Ask for a location.
5. The location immediately creates a circle of expectation. So draw and actual circle encompassing all the paper, and write the location.
6. Ask people to be obvious and name what they see at this location. Asking people to imagine is not helpful, asking people to see is better.
7. Write down all the offers within a smaller circle. For each bunch of offers draw concentric circles as the circle of expectation shrinks.
8. Ask helpful questions like When is it? Where exactly are we? What room are we in?
9. If it hasn't happened already put some characters in - who is there? Who are they? What do they look like? What are they doing?
10. Now go back and expand things. I call it zooming in. Let's zoom in on this character, what is there name. Etc Etc.
11. Zoom in on more things and connections happen already. The group can't help but tell stories.
12. When a story presents itself ask questions like 'What is the most obvious thing to happen?' etc. Get people to reincorporate details. If something happens it's because of this other thing that has already been said. If someone meets a character it's someone who has already popped up.
This always produces such colourful scenes. If some people aren't saying anything don't point them out directly but mention to the group that if you aren't saying much it's because you're putting too much pressure on each individual offer. Not every offer has to be ground breaking or move the story together. If you aren't saying much just take it easy, and add a small detail to each offer. If a door gets mentioned, say what colour it is, if a sandwich gets mentioned, say what's in it.
After a couple of rounds on paper you can then stand up as a group and play without writing it down, with the group remembering offers to reincorporate.
You can then play in pairs, with one person being obvious and the other asking helpful questions and encouraging.
You can then play solo, playing both roles out loud.
You can then play solo, just being obvious, and before you know it everyone is able to make up whole stories on the spot.
Well done!
Workshops every Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Shows Tuesday and Wednesday. www.HooplaImpro.com
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