Posted April 19th, 2010 by Randy
Stuck in Paris, having lots of thoughts about improv. It’s pretty interesting watching the group dynamic here and how people try so hard to maintain control of a spontaneous, hard to predict situation. It reminds me of how much control we try to maintain when in the midst of a scene or story. Attempting to force what we want to happen versus riding the wave of what is.
I have been living simply by accepting the offers that come. So far, that has worked in this situation.
Posted April 11th, 2010 by Randy
Hello from Paris! Berlin was a great time capped off with a lovely discussion this morning with Roland Trescher from Isar 148, a group in Munich. Interesting how the questions of our role as improvisers seems to be the same all over. What does our work mean? Where does improv go from here.
I am hoping, while here to be able to post a link to a few interviews….we shall see.
Posted April 9th, 2010 by Randy
Had a very fruitful discussion with a producer here in Berlin regarding the place of improvisation in the larger range of live performance…. still reeling but left with a feeling of a lot of work to be done. Good work.
Roland Trescher from Munich is in Berlin and we are hoping to get together before either of us leaves!
Posted April 5th, 2010 by Tony
Improviser Jill Bernard has some one-size-fits-most improv tips here, along with squiggly drawing. Give it a watch!
Posted April 5th, 2010 by Randy
An improviser in Berlin taped the last few minutes of the Shakespeare Comedy we improvised. I think it turned out pretty well with a Slovenian, Germans, Austrian all improvising in a second language.
http://vimeo.com/10651555 Last night was the final show which featured students from the worjkshop and the Gorilla's school, mixing it up with festival participants. It's always one of my favorites as the offers are all over the place. Everyone had a great time. Over the week, I have had several good conversations with fellow improvisers that I hope to elaborate on in future posts as food for thought. Randy
Posted April 3rd, 2010 by Randy
Did the Commedia show last night which was fun. The show was very simple and stayed within the common narrative realm of Commedia. I found it interesting to work in the classic masks and what material came from that. Many of the lazzi were blended with improv, but it felt very much like the patterns were set. It wasn’t a negative thing at all, but allowed me to focus on body, sound, and voice. I look forward to working on mask some more.
Posted April 2nd, 2010 by Randy
Last night we did a Shakespeare show with an international cast of 10. I taught two days of workshops on Will, and was a bit worried because of language in the show. No need! The show was great and the audience of a couple hundred were great. We did (from suggestions) The “Tragedy of Penelope”, and the comedy “Three Things go Wrong in the Night”. I truly am grateful to the cast and really happy with the result.
Posted March 31st, 2010 by Randy
Festival is in full swing. I saw a show done by three Swedish women called the Improvements. They did a really infectious music show. The music was straightforward, but what was remarkable was the amount of listening, which allowed them to sing together and harmonize.
The last two days have been spent teaching with some discussion. Having some pretty interesting talks with friends from Europe about whether improv has anything to say to the world.
Today I begin rehearsing a Commedia Dell’ Arte show that will be performed this weekend as well a show that will take place in an actual WaterWorks. The Commedia show is being directed by an Italian Commedia Director.
Posted March 29th, 2010 by Tony
Conversations In Paint, by Charles Dunn
Its amazing how many “lessons” we learn in improv that other artists in other areas learned long ago. I’ve been reading Charles Dunn’s Conversations in Paint. Its full of great quotes for painters, but so many of them apply to improv, I had to post a few here.
You’re afraid because you’re thinking about the end, not about what you’re doing. –Helen Van Wyk
Nothing is as poor and melancholy as an art that is interested in itself and not its subject. –Santayana
A golfer rarely needs to hit a spectacular shot until the one that preceded it was pretty bad. –Harvey Penick
The amateur is afraid of boldness; the professional is afraid of timidity. –Ed Whitney
Exactly right is all wrong! –Ed Whitney
If you don’t know how to say it, say it loud. –Will Strunk, Jr.
Painting is founded on the heart controlled by the head. –Cezanne
The painting is usually finished before you are. –Rex Brandt
Anything is intensified by its opposite. –Ed Whitney
A painting is good, not because it looks like something, but because it feels like something. –Phil Dike
Some musicians are not great technicians, but they give you a rich point of view. –Nathan Milstein
Devotion to the facts will always give the pleasure of recognition; adherence to the rules of design, the pleasures of order and certainty. –Kenneth Clark
If you don’t see the wonder in the most ordinary phenomenon, you’re not going to resonate very much. –Artie Shaw
It’s not what you paint. It’s how you paint it. You don’t have to paint elaborate things. Paint simple things as beautifully as you can. –Helen Van Wyk
The audience is astonishingly friendly and tolerant of even the slightest dab, but is limited in its willingness to look either deeply or at length. –Rex Brandt
The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards. –Anatule France
It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy books and by all eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking about what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by increasing the number of important operations we can perform without thinking. –Alfred North Whitehead
Time and rest are needed for absorption. Psychologists confirm that it is really in the summer that our muscles learn to skate and in the winter, how to swim. –Jacques Barzun
Posted March 28th, 2010 by Randy
Did a short form show in Zurich last night. The audience was enthusiastic and of course, cautious around English. The highlight came from a surprising source for me. The game where you play a serious scene until music erupts then you go into a wild dance that includes the audience, lights, etc. When the music stops, you go back to the scene. We had a three-piece band, which was great, and so were they. So we decided to play it.
From the suggestion “funeral” the scene involved a mother of soldier killed in Afghanistan at his funeral. A relative shows up and they discuss how to overcome the grief and the ideals behind the death itself. The in the middle of these very serious moments, dance would break out and we were on our way!
What struck me was the seriousness that we played in the scene, really contrasted the dancing. I realized that prior to this, I had only seen and done, typically humorous improv scenes countered with dancing. The downright drama of the situation made the dancing more macabre and the emotional level of the scene deeper.
