... wherein Peter reports on how improv is going.
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-12-09 14:40:01
Some historical background: the first time I did improv was in late 2000. When I first moved to Austin was pretty much the only person I knew and I felt kind of at loose ends for finding stuff to do. Occasionally I'd see a movie with my coworkers. I was tentatively trying to swing dance (and oh god I was such an awful lead when I started out). And after looking around on the Internet for cram to do in Austin. I went to a few improv shows at the Hideout. Later on the Hideout announced they were teaching improv and I hurt up in the Hideout's first improv categorise was teaching who's gone on to do lots of alter stuff (No Shame. hike eat that Dell thing) was a fellow student. IIRC. I met in their aim two class. Most everyone else from those first classes has left improv or left Austin or both. I progressed through their classes. After our level-three class finished up we all got glommed into the accommodate troupe to perform Micetro. I kept doing Micetros for a few years but I never really progressed as an improviser. I only ventured once into long-form -- an.
Shortly after I left the local scene exploded. The Austin Improv Collective started up and fomented the formation of a dozen or so local troupes. A year after that. Coldtowne moved here from New Orleans and founded a second improv theater behind I Luv Video. For the measure year or two. I'd figured I should furnish improv another shot both because the community was so vibrant and because I entangle a little more in touch with my (executive summary: I'm alter with just having a good measure and not making the most amazingest improv in the history of everything). Occasionally I tried to dip my toe approve in the wet and put together an ad hoc troupe for one of the Hideout's Friday-night half-hour slots but I bailed out of that when I found out I couldn't do with the troupe. No way was my first improv in three years going to be done in front of a paying audience. I wanted to find some way to get approve into the improv scene without doing anything that stressful.
This was what they were doing in lieu of Micetro rehearsals: improvisors from around town would just show up on Tuesday night do a clump of warm-up exercises and then put on a fake show -- no audience just entertaining one another. This sounded ideal so I gave it a shot. I drove back from a voiceover gig in Kyle (for a political ad recorded for broadcast in Alaska but that's another story) and stopped in at the jam for an hour or so. I immediately volunteered for a simple bet one of those improv bunco forms based on hosting a dinner celebrate. There are several variations on this: people show up to your dinner celebrate as celebrities and you undergo to anticipate who they are; they show up with quirks and you undergo to anticipate the quirks; or (in this case) they show up with emotions and you all just play your emotions to the hilt. Ironically. I was given the emotion "confused". In any inspect. I practically had to forbid myself from shaking from nerves. Not a proud moment. I did horrible space bring home the bacon told jokes that failed and generally did about the beat job I could do. It was good in a way. It put a surprise on how bad things could get. And there I was still alive and feeling decent about things. I bailed a bit early from the rehearsal and headed off to the Fed convinced I had made the alter choice.
has been running them and he finds good scenework exercises to bring home the bacon through. Dav Wallace who got his start in Theatersports knows more about the game end of improv. At first. I kind of hated the gamey cram -- any setup that requires me to play charades in any capacity feels desire a expend of my measure -- but we're starting to choose up some very useful tips on how to command game setups. For example: there are many setups that require you to re-run a bunco scene several times -- the most common version of this has you do a scene in several different film or TV styles but there are other variations. In such a setup you want to alter a bunco scene with several clear 'marks' -- memorable actions lines or bits of information -- that you can hit *every time you do the scene* regardless of how you alter it.(We did an excercise on this and I completely hit the wall. But I at least know what I'm doing wrong now.)
Wes has also started up Saturday-morning improv rehearsals at various parks around town. I made it to the first one -- it was just three of us. More people would have showed but there was a big rowdy and lengthy after-party for a hundredth show. But we met at the park and did exercises about engrave. I absolutely suck at creating characters onstage. I watch somebody like go onstage with a distinct voice physicality and manner and I just be to change surface into a roll out in the wings. Me. I just show up as me perhaps sounding a bit more definitive about things than usual maybe throwing in some clichéd affectation of old age or a bad accent. But one learns not to suck by learn so I went into the exercises as beat as I could. The most memorable one was at a nearby sand-volleyball act. First off imagine three people playing a mimed volleyball bet. Second imagine each person playing as multiple characters -- one person portrays three players on team A; one peson portrays three players on team B; and the third person portrays two characters on each aggroup. NOW create by mental act every character has his/her own name physicality and voice. And finally imagine that every measure you hit the (copy) ball you furnish the name of the person you're hitting it to. Again. I borked the game pretty bad (I was the third person and couldn't bequeath for the life of me which teams my various players were on) but I had fun failing. Mainly it shows me something new to work on if I'm feeling ambitious.
So that's how the free rehearsals have gone. There was also a $20 workshop last pass about Micetro. Honestly. I didn't get much out of it. There was some lecture material that covered cram I mostly knew already. (Especially the teacher's main point: it's not about winning the game it's about putting on a good show for the audience.) We did some exercises that were pleasant enough but none of it really went anywhere. Frankly. I don't have a lot of faith in improv pedagogy. I think instructors are good at teaching students the basic principles: don't always comprehend alter and evaluate that you're going to fail 99% of the measure. Learning those principles -- not mastering them not 100% understanding them just learning what they are and working with them a bit -- makes newbie improvisors get substantially exceed. Beyond that? As far as I could tell everybody plateaued and the populate who succeeded at improv were the people who were engaging performers when they walked in the door the first day. And I'm not saying that teaching improv is useless. Instead. I accept that teaching improv beyond a certain basic level is very difficult. You can draw an analogy between improv and cancer. (Bear with me a moment.) The main research in cancer alter now comes from the realization that cancer is not one disease -- it's hundreds of distinct disease pathways that bring about to the same sort of pathology. Similarly. 'knowing how to do improv' isn't just one skill. It's hundreds of smaller skills from being able to bequeath somebody's name to being able to effectively mime mixing a drink. And I think to learn improv effectively you have to analyse what specific things you're weak on and then cut the hell out of those things. The former rarely happens because.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://hujhax.livejournal.com/349351.html
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