Skip to main content

Improv... Courses? At NUS??

Emergent in the original and secondary literature on improvisation are four central principles of applied improvisation: (a) accept all offers, (b) recognize gifts, (c) build on every idea, and (d) support fellow players.1 The improv mantra “Yes, and” encompasses the first three tenets. Saying “yes” means an improviser accepts any offer her fellow players present; she will not block or reject ideas. Johnstone (1979/2012) calls blocking “a form of aggression,” a default response to fear of the unknown or giving up control (p. 96). To think like an improviser is to reverse this tendency and become open to allowing the action to develop by accepting the ideas of the ensemble. Furthermore, saying “yes” means that a player is alert and listening to all the offers a scene partner presents. Because improvisation traditionally uses no props or costumes, improvisers must recognize everything that their ensemble says and does as a “gift” or “offer” that they might use to advance the scene. In other words, improvisers develop a strong sense of presence, so they can attend to the complexities of every statement, tone, gesture, and expression. The principles of acceptance and recognizing offers mean improvisers do not make “mistakes.” Misspoken words, mistaken identities, and other so-called errors do not appear as problems but as opportunities to advance a story in new directions. The “and” of “yes, and” recognizes that a story cannot move forward through acceptance alone. Every improviser shares responsibility for building on offers and extending them in some way. “And” represents the need to develop ideas and let them grow. Improvisation is fundamentally an ensemble art. Thus, another improv mantra—“Make your ensemble look good”—follows from “Yes, and” and emphasizes the importance of support in improvisation. Good improvisers do not steal the spotlight and outshine one another. They collaboratively co-construct a compelling story. Spolin (1999) writes, “Group participation and agreement … open the way for harmony” in an ensemble, a sense that “fellow players are needed and welcomed.” This collaborative atmosphere creates space for players to solve problems “not at the expense of another person … by working harmoniously together with others to enhance the group effort or project” (pp. 11–12). Improvisers make one another look good by saying yes to one another's offers and honoring those offers by using them to develop a story.

Here are the four central principles of applied improvisation in point form:

  1. Accept all offers: Improvisers should be open to any idea presented by their fellow players, avoiding blocking or rejection.
  2. Recognize gifts: Everything a scene partner says or does is considered a "gift" to be used and built upon. This requires focus and attentiveness.
  3. Build on every idea: The "and" in "Yes, and" emphasizes building upon and developing the ideas presented by others.
  4. Support fellow players: Improvisation is a collaborative art. Good improvisers avoid stealing the spotlight and instead work together to create a compelling story. This involves saying "yes" to offers and using them to develop the scene.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thematic Summary of The Star by H.G. Wells

H.G. Well’s wrote The Star in 1897, but apocalyptic/disaster fiction had already existed for thousands of years. Well, the authors didn’t think they were writing fiction, but nevertheless, they were still writing speculative ‘non-fiction’. A quick Wikipedia look-up on Google will tell you that hundreds of seers have prophesized the end of mankind. Unfortunately, fortunately, they have all been wrong! Yet, these countless predictions prove a point about our very own human nature: many of us have fetishized the ‘end of the world’. Christians call it the rapture. Vikings called it Ragnarok. Others called it the Apocalypse. All these stories about our eventual end on this earth have a common thread: there is some greater reason for our end to occur – most of the time, it involves the triumph of good over evil. This is where The Star differs in its narrative. Instead of focusing on some grand narrative of good gods achieving a final victory over the forces of evil, it sticks to d...
3 comments
Read more

Thematic summary of When It Changed by Joanna Russ

Joanna Russ’ When It Changed centers on a human society made entirely up of women on a planet called ‘Whileaway’. The human colony is void of men because of a plague that occurred thirty generations ago. The females that remained after the plagued managed to survive without the males by a process that sees the merging of ova. This allowed women to reproduced with women, taking away the need for penetrative reproduction and thereby making redundant the role of men in the human reproductive cycle. The story begins when four Russian astronauts arrive on Whileaway. All four of them are male, which makes them the first 4 men that have set foot on the planet in hundreds of years. Their arrival has a profound effect on the women they meet, and we see this effect from the perspective of Janet, a thirty-four-year-old woman that is married to Katy, with whom she has three children. Upon meeting the four men, Janet is immediately taken aback by their physical size – “They are bigger than we ar...
Post a Comment
Read more

Inheritance [Balli Kaur Jaswal]

I really shouldn't attempt to write this... as if this were an assignment due on Monday. It isn't, so I shall not.  Two days - it took me this to finish my first SingLit novel, as far as I can recall.  It was about a family who goes through tough times. This family was Sikh. This family was Singaporean. This family felt, for a few heart-wrenching seconds, like my own.  Dalveer and Harbeer have three children: Gurdev, Narain, and Amrit. Karam is Harbeer's nephew, but he doesn't get to be a narrator in the story, so, screw him. Also, he's an asshole.  We see their story unfold over a period of twenty years - this is paralleled by Singapore's own growth as a nation. We see the effects of rapid industrialisation on the nascent city state, and we begin to identify some of the more... unspoken problems faced by its people. In its endeavour to grow, advance, burgeon -- people, genuinely good people, are left behind. In our  struggle for success, the few am...
Post a Comment
Read more