Teaching Improvisation
Positive Feedback (Section One)
by Al Wunder

This element of my work was simply designed to help create in the student/performer a non-judgmental state of mind. My basic philosophy is to reawaken the creative teacher that resides in all of us, to bring back the freedom to experiment and explore, to find out what we enjoy within ourselves and to trust that enjoyment enough to develop it in our own way. I wanted the student to feel free of having to do a good performance, to feel free of the concern of doing a bad performance, to eliminate the necessity of pleasing audience and/or teacher. In essence all I wanted the student to think of is WHAT AM I, ME, MYSELF ENJOYING AT THIS MOMENT.

Between the ages of nought to two the infant learns to walk and to talk. Think about the process you went through in order to achieve these skills. You did not go to school, hire private tutors or read books. You were your own teacher experimenting, exploring, and getting wonderful POSITIVE FEEDBACK from your care givers. From almost any one, young or old, who happened to cross your path, a playful interchange of movement and sounds ensued, a duet with an underlying agenda to help (not teach) you develop your own style of walking and talking. Inevitably there were smiles, laughter and lots of cuddles as you taught yourself to walk and talk.

I continually use my experience of being present during a child's first steps as an example of positive feedback. There were two times that as an adult I was involved in this ritual. Both times there were several adults present when the child decided to show off (perform?) the newly learned skill. A circle formed with all the adults sitting on the circumference pointing the child to the other end of the circle. Off the young performer would go teetering and wobbling all the way to the waiting arms of an adult on the other side. Ooo's, ahs, smiles, cheers and hand claps all around the circle. A huge beaming smile on the childís face. Not a single adult thought of saying; That was lovely (insert your own name), now if you could just hold your back a little straighter and lift your knees higher your will walk even better the next time. Why not?? The child certainly was not walking well at that time. Yet we the adults knew that the child would continue to develop on their own, the skill of walking, of running, skipping, hopping and other forms of fun and exciting locomotions that young children are capable of.

There is a strong need to instill this atmosphere of playful exploration in my classes. It is necessary to achieve an impulsive level that allows a person to find out what they honestly like doing. The key word here is HONESTLY. It is not that easy to let go of our own and other people's expectations. To facilitate this letting go process there is a lot of time given to POSITIVE FEEDBACK.

I've incorporated in my class structure three places for feedback. The first occurs during the partnering section of class where people duet to given parameters (scores) that highlight various ways to communicate through non-verbal (movement) means. There are several duets going on at the same time and the only person watching is myself. It is effectively a non-performing very playful set up that allows the student to just enjoy themselves as they relate to someone else with movement. At the end of each duet score I have the students talk to their partners. They state what they liked doing and try to clarify what or why they liked about what they did. This helps to reinforce and enhance their understanding of the elements of moving that give them a sense of power, freedom, inspiration, and enjoyment. I don't listen in or comment in any way about what I've seen during these duets. This is the time people learn by playing freely and my only job is to provide musical accompaniment that keeps the physical juices flowing.

It is during this part of class that people are most impulsive with their movements since in fact they are not performing. The positive feed back allows them to recognise and value the movement patterns that keep repeating. These are possible POWER SOURCES. They can be simple elements such as an enjoyment of moving fast, or gobbling up space. A body part such as arms, head or legs could be the initiator of most movements. Feelings of character might predominate over the enjoyment of abstract moving. Every one has several personal power sources. There are thousands to choose from. It is the recognition acknowledgement and development of these personal power sources that is the essence of my teaching. I will talk more about these power sources in the next edition.

At first it is hard for people to speak or even recognise what they like about themselves. Our society seems to instill in us a self-depreciating attitude that makes it difficult to speak highly of ourselves. Once students understand that positive feedback is not a glorification of what they do, but a recognition of what they enjoy, this form of feedback becomes easier and more insightful. There is another valuable element in talking to your partner. That is speaking about what you enjoyed seeing your partner do and what you like about the relationship that occurred within this specific duet. This allows for the expansion of enjoyment of different movement patterns. People work with many different partners in a class, experiencing and sharing their motional vocabulary with other people and through this expand their own vocabulary finding enjoyment and power in an ever increasing range of movements.

There are two other forms of feed back that occur in my classes. They happen in the performing section of class. These performances are solos and duets. There are no scores or parameters given. One or two people go up and do whatever they are going to do with the rest of the class being an audience for the event. At the end of the performance the performers sit in front of the audience and talk about what they liked doing or feeling during their presentation. This I call inside feedback. After the performers speak about themselves and their experience (positive) while performing then the audience give outside feedback talking about what they liked seeing.

There is no way possible that you or I or anyone can achieve that wonderful state of impulsive play when other people are watching. I tried for years many different ways of formatting the audience, putting them around the room., inside the performing space, even watching with their eyes closed, hoping to create a less frightening performance space for the performer. Finally I realised that when you chose to perform for even just one person a very special and quite vulnerable communication environment is set up and that it is important to value and experience performance/communication in this way. The communicator (performer) feels a much greater need to say something important or to be entertaining and extremely skillful. The fear of performing sets in and all our negative judgements blossom full force. To counteract this fear I emphasise to the students that feedback is not to be about the performance itself but about elements of the presentation or even just a single movement or spoken phrase that they enjoyed as a performer. Saying something like, "I felt so stuck and couldn't think of anything to do. It was the moment when I closed my eyes and took 3 deep breaths that I felt most comfortable" is such valuable positive feedback because it recognises a simple means of alleviating at least partially that fear of performing.

This fear of performing dissipates quite rapidly and though it never disappears completely most people begin to enjoy the time when they are the focus of attention. When this happens the performing space becomes a great learning tool. The growing assurance that you are not being judged with the aesthetic criteria of good and bad allows the student performer to embrace a more impulsive state of being. This in turn gives more freedom for unconscious movements, sounds and language to emerge. What basically happens is students experience a wider range of theatrical potential and find they enjoy more than if they were concerned about doing a good performance.

This emphasis on being impulsive and not caring about the piece itself is the beginning and perhaps the most important stage of development for the improvising performer. If the student has been able to achieve this impulsive state of being in the performance space things that they honestly enjoy will continually emerge and be spoken about in their inside feedback. This is their emerging style. Movement and language patterns will be developed from a base that has personal power for the performer. In time the style will strengthen. Their personal feedback will become richer and will give them insights on how to further develop techniques that are appropriate to their own style of self presentation.