teaching improvisation sources and content (section two)

Al Wunder

To recapitulate from the previous issue. The first and most important element of Positive Feedback is creating a safe space to be impulsive, to play and explore as a means to find out what someone honestly likes doing. The second element is trusting that what you enjoy is valuable and worthy of communication in the performing space. Acknowledging what you enjoy and why you enjoy doing something gives you further stimulus to develop the skills necessary for increasing your enjoyment of communicating/performing who and what you are. When this happens the student takes greater responsibility for their own development by realising they are their own best teacher and that there is no hierarchy between those who have information to give and those receiving that information.

Power sources
Anything can work not everything does. This is one of the philosophies Iíve worked with for many years. Basically it poetically describes the many variety and styles of choreography that I enjoyed watching as a student with Alwin Nikolais. By the end of my studies with Nikolais I had come to the conclusion that a truly great creative genius has two main attributes. (1) She or he will break the rules and conventions of what makes good art. (2) The skill they have in their particular medium will influence the majority of people to accept this new aesthetic principal thus expanding the appreciation of their particular art form and creating expanded guide lines for other practitioners to follow.

Now add this philosophy to a personal belief that my task as a teacher is not to show people how to create good performances but to open pathways to the creative genius that is inside them. A paradox seemed to exist between me the teacher and them the students. They were concerned about looking good while I was more interested in them finding what their personal power sources were. And what exactly do I mean by Power Sources.
Simply put in many words it is what you like, enjoy, gives you pleasure, turns you on, excites you, a thing that you do easily, something you do unconsciously and frequently, a pattern of physical behaviour, personal philosophies, personality traits, anything that empowers you. Basically it is trusting what you like doing and learning/evolving from that source.

In teaching improvisational movement/theatre I initially help people look for, find and speak about their personal power sources. There are many areas in movement and speaking that that can be power sources for people and each person can easily recognise several strong points for themselves. My first perceptions of a student concerns their use of body parts and time. Which body part (hands, feet, torso, head, etc.) do they seem to find creative freedom in? What speed (slow, medium, fast) are they most comfortable with.

Iíll now introduce the term primary mover. A primary mover is the part of the body that initiates motion. The rest of the body responds as much or as little as it wants. Letís say someone recognises that their hands are a strong power source. The hands can now consciously be used to begin many improvisations or they might be used to act as a teacher for the feet or any other part of the body that the student wants to develop confidence and skills in. Similarly with time if someone acknowledges fast as a more influential aspect in their lives that will give them a base for feeling the juxtaposition of slower speeds and help them appreciate the dynamics of change in speeds as a viable form of communication in theatre.

Anything can work not everything does.

This is one of the philosophies Iíve worked with for many years. Basically it poetically describes the many variety and styles of choreography that I enjoyed watching as a student with Alwin Nikolais. By the end of my studies with Nikolais I had come to the conclusion that a truly great creative genius has two main attributes. (1) She or he will break the rules and conventions of what makes good art. (2) The skill they have in their particular medium will influence the majority of people to accept this new aesthetic principal thus expanding the appreciation of their particular art form and creating expanded guide lines for other practitioners to follow.

Iím trying to understand why Iíve started this chapter in this way. Philosophically, helping to create a true creative genius is not what I am about. With Theatre of the Ordinary I wanted to create an environment that would offer everyone a chance to use the performing arts as a means of self expression not just the professionals. Perhaps there is an underlying belief that the true genius is really just an ordinary person who has chosen to do what they like doing and developed the skills necessary to make their art much more that just acceptable. What ever degree of talent, skill or professionalism people bring to my class I believe the process of development should be the same for everyone.

Impulsiveness/Style/Content
Most of my class work is designed to get the students to be impulsive. Thoughtless activity that allows you to take risks and suspend judgements is a major tool of the improviser. It is the willingness to let go of the shoulds and should nots, that allows greater access to unconscious source material. Unconscious source material is the movements, sounds or words that comes without preconception into the world. Recognising what we enjoy about this spontaneous generation of material then allows us to add form to our impulsive behaviour.

This is a very difficult state to achieve especially in the performing space. It comes much easier when playing physical games in an unwatched situation. Hence the initial part of my class is designed to entice students into a state of playful physicality. After a half hour warm up that prepares the body to move we work in duets with some simple scores designed to focus awareness in essential areas of physical communication. Different body parts as primary movers, distance, size, speed, direction, physical contact, visual contact , in place movement, travelling, stillness, initiating, responding, are just a few of the areas of communication that we focus on in our physical play.

Being impulsive however is only the beginning of the process of development of both the improvisation and of the improviser. My students are constantly encouraged be impulsive. To find out what they like doing. It is the things that people honestly enjoy that frequently emerge from this impulsive state of being which forms the basis for their style. Style is the theatrical representation of your personality. The clothes you wear, the way you speak, the size of your movements, the sound of your voice, the words you use all are part of your style. This is true of everybody performer and non performer alike.

Recognising and understanding movement and language elements that continually emerge from impulsive sources begins the process of developing an improvisers unique style. Since we all are different in our everyday personalities our performing personaís should also be unique to ourselves. This performing persona is almost always quite different than our everyday selves. I personally enjoy my performing persona more than my everyday (pedestrian) personality and have slowly been bringing the performer into my every day life. When I perform I am much more generous with language, expressing ideas and feelings in a strong non apologetic way. I am more willing to be angry and straight forward, my humour comes out and at times Iím quite poetic and profound in presenting my philosophies on life.

Style is the sum of the many different elements that go into the way we present ourselves. It is the ongoing processing of through positive feedback that is the device which enhances and develops oneís style further and further towards a feeling for the content of the improvisation.