1/10/14

In today's lesson we were put into threes and performed an improvisation using the bamboo sticks, after this we had a discussion about improvisation and were taught the MAIN rules of improvisation; 

• Don't say no- except what the other person is doing, never resist as this creates awkwardness on stage and self self-consciousness
• Take what you are given and heighten it
• Silence is okay- do not always feel you HAVE to speak to create a narrative or a spark for the improvisation to work
• Go to the environment-establish where you are
• Know each other- it always works better than acting like strangers to each other
• Make it about YOU- make it truthful
• l, creates naturalism 
• Make it important
• Choose a moment of crisis
• Give and take
• Share a common physicality- accept what the other person is doing
• Do not be afraid to play the back foot- to NOT take the major role

The exercise we did today involved the bamboo sticks, and mainly was improvised, using follow the leader and major and minor roles.

I was with Max and Jade. We used quite simple movements, but found it hard at times to keep up with each other or to keep the complicity. Sometimes we were too busy focusing on trying to make the piece look good, we forgot about the main thing, which was to maintain fluidity and precision. We were always aware of the space and each other, we just could of been more focused on keeping the complicity. This exercise was influenced by MICHAEL CHEKHOV as he believed in " Feeling of Ease" when improvising and to go with it and not think into it too much.  

I have learned from this exercise that concentration on others and precision is much more important than trying to make the improvisation look as good as possible by using complex techniques, simplicity in improvisation is much more easy to become absorbed into by an audience, and I will use this from now on when improvising.