- Blog

It's Playtime!

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 12:14:05 -0800

By Rebecca MacMillan

Magnus J. MacMillan wearing team colours!

It’s great to get back to working with the Maydays again following the birth of my little boy Magnus. Sleep dep does funny things to your improv; it turns off the over-thinking bit of your brain that tries too hard to be clever and funny, but sends you straight back into your old carefully ironed-out go-tos if you aren’t careful – in my case asking too many questions & always initiating with high-status characters.

My new tiny scene partner, 3 months old today, is now starting to enjoy expressing himself (as you can see). He smiled at 4 weeks or so, but it’s only in the last fortnight that he has learnt to laugh, which as an improviser was a milestone I was really looking forward to.

Very cute - but what’s all this baby stuff got to do with improv? Well, being a bit of a perfectionist I am completely unable to just ‘wing it’ with parenting and have been reading a careful selection of books to point me in the right direction. One of these books is interesting for parents and non-parents alike: Playful Parenting by Lawrence J. Cohen talks about the importance of children’s play to help them work their stuff out, bond with each other/parents, and generally learn about the world and how to function well within it. There's loads of great advice about getting stuck into play with kids to help maximise its benefits, remembering to reconnect with them and ultimately fixing things that are malfunctioning in their lives and the modus operandi of the family. It’s also one of those books where you wish you could meet the person that wrote it because they sound really nice and their anecdotes are so heart-warming.

Back to the point: it struck me that actually much of the advice resonated with ideas and techniques we use when teaching adults improv. In the first stages of, say, a beginners’ course we are often just teaching people how to play again after years of striving to appear grown up and sensible, and giving them the space to do this; and I guess it’s not so surprising that students use improv classes as a catalyst to change their lives, and to work through stuff that’s bothering or blocking them, as much as to actually become improvisers.

Certainly improv can be very useful as a therapy – but just as children’s play can become aimless and stuck, or repetetive, or disconnected, or even destructive, so can your improv. For our improv to be alive, vibrant and joyful, we need to strive to stay in a space where it is still challenging but, above all, genuinely playful. Not try-hard playful in an ‘I’m crazy me so I’m going to have a very silly voice and use the word BADGER loads’ way, nor indeed going beserk in a disconnected and ungrounded way – rather, I mean having the sense that, strongly connected to your fellow improvisers, you could go anywhere – you could even end up flying on stage, seamlessly supported by your scene partners. That edge where you are fully engaged in play is scary as well as exhilarating, and it is very easy to lose it to ego, to the comfort of familiar forms, skills or characters, to concentrating on something like the framework of your show (for instance, in a Harold, finding yourself thinking ‘what happened in the last beat?’ is a warning sign). It is natural when you are concentrating hard on mastering something new to lose your sense of play for a bit, but I think it's really important to make sure that’s temporary.

As I get back into rehearsing I'm going to need to keep all this in mind. I’ve been nervous about ‘catching up’ with the group following the maternity gap: complete with three new Maydays-in-training they have been working together intensively with two specialist improvisers from the US, and they have been developing a brand new show for the Brighton Fringe, ‘The Fringe Show’. I must make sure that I don't concentrate so hard on getting my skill level and group integration back on spec that I lose the joy. They say that you teach what you need to learn, so here's some thoughts and ideas for individuals and troupes who feel the need to find the play again. Have fun trying these - any other ideas or suggestions please stick them in a comment.

For troupes:

Always warm up before rehearsals - use this time to reconnect with each other. There are lots of things you can do, but physical and eye contact is important, as is the chance to have a quick personal verbal catch up on what you’re feeling and what you’ve been doing since the last rehearsal. If you can hang out together after rehearsals and shows, or even better have fun outside of improv (book a booth at a Karaoke bar or go to Laser Quest, or something), then all the better.
Your warm-ups don’t really need much structure and should be beautiful and silly – here are two examples
1) Lie down in a circle with your heads on each others’ stomachs. Once someone starts laughing, the person’s head on their stomach bobs up and down starting them laughing – it’s great, try it.
2) ‘Kick the can Marco’ – one person shouts out ‘let’s play [insert name of random made-up game here]’ and everyone else shouts ‘yes, let’s’. Without instruction, in freeform style, you find how to play the new game together in the same way that children would – establishing rules and playing until it feels like it’s the right time for someone else to shout out to play a new game.
Appoint an artistic director and let them be preoccupied with and manage the serious stuff around what you are doing and how well you are doing it. Beyond the ins and outs of artistic development and direction, make sure that things that feel like admin or business gets dealt with in a distinct time slot and preferably entirely separately from your rehearsal.
Artistic directors: make sure that in your efforts to hone specific skills or crack a specific form the troupe have not lost their playfulness, and if they are in danger of this plan in some sessions purely devoted to getting it back – either by dedicating time to exercises in playfulness and reconnecting, or alternatively by doing something entirely different but that is both scary and fun - like getting in someone to do some improv music coaching if you don’t do singing in your shows, or if you aren’t a particularly physical troupe get a dance instructor in for a session. Sending people off in small groups to come up with some new game or form and then getting everyone back together to do a show and tell is a great one too.

For individuals:

If you are focussing hard on form, skills or something that’s bothering you whilst improvising, then you’re probably too in your head to have fun. I’ll never forget what Jet Eveleth, one of our teachers from iO in Chicago, said about this: “Your mind has police, your body doesn’t have police – so go with your body”. Get physical.
Constantly change up what you are focussing on and actively set yourself challenges - be it accents, status, singing, whatever – stay in that ‘scary but exciting’ place. If you find this hard try improvising as impressions of other people – famous people and people you know. It can be secret or you can get people to guess at the end of the rehearsal.
Inspiration trumps obligation – especially in rehearsal give yourself permission to go for the slightly risky but really fun thing to do, rather than safer options.

Minute Improv: Yes, And

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 08:00:26 -0800

by Katy Schutte

How to Improvise like a Samurai (part 1) by Heather

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 10:25:48 -0800

I was teaching a while ago when one of the students, started to look at me in a strange way, with an almost mystical look in his eye. When I asked why he told me that the excercise I was describing was almost exactly what he had been taught by his Aikido instructor a few weeks before. We talked after class and this led to me investigating a little further into what I have found to be the many links between Japanese Martial arts and improv (the links between Buddhism and improv have already been well documented) so what follows are my top 10 philosophical and strategic martial arts concepts which can also be applied to your scene work:

1. MUSHIN– Without mind.
‘Achieved when a person’s mind is free from thoughts of anger fear or ego during combat OR everyday life. There is an absence of discursive thought and judgement so the person is totally free to act and react towards an opponent without disturbance from such thoughts.’ Surely this is the state that all improvisers strive for (or Should do), the best improv happens when you stop listening to your inner critic and just inhabit the scene or character in the moment. I think when Improvisers start out, it’s almost impossible to achieve this state, as they are constantly worrying about what they are doing wrong. The beauty of improv is that you can’t do it wrong.

2. AIKI – Joining energy. Energy matching.
Oh, how I was excited to see the term energy matching used within a Martial arts context. This is the exact term we Maydays use to describe the technique of mirroring from within a scene. Here it is in the context of your opponent but in improv, matching your scene partner’s energy, demeanor, stance and point of view can be an extremely strong place to start your scene. Quite often we’ll go for conflict right at the top of a scene whereas sometimes it’s nice to just see two characters in their world going about their business. How often do we see conflict in everyday life? Whereas we see energy matching everywhere in groups of people e.g the football fans, the Hen do, the WI meeting. It’s always interesting to watch.

3. KOKORO – Heart, character, attitude.
It’s essential to enter any scene with a strong point of view, whatever that is, even if you’re working from nothing. ‘Character’ also doesn’t necessarily have to be about your ability to play different roles. Del Close spoke of wearing characters like a thin veil, so while Character is a great tool, some of my favourite improviser’s only ever play themselves. However they will play themselves afraid, agitated, happy or themselves as they really would be in space for example. An attitude to what you’re doing will transform the scene.

4.GOHO/JUHO
These are hard (goho) and soft (juho) methods or initiations - just like improv! We talk about hard initiations as verbal offers or clearly formed premises. Whereas a soft initiation might involve starting a mimed physical activity or merely making an emotional noise with NO idea of what your scene is about. How do you initiate your scenes? Do you always come on with a fully formed idea or do you always follow your scene partner? While in this case juho method refers to a counter attack, it can often feel sometimes in a scene that one improviser will wait to ‘counter’ the opening scene offer of the other. Does every scene need an attack and counter attack? Probably not, but it is always good to notice if you are habitually doing one or the other Interestingly Shorinji Kempo say ‘as the degree of training increases, Goho and Juho progress toward becoming a single body of techniques.’ Hopefully as we become more experienced as improvisers it also becomes imperceptible (at least to an audience) what role each improviser is playing.

5. Fudoshin - Immovable mind, immovable heart
In improv terms this really reminded me of the old adage of ‘don’t drop your shit.’ (Incidentally, the internet attributes this saying to Susan messing of The Annoyance in Chicago). Not ‘dropping your shit’ can be an incredibly powerful tool for making your character’s more grounded, believable and invested. We often talk about the importance of allowing your character to be changed but it can be equally important to stay with the offers you made at the top of your scene. If you do or say anything, the audience sees it and wants to believe that every move has a special significance to the scene. I will be blogging about ‘not dropping your shit’ again soon.

6.Zanshin - Awareness – of relaxed alertness
This idea seems to parallel well with the importance of listening in improv. So many listening excercises aren’t necessarily about hearing but about a deeper awareness of noticing every signal being given off in the scene. I stumbled across this saying; "When the battle is over, tighten your chin strap." This refers to constant awareness, preparedness for danger and readiness for action - I love this!

7.Shoshin - Beginners mind
This term is used also used in Zen Buddhism and encourages openness, eagerness and a lack of preconceptions. I hope this is especially relevant to very experienced improvisers. We are lucky enough to be striving for the holy grail of the perfect scene or show but no matter how long you do it, you’re never guaranteed to have cracked it. This impermanence is what makes improv especially exciting as an art form and also means that wherever we are on our improv path there is alsways a level playing field in the scene.

8. Shuhari - 3 stages of learning
Shuhari roughly translates to "first learn, then detach, and finally transcend." and is a way of thinking about how you learn a technique. The idea is that a person passes through three stages of gaining knowledge. In improv we are ultimately striving for a state of mindfulness when we are on stage but this can be hard at first. While there are many accepted rules for improv it is easy to ask the question ‘How can there be rules for something that is made up?’ There are some principles that will help and guide us in the beginning that we need to stick with it at first e.g avoiding questions, saying yes. Sometimes once an improviser has heard that you must say yes on stage it’s likely that they’ll delight in telling you when you haven’t. First off, it’s never cool to pass judgement on someone else’s work (unless they’ve asked you to!) but second of all once you’ve been improvising a while then I actively encourage you to break the rules.

9. Suki – timing
Suki is all about timing. In martial arts Suki refers to the moment a mistake is made by your opponent and provides your opportunity to strike. In improv these ‘mistakes’ are gifts and provide an opening for us to discover what is unusual and interesting about the scene. If a word is stumbled over for example then in improv this could be the invention of a whole new word. From my tiny amount of research this also relates closely to the concept of ‘maai’ meaning the level of engagement with your partner - another concept which is essential for improv.

10. Kensho
Is described in Japanese martial arts as ‘an early glimpse into Enlightenment’ Carrying on with my mixed religion holy grail metaphor I would describe Kensho as the feeling you get in Improv after HAVING A GOOD SHOW!

Stayed tuned for part two when we do Aikido with a bunch of Improvisers and Improv with a bunch of Aikido masters and find out just how inaccurate this blog really is!

Game of the Brandon Gardner Workshop by JC

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 07:41:15 -0800

In our current era of information overload and instant everything it seems that our attention spans are getting shorter. Much of our mental processing gets taken up by screening out input in order to find the information that we need. Personally I find it extremely difficult to use a browser that does not have Adblock Plus installed - and also set to exterminate graphical ads! At the same time we are constantly seeking opportunities to connect with like minded people and engage in meaningful and beneficial ways. This requires us to focus our attention in the present moment and bring as much of ourselves to the conversation as possible. The balancing act we are called upon to carry off is one of staying sane under a barrage of stimuli while being open to the possibilities that arise through engaging fully with clients and colleagues. It is my experience that the practice of simple improvisation techniques support the resilience to forge through the clutter while retaining access to the flexibility and enthusiasm that opens doors. Listening is a basic requirement for human interaction and the bad news is that real listening seems to have become a lost and mysterious art practiced only by a select few. The good news is that it only takes us a split second to recognise that we are not listening to another person and use the awareness to jolt ourselves rapidly back into
the room. Opportunity appears and disappears on a moment to moment basis and the habit of relaxed alertness means we are here for more of the time and therefore for more opportunities.

I was fortunate to take part in a recent workshop where the Maydays were coached in one specific improvisation technique by the superb Brandon Gardner from the Upright Citizens Brigade. We focused on "Game of the Scene" which meant that we were identifying the patterns that naturally arise in conversations in order to consciously use them to construct satisfying comedic situations. The game of the scene is the structure that underlies such classics as the Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch or Four Candles by the Two Ronnies. By establishing a pattern that the audience recognises comedians let them in on the joke and simply have to repeat the pattern to elicit increasing doses of laughter. The audience is subconsciously saying "Do it again!" once they have spotted the pattern. The energy between the performers increases as more emotion is evoked by playing the game e.g. John Cleese's rising and unsuccessfully suppressed frustration at not being able to name a cheese that was in stock. To be able to spot and play the game of a scene while improvising the scene requires discipline, trust and practice and when it comes together we are truly in the flow with our stage partner, the audience and ourselves

When we are able to identify a pattern in a conversation in our regular or professional lives we have an invitation to increase rapport with the other person and to explore and to mutually create new possibilities which would otherwise be missed. By listening for the golden moment we can add our "yes" and start to build a foundation to support collaborative creativity and shared opportunity. Every manufactured material object in our physical environment began as an idea that the inventor said "yes" to and then got agreement from someone else. If you reach out and grasp a man made object right now then you are holding the result of an improvised string of "yes's" - including the "yes's" that lead you to be in the proximity of that object right now. Every project, team or company is the result is a string of "yes's" and continues to exist through an unfolding stream of "yes"

When we fully embrace, create and share success then we must embody the basic principles of improvisation Listen, Say Yes and Commit. Otherwise everything fizzles and dribbles away into the ether. So whether you are listening intently to a client talking about a big exciting new project or a knotty problem that needs solving or you are just having a laugh with a friend, then in that moment you are merging with the underlying miraculous creative pattern of the biggest game of the scene we know of - life on Earth. Enjoy the ride!

You cant get it wrong. Right?

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 08:16:27 -0800

by Joe Samuel

One of the joys of improvisation as a musician is the freedom from the ominous accuracy required when playing written music. So much store is set by striving for perfection when playing pieces that are written into the universal psyche of pianists across the centuries. How can I even dare to sit at my keyboard and bash out Bach’s Goldberg Variations unless I have at least a 99% hit rate on the notes? Our ears are trained by listening to the best players in the world calmly trotting out fiendish pieces on recordings. Often a few recordings spliced together just to make sure that there is not a missed semiquaver hidden somewhere.

So when I sit down and improvise, the imaginary audience of critics, eager to pounce on my every mistake vanishes, and I am left free to make my own mistakes and justify them however I like.  Does this mean that less accuracy is acceptable when improvising? How should I sit down and practise when I don’t know what it is I shall be playing? Here is the downside, for nothing in life is free.

Playing music from a score provides an instant measure for how much I am improving. It also provides a tangible structure to my practise, rewarding me at frequent intervals with mini-achievements. If there is a bar of music I cannot play, I need only break it down into its component parts, practise them and then stitch it back together.  The only prerequisite for improving is time.
If I come across a passage that is technically beyond me, I can work on exercises that train my fingers towards that skill, and then apply the skill to the piece. In this way I improve through a series of quantative tasks, enjoying hearing each step of progress.

Practising for improvising feels like a far fuzzier affair. After all, I cannot improvise beyond my own abilities, so I can only hope that by playing and improvising more, I will get better at improvising. There is a far less immediate sense of satisfaction, and far less sense of improving technically at what I am doing. So it is easy just to think that I will get better by osmosis.   This is a critical error of thinking.

I cannot learn a piece of music that is beyond me technically simply by trying to play it. I know this because I have tried it. I have to break it down and drill into the specific technical skills required. So it is with improvising, and not just musical improvising.  We have to run those skills, drills and exercises constantly, and also push our core skills to new places in order to improve at what we do on
stage. Practise is not just about repetition either. Research has shown that there is a zone we can achieve when practising where we learn extremely efficiently. Here is a quote from a New Scientist article on the subject:

“Flow typically accompanies these actions. It involves a Zen-like
feeling of intense concentration, with time seeming to stop as you focus
completely on the activity in hand. The experience crops up repeatedly when
experts describe what it feels like to be at the top of their game, and with
years of practice it becomes second nature to enter that
state”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328501.600-zap-your-brain-into-the-zone-fast-track-to-pure-focus.html

So we must create an atmosphere in rehearsal that allows us to focus completely on a specific skill, and we should be aware what
that skill is. If we are focussing on listening then we should warm up with listening exercises while thinking about listening.We are trying to adhere to this in our rehearsals with The Maydays at the moment. It is not easy when you have a room fool of talented people, and all you feel you want to do is scenes and songs and having fun.  It is not easy when we do not have a finely calibrated measure of skill levels. It is not easy when you
can’t see the results immediately.
But since when was the easy
stuff fun?

Improvise together more.

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 01:51:40 -0800

by Jules Munns.

I have just had the privilege of working with the excellent Katy Schutte and Phil Lunn on an Improvised Musical in a Weekend.

Ten improvisers worked together from Friday night until Sunday evening , then put on a improvised musical. And it was great. Really, really good, much better than I ever imagined. A lot of fun yes, but also, very high quality. Partly because Phil and Katy are great, but also I think, because doing the whole thing in a weekend avoided a Big Trap that companies fall into.

Improvisers often only rehearse once a week. For two hours, or maybe three. We meet in an evening, chat a bit about the next gig, then warm up in the way we always do, and then do the exercises or games we always do. And that leads to stasis. The brain loves to form habits, walking the same route, always shaving in the same order. It reduces the load on your brain, makes life easier. So the scenes end up with a similar quality. Not the same content, but the same texture, the same types of moves. It’s reassuring and cosy. Oh, yes, you think, that’s what rehearsal is going to be like, and surprise surprise it is. And that’s not very good for the quality of your work. Improvisation requires you to be constantly trying to do the things you are bad at, pushing the boundaries of what your brain can do. And that hurts. It feels risky, unpleasant and just plain upsetting sometimes. It’s not fun to be bad at things.

This weekend we had no time to normalise, get habitual, settle down. There was always another exercise, another scene coming. Shit, we have a show in five hours! We were feeling the burn. Several people mentioned a sensation of being on the verge of getting somewhere, being lost in the work, like what they wanted was just out of reach. I think that’s the feeling of neurons rewiring. Of the level of your skills being raised rather than merely reinforced.

Don’t get me wrong, a weekly rehearsal is normally necessary, and if you are aware of the dangers and specifically aim to combat them, as I hope and believe the Maydays do, it is very valuable. But if you’re a member of a group, try this:

Get everybody’s diaries out, look into the future and find a WHOLE WEEKEND where you can work together, ten till six. Even better, a bank holiday weekend, or a whole week. Make sure EVERYBODY is there for the WHOLE time, and then have dinner one of the evenings. Get an outside eye or a coach for it, and work. Do a whole day of something you never do, get lost and confused, feel like you never did a scene and have no freaking idea how to even start. You’ll be better at improvising after, I promise. (If you're not a member of a group, just grab four people whose improv you enjoy and do as above.)

And if you’re annoyed you missed this weekend (I have said it before, but it was awesome), don’t worry, The Maydays will be doing it again in the autumn, both in London and in Brighton.

Longform is not long, shortform is not short

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 07:18:24 -0800

by Alexis Gallagher

This post is for improvisers who haven't had the chance to visit Chicago. Please forgive me! I am going to risk wasting a few minutes of your time by telling you something that you probably already know. Why do I do this? Only because right now, somewhere out there, is an improviser who doesn't know this yet, and because this thing is easy to miss even though it's pretty fundamental. I was once that improviser, maybe you were too.

Here's the point: longform is not about being long and shortform is not about being short.

You can have a longform show that lasts five minutes, and you can have a shortform show that lasts an hour. I've seen both. Length is not only incidental, it is completely irrelevant.

Then why is it called longform? The truth is, that's an accidental and misleading name. It is a lot like if we called Shakespeare's sonnets not "sonnets" but "ten-line poems", and the poems of ee cummings not "free verse" but "poems that are longer or shorter than ten-lines". It misses the point.

Longform is not narrative, shortform is not non-narrative

Here is another thing it's not about: narrative. Longform does not mean "all my scenes add up to make a long story".

Let's say you're in a shortform troupe. Let's say your troupe is great at improvising funny scenes that fit various shortform games.

Now you get bored and want to do a show where you spend an hour telling a story (perhaps in a genre, perhaps showcasing your special skills with singing, or acrobatics, or puppets, or whatever). So you sit down and think about how every story has parts X, Y, Z, etc. (maybe: hero, villain, love interest, etc.). Then you outline a loose sequence of scenes that will use all those parts.

And you perform your show, and it's awesome. Congratulations! You've just made a one hour shortform show, with a narrative. I have also done this. It can be great fun!

And when I did this, my troupe and I all thought it was "longform". Why? Basically, because we didn't know any better. Because we were in Boston, where there was no longform for any of us to see. Because what we were doing had a "long" story and that's what the word sounded like. Because -- although we didn't know what longform was -- we had the vague idea that it was something ambitious and a bit pretentious (which appealed to some of us and annoyed others) and it must be longer, so this must be it, right?

Longform is not the absence of games, shortform is not the presence of games

Here's the thing about my old college troupe's attempt at longform.

Although we weren't playing our old shortform games, our "longform" show ended up having exactly same feel as our shortform show. The scenes had a lot of random, whacky elements. They had a lot of quick thinking to make all the elements fit. They were spirited and fun. They were fast. They communicated a vague undercurrent of "Oh my God can you believe we're doing this tricky thing!", which was fun for that kind of show and for that kind of audience. The scenes were not especially subtle, strong on naturalistic characters, or emotionally resonant, but that's no crime.

Still, this was puzzling. Although none of us had seen much longform, we had seen one show in New York (Burn Manhattan), and those performances were palpably more rich, varied, subtle, intelligent, and funny. We noticed they didn't use shortform games so we made a show without shortform games. But our show was nothing like theirs, because we didn't realize that the difference was much more radical -- that longform is not the absence of games. In fact, they were playing games at a deeper level that we did not even know how to recognize.

I have since realized that our "longform show" was not unusual. It is exactly the show you get whenever a group of shortform improvisers try to do longform, based only on their knowledge of the definition of the English word "long". Since then, I have seen this show over and over again.

Open-form vs closed-form

What is longform? Longform is a tradition of performance improv, originating and most deeply rooted in Chicago, USA, defined mostly under Del Close, which is now also practiced in other cities as well (e.g., New York, Los Angeles).

What is it like? How does it work? Really, it's a loose word that covers a multitude of sins, but if I could go back in time and save my earlier self some confusion I would say that it should really be called open-form and shortform should be called closed-form.

In shortform (closed-form), you know before a scene begins something about its structure. In longform (open-form), you are improvising the essential structure of the scene while in the scene. You are also improvising the structure of the show itself. Notice there are two points here -- improvising the scene (in-the-scene), and improvising the show (between-the-scenes).

It is obvious that longformers improvise the show itself, often using a well-known format like the Harold, or an Armando, or whatever. Because it is obvious, people fixate on this. This is a shame. The format is the easy part. It takes five minutes and a pint of beer to invent a decent format. (Here's seven for free: improvise a movie! no, a tv channel! no, a musical! no, something where time goes backwards! no, something where every character has a second character who speaks their inner thoughts! no, something where everyone's trapped in a room! no, something where no one can step in the same room twice! etc. etc.) Formats are superficial, and a good format does not redeem bad scenes.

What more usefully distinguishes great longform from other traditions of improv -- and as an art-form in general, for my money -- is the improvising in-the-scene. Among other things, longform teaches a discipline of deep listening and identifying and developing implicit patterns in scenes, a discipline which allow you to create deep, funny, and interesting work that (as far as I know) cannot be improvised with other methods.

Describing how it works takes a lot more than a paragraph, so I'll save that for another day. But the point is, it's your technique within the scene that determines if what you are doing is longform. Of course, if someone is really good, you might not even recognise that they have a technique…

Longform conquers the world?

Why define longform based on its roots in Chicago? Because that's just the fact of the matter. That's where it started, that's where they do it best. Or maybe it would be better to say, "longform" is just the name for this thing that came out of Chicago.

Can you do longform outside of Chicago? Well, can you play Jazz outside of New Orleans? Yes, obviously! Duh!

But at the same time, you may be swimming upstream. For instance, Keith Johnstone has written brilliant books about improvisation. His work has shaped the tradition of improv in England and Europe. That is a different tradition. Does he use the word "longform" anywhere in his landmark book Impro? If not, why would you think that tradition has anything to do with longform?

Can you play Jazz outside of New Orleans? Yes. But what if the year is 1935, and you're living in Moscow, and you're the only Jazz musician in the city? It would be hard. This is despite the fact that Moscow surely had some amazing musicians in 1935. Jazz is not just what you get when a musician looks up the word "jazz" in the dictionary and reads that it probably comes from the word "jasm" and meant something like "spirit" or "vigor" and therefore all he needs to do is play with spirit. No. It's a specific artistic tradition, coming from a specific place, with a non-trivial depth and history to it, and to learn it you need to work closely with people who know it.

How to do this? If you live in the UK, of course, then I would recommend signing up for a Maydays course. :)

The C Word..

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 07:39:53 -0800

by Liz Peters.

Commitment.

Ooh that terrifying word. Conjuring up images of rings, mortgages, nooses and shackles. Very few words can elicit such a tensing of the shoulders, a sharpening of the senses as you prepare for fight or flight. Commitment means duties and limitations. It means being trapped by your decisions and watching helplessly as life’s unexpected opportunities skip gaily by, flicking their hair in the sunshine and laughing as you slowly rot in your chosen pit of responsibility.

I’m not keen on making commitments, big or small. Whether that is buying a flat or choosing between a blueberry or a chocolate muffin. I spend hours agonising over all the possible outcomes, dithering, analysing, sweating it out. My mind creates a parallel life full of ‘what ifs’ and regrets which can lead to a complete paralysis of judgement. So I don’t take any decisions lightly and I am amazed that other people can do. Celebrity marriages that last twenty minutes baffle me and you will notice, fact fans, that I never say yes to a facebook invitation unless I am 100% certain that I will definitely do it (except for Carly’s birthday but that was out of my hands. Sorry Carly.) To me, the click is a commitment made.

I love life and I want to eek every last molecule of joy and experience out of it. To commit to something feels like you are having to say NO to many other things but it turns out I may well be wrong on this. Yes. That’s right. I may be wrong. Commitment, it seems, is the biggest fattest YES you can make. Far from putting you in a cage, making a commitment gives you freedom.

I made a major decision the other day. Just like that. And now I’ve committed it is such a relief. Now, instead of picking over the canapés of possibility and uncertainty, I can tuck into the juicy steak of YES and all the other delicious and definite opportunities that presents. I can stop assessing the options and get down to it.

The improv mantra is Listen, Say Yes and Commit.
Making quick decisions and sticking to them is what you have to do on stage all the time. Committing to your choices makes everything so much easier. It trims away the peripherals and gives you a direction. It gives you the freedom to stop searching and start doing. If you do nothing else just make a choice and go with it. The audience will thank you for it and so will your fellow improvisers. Splashing around in a sea of ‘maybes’ can be fun for a while but eventually you need something to hold on to, otherwise you’ll drown.

So actually commitment isn’t such a terrifying monster after all. Used wisely (and let’s be clear I’m not suggesting wildly fleeing off to Vegas with Jezza from down the pub!) commitment is your saviour.

Like the time I ended up suddenly being in a song about a man with big balls who loved meat.
I had given myself a ridiculous character and I didn’t know what I was doing. I could have got scared and backed away but instead I thought ‘Oh I’m here, I’m doing this, well I’ll do it the best I can. I’ll commit to having the biggest balls I can and I’ll love meat as much possible because this is what is happening.’ And I did.
And the audience cheered.
And I was happy.

The 7 Deadly Improv Sins #1 - Denial

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 07:07:13 -0800

by Jason Blackwater

During a car discussion to Yorkshire...I think it was Yorkshire...it was a few months ago now and everything north of the Hollingbury turn off of the A23 feels like coal mine country to me, such is my soft southern-ness...it might also have been back from Yorkshire, or wherever it was...but all of this is beside the point. During a car discussion to, or from, somewhere outside of East Sussex, a few of us Maydays came up with the concept of the Seven Deadly Sins of Improv.

We're all pretty much firm believers that there aren't any "rules" in improv, no hard and fast dos and don'ts, and any that are suggested become fragile as you mature into the art. This makes the term 'sin' so helpful. A sin is a guideline to avoid excess. Gluttony is a sin by Christian standards but that's not to say you can't pig out occasionally. These guidelines say that too much of any of these things will put you in bad stead later on, whether it be with the dude in the clouds or your fellow improvisers.

One of the first of the "rules" that occasionally get doled out is "say "yes"" and this is a good rule. It helps new improvisers to avoid denial. But saying "yes" does not rule out saying "no".

"Will you marry me?"
"Yes"
"brilliant. Just what I was hoping you would say"
"shall we get married then?"

Cue a scene talking about a wedding that will happen some time in the future, or another talking about how great it is that these two people are going to get married some time in the future.

"Will you marry me?"
"no, don't want to"

Cue a scene that is happening now between a character dealing with the sudden crushing disappointment that they aren't going to marry their love and another character suddenly relieved they get all of their annoyances about their partner off their chest.

These, of course, aren't inevitable occurrences in either scenario but one, for me at least, is certainly a more interesting scene.

So what do we mean when we say "say "yes"" if it's not necessarily saying "yes"?

Saying "yes" is about accepting the reality of the scene as it's presented and playing within that set of circumstances. Denial is the opposite. At the point at which your scene partner asks you to marry them you can answer with a positive response as that improv book or teacher so heartily suggested you to but that's not all you can do. You can open up your choices by merely accepting that someone has asked you to marry them and that you owe them a response appropriate for the question.

All of these are appropriate responses without saying yes:

"Dad! stop kidding around"
"No, you smell"
"I'll have to ask my husband but I'm pretty sure he'll be fine with it"
"WHAAAAAAATTTTTTTT?????????!!!!!!!!"

They all serve a scene that is built on nothing but the phrase "will you marry me?" but, of course would be wholly inappropriate if it's evident you're partner has other ideas and needs you to follow them. If you're on an even keel, however, trust your partner to go along with you. They'll probably thank you for giving them something to work with.

Do you agree?

Yes.

Improvisation and Presence

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 09:34:59 -0800

By John Cremer

As an experienced performer and trainer I condense the underlying value of practicing improvisation to one word – presence. In order to improvise well one acquires and develops a specific set of skills. This skill set greatly enhances personal effectiveness through an ever deepening level of presence in the here and now.

When people first encounter improvisation either through watching a performance or being trained in the basic skills there is an electric excitement in the room. The mystery unfolds moment to moment and one’s attention is fully engaged. New possibilities open up and different levels of creativity become available, some of these are brand new, others may have been buried since childhood. Confidence levels raise and there is often a burning desire to learn more. This is because we come into contact with some more alive and immediate parts of our inner self than we normally experience in day to day life.

For the duration of an improvisation session the auto pilot is switched off, we feel invigorated, focused and courageous.

This level and flavour of engagement has been sorely absent from workplaces for decades. Progressive companies are recognising that they always get mediocre results from employees who show up physically at work without actually “being there” mentally and emotionally. One of the lasting benefits of bringing improvisation skills into the workplace is that they evoke the part of us that wants to “be here” By improvising, laughing, engaging and collaborating together a team begins to excel. It only takes a few moments to revisit a basic improvisation exercise or roll out a new one and the enthusiasm is back in the room. Repeated practice of improvisation skills will quickly reveal the team members who are active saboteurs or energy drains. In any organisation it is the people are the greatest resource and 5 fully engaged people deliver far greater value than 10 semi engaged people (they also cost less in wages and take fewer sick leaves!) Increased presence in team members adds value exponentially as improvisation has at its core the practice of collaboration. When a team is made up of members who are adding positive energy, are really listening and contributing enthusiastically the results quickly follow.