Kerry Gibson
13/09/06
Induction assignment: Improvising a performance
Over the past three days we have been exploring the rules and techniques of improvisation and its effectiveness to ourselves and other actors. We achieved this by following a rehearsal process, taking notes and using our knowledge from this to create a performance.
Our rehearsal process consisted of several games to help us with our own techniques and understanding of improvisation. These games included the narrative game: coming up with a story involving a specific object on the spot and then reincorporating that story to include another person’s. This game then developed into this is not a … it’s a…. pretending this object is something totally different to what it really is and telling a story about it. The effectiveness of these games were that I learnt to develop my imagination, that you can never get anything wrong with improvisation, any idea is fine it doesn’t have to be original because you can then use other peoples ideas to develop it into something better and more detailed. Another game we played involved acting out a specific job whilst the rest of the group tried to guess it, this game was effective because I learnt that detail is extremely important so that the audience and other performers know what you are doing because if you know what the other performer is doing you are more likely to trust them. We then played the freeze frame game where someone takes the place of one person in an improvisation by shouting freeze and changing the routine. The effectiveness of this game was that I learnt not to block a fellow performer so that they don’t know what to say and start feeling uncomfortable which is an important rule of improvisation an example of blocking is one actor saying ‘Would you like to go to the pictures with me today?’ and the other replying ‘No’ because it means actor number one can not continue the conversation topic and may not be able to think of a reply making her feel uncomfortable. I also learnt from this game that breaking the routine is very important in improvisation otherwise the audience may become bored, give and take is very important you should not make someone feel uncomfortable on stage and you should be able to trust each other because it makes it easier to perform. This game was also effective because it gave me the opportunity to see how fast I can think on the spot and test my imagination. Another game we used to achieve this was the ABC game where we had to improvise using each letter of the alphabet. These games were also effective because they also showed me you always need to know your location to give the performance justification.
