Podcast about the AIN World Conference 2013 with Thomas Jäkel – part 2 (in German)

This is the second part of my interview with Thomas Jäkel from Impro-News about the AIN World Conference, which took part in Berlin from 2nd October 2013 – 5th October 2013 (the first part you can find here; AIN btw. meains “Applied Improvisation Network”). The interview is in German.

In this second part, we were looking in more detail at the workshop offering, our experiences with it and what improv has to with politics and how it change the world for the better. And, just like the last time, the podcast is avaialble as audio file (see below) and as video on YouTube (both in German). Have fun!

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Podcast about the AIN World Conference 2013 with Thomas Jäkel – part 1 (in German)

From 2nd October 2013 – 5th October 2013, the AIN World Conference 2013 took place in the Berlin “Kalkscheune”. AIN stands for “Applied Improvisation Network” and is a network of professional improvisors who gathered here to exchange about how “improv” can be used in professional contexts. As a person interested in this field, I had bought a ticket for the conference very early on, and Thomas Jäkel from Theater Ohne Probe was visiting the conference, too.
A week later, we sat together to talk about our experiences at, with and during the conference. The result you can hear in th is podcast, or watch on YouTube (both in German)!

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iO European one-week summer intensive in London

iO stands for “improv Olympics” and is the name of one of the world’s most famous improv institutions (theatre & school) from Chicago, funded 1981 by Charna Halpern and Del Close. Every year in summer, the iO in Chicago is hosting a five weeks long improv class (the so called “iO Five Week Summer Intensive“, in which my friend macro actually took part this year – more info about this from this Podcast, in German). There’s the snag: as a normal employee, you hardly ever get five weeks off in a row. Plus, the costs for the flight, accommodation and course fee make the Five Week Summer Intensive an expensive adventure. Hence, the people from the iO in Chicago thought about offering a “stripped down” version of the Summer Intensive in Europe, more precisely, in London! When I heard about that, I didn’t hesitate for very much longer and subscribed for the course immediately, attached a short holiday with my boyfriend ahead of the course and there you go. On 29th August, I started my trip to London, and on the 8th September the first iO European One Week Summer Intensive officially started with a Meet & Greet in the “Nursery Theater” in London. This evening, we should see a wonderful Armando, starring Charna Halpern herself in the role of the Armando, whose monologues changed my life sustainably. Furthermore, there was a “Glitch“, an awesome improvised puppet show, followed by a short introduction of the five trainers (Coleen Doyle, Lindsay Hailey, Tara DeFrancisco, Jet Eveleth and Charna Halpern herself).

The next morning, the workshops started (five workshops with ca. 20 participants each). I was in the awesome position to call the fabulous Colleen Doyle my teacher for the coming five days (although I’m sure that none of the other four ladies is ranking behind her in any way and any regard). The idea of the course was, to roughly cover in one week what’s usually taught in five weeks during the Summer Intensives in Chicago – quite an ambitious target! However, at the end of the week, my group was actually able to bring a (structured) Harold on stage. I want to add that my group, consisting of participants from Germany, Austria, Finland, Denmark, Hungary, USA and (of course), the UK was absolutely amazing!

On Monday, we started with simple exercises around “acceptance”. Since everybody in the group had at least two years of experience in improv, we shortened the part about acceptance and started to look into “character” already on Monday by e.g. defining characters – in groups – followed by exercises like “Cocktail Party” with a focus on how the focus is shifted between the groups on stage. We continued to work on the character topic on Tuesday with exercises like “speaking out of the same mouth” or “pyramid“. This time, the focus was very clearly on defining (particularly the other) characters, and to stick to your choices in order to avoid ambiguity (“be as specific as possible!”). Because being clear on stage creates safety, both for yourself and your fellow players.

It was on Wednesday when we did some of the exercises that stuck best in my memory. The focus in our group was now on the topic “group mind”, and we did a wonderful group exercise which I have named “kaleidoscope” (the English name was “Busby Berkley” or something similar), as well as another exercise in which we created objects on stage (“Oh Mighty Isis”). Here, the task was, to add on the things that were already there. The afternoon passed by doing an exercise with the beautiful name “Good Morning, Fuckos”, which was also about establishing physical spaces. We finished that day with “the Porch Exercise” (absolutely terrific, both from a player’s and a viewer’s point of view), in which 5 – 6 players defined turn-by-turn who they are, where they are and what all of this is actually about via a simple activity that they did with their hands. I don’t want to go into too much detail here on the single exercises. If you’re interested in this, I’m happy if you get in touch with me for further details!

The Thursday went under the headline of “scene work”. Here, too, the focus was to give each other names and to use names instead of pronouns (he, she, it). And to avoid ambiguity even further, we where engaged to again make choices: Who is this character to me? What is he or she really saying to me? And how does that make me feel? We started with short 2-person, three line scenes. Here, the second line was supposed to define EVERYTHING (the first line is more or less just a blind offer), and the third line is then an emotional reaction on the second line. The rest of the day we spent on more 2-person scenes, though this time longer ones that really had to be about something (inspired by the shows of TJ & Dave from Chicago). That day, I didn’t see one scene in our group that was not in any way awesome, funny, moving or a combination of those. In fact, one scene was so emotionally dense that it made me cry.

The final day (Friday) went a bit different than originally planned: As Charna had her entire purse – including passport, money and credit cards – being stolen on Thursday night, the trainers decided to merge all workshop groups together in the afternoon to play Harolds in the Nursery Theater, so that they could support Charna with the paperwork. The morning went by bringing the first Harolds on stage, and – what shall I say? – all three Harolds played in my group where fantastic! Likewise were the Armandos and Harolds played in the Nursery during the afternoon! Ahead of which there was a collective warm-up with ca. 70 players, instructed by Tara DeFrancisco. Since we had typical British weather on that day (it was raining cats and dogs), only three out of the originally five workshop groups gathered in the Nursery Theatre, and still, it worked out great to bring something on stage with the players from the other two groups.

During the week there were at least two shows to see every evening besides the workshops that took part during the day. Here, too, I watched some real pearls (my personal highlight: The “Confessions Show” from Brighton group “The Maydays“). Between the end of the workshop and the shows, a big part of my group regularly found itself in the pub “The Miller” that was attached to our rehearsal space, where we were reviewing the previous workshop day or talking about improv in general. Some of the most inspiring chats during that week I had here. During lunch time, we had numerous possibilities to cater for us, and I want to particularly emphasize the Borough Market with its variety of different food stalls.

All in all, the iO One-Week European Summer Intensive was an absolutely amazing experience for me that I would really recommend, and I’m already considering going there again next year. What, most of all, impressed me was the spirit in which improv is taught in Chicago: Let’s treat each other as geniuses, poets and artists! Because only if we treat each other like that, we’re actually going to become it!

Translation by: Claudia Hoppe

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Podcast No. 6 – Interview with Marc from “Die Unverhofften” (in German)

Am heutigen Wahlsonntag habe ich mir Marc von der Berliner Impro-Gruppe “die Unverhofften” als Gesprächsgast in mein kleines Home-Studio eingeladen. Marc erzählt uns, wie lange es die Unverhofften gibt, wie lange er Impro macht und was es mit dem Superhelden-Format seiner Gruppe auf sich hat. Viel Spaß beim Reinhören!
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The low status is the new high status

If you ask people starting to play improv whether they feel more comfortable in the high or the low status, most of them have a clear preference for one of them. When confronted with this question earlier, I felt a slight tendency towards the low status, and I constantly admonished myself for this, yes sometimes I even hated myself for that! Respectively I declared it my grim goal that the high status eventually had to feel “natural” to me (KINDLY!!). In the meantime though, working as a trainer myself, I see that improvisors who claim to intuitively feel more comfortable in the high status, often have a harder time in playing improv, because they’re not “natives” in drawing their attention to others. For sure, this is no rule of thumb, meaning that you can automatically conclude “Every improvisor who intuitively feels closer to the low status, is the better improvisor” – holy shit, definitely not!

Nevertheless, I think that the “typical low status player” often has a gift which “typical high status players” have to work on even more: The thoughtfulness of others and their sensitivities! Persons who tend to feel themselves a little bit “lower” than others in real life, often observe these others quite carefully to find their way around, and they have a knack for their needs. And in my opinion, exactly that is a core competency of a good improvisor: The attention for the fellow players and what they currently need! Insofar, I don’t necessarily consider it as a deficit any more if you realize “Oh, I actually feel more close to the low status than to the high status.” At least for playing improv, this can be a powerful gift! And the fact itsef does not mean that you shouldn’t be working on yourself, improving yourself. Of course it is – for a good show and also for the personal development – important, not to focus solely on one status in your roles, but also strive to perform the other status in a way that it feels good and natural to you! Therefore, my dear low status players: If you notice this gift in yourself, don’t take a rest on it, but strive for higher! Otherwise, it can happen to you that you become one of the extremes of the “bad improvisor”, whom I described in my first podcast (in German), the hesitant improvisor.

However, enjoy that it might be easier for you in this regard than for your fellow high status colleagues, as they yet have to learn this “pay-atthention-to-the-other-and-respond-to-him” – and I have couple of examples of improvisors in mind, who haven’t figured that out until now, and who are actually more playing their solo thing on stage than creating something together with others. I find it very difficult to play with such guys, and I don’t really enjoy watching them either, as they’re often behaving like Rambo on stage.

Addition 27.09.2013
During my stay in London for the iO European Summer Intensive this month, I have talked to another participant quite exhaustively about the topic of “status”, and I had a lot of insights from these discussions: It’s not at all about one status being better or worse than the other, or even morally superiour (although I still have the impression that in our current, western society a high status behaviour is – in terms of social recognition – more attractive and appealing, and therefore more desirable for many of us). As a behaviour, both high and low status serve as a tool to manipulate other people. The low status by sending a signal of “Don’t hurt me! I’m not worth getting hurt!” and the high status by showing a dominant behaviour that’s meant to make others do what s/he wants (“demonstrating power”). Both strategies are defensive and serve the purpose of protecting one’s personality, and usually, behind that is fear (e.g. of being hurt, or of not finding the right place in the pecking order). What I was wondering in this regard was: How can you break out of that pattern? And above all: How can you achieve that others don’t show that kind of defenisve behaviour (high or low status) towards you? The answer for me is: being open. Showing empathy. Signalize them, that there’s no reason for being afraid. And, from my point of view, especially improv theater is the attempt to overcome these protective mechanisms, let go of the fear and open yourself up.

Translation by: Claudia Hoppe

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Celebrating the “Both … and …”

At the moment, I have a slight aversion against “This is how it is!” or “This is how you have to do it!” kind of statements, because they imply that there is exactly one way of doing things. But I don’t think that this is the case, in fact, there are usually several ways of doing things. And sometimes, even paradigms that apparently contradict themselves can be valid at the same time. A couple of examples from the wonderful world of improv:

Asking for suggestions: Should you take the first one you hear, or should you ask for a couple and then decide for one? I say: Both!
How you hold it to ask for suggestions – it doesn’t matter. Why should you take the first suggestion you hear if it doesn’t inspire you? On the other hand: Are we really still improvising if we gather a large bunch of suggestions beforehand and then pick the one that we like best? I say: Yes! Of course we’re still improvising! (A well-known German improvisor and facilitator, Ralf Schmitt, once said in a workshop: “Those guys are improvisers, actually, they should not need any suggestion at all, they should be able to play any way!”; in the same way, I consider the request for suggestions mainly as a means to get in touch with the audience, to communicate – and not so much as an indispensable part of improv theatre.) Why always take the very first suggestion like “Red – violin – hammer”? But on the other hand: Why not? All in all, I think everybody should handle this in the way he or she is most comfortable with! And that can even change during a show, especially if the hosting is shared between several people – the first one takes the first suggestion, while the other one prefers to ask for a couple of suggestions to select the one he or she likes best. Why not!

Are there things like “levels” (beginners, intermediate, advanced) in improv, or is it all the same? I say: Both is correct!
Berlin has a very famous trainer and improvisor (Deniz Döhler) who believes that there are no levels in improv. When I did a course with Deniz two years ago, I was a bit upset about this attitude, because I felt my skills / development not acknowledged. Since I’m teaching myself, though, I understand, what he means and I agree with him to some extend: the problems that people in my class struggle with are basically the same that a lot people in my improv group struggle with (usually, it’s the continuous attempt to control the events); and at the same time, I see that there are indeed certain skill-levels. Of course, a beginners class can perform certain Theatre Sports games just as good and funny as a group of professional players. Still, I think there is a point in dividing players according to their skill levels, for several reasons: 1. I guess there are a couple of people who feel the same way about that topic that I did: they simply feel better when it’s recognized that they’re doing something for quite a while already compared to others, which implies that they in some way have a higher skill-level; 2. Over time, improvisors develop a kind of routine or “stage-toughness”, which is something beginners often do not yet have; this routine allows them, to react more freely and spontaneously in certain situations (and this has nothing to do with their actual level of skills); 3. improvisors who have been improvising for some time know more “tricks” that they can refer back to, because they know what’s going to work and what’s not; 4. improvisors who’re doing improv for some time have had more time to internalize certain basic rules, e.g. “Let your partner shine”, or even not to be discouraged by their mistakes. Nevertheless: As far as I can see, the intermediate level, and properly even the “advanced” players, are struggling with the same topics as everybody who starts playing improv. In scope of a course system like many improv teaching groups offer it, the difference between those is not clear to me, except for the fact that the ones with the higher level have trained for a longer time already, so that you don’t have to explain certain basics again. Still, it’s giving the players a better feeling if they have the impression to go through some kind of evolution and to become better or “more advanced” – and I think, this is good!  The real differences though in the performance level cannot be captured in a course system, because they are hard to verify (and I think it’s more a mater of attitudes than a matter of skills).

Silliness vs. seriousness: Shall the maxim of playing improv be being silly or rather being serious? I say: Both!
A big appeal of improv theatre at least for me is the silliness and sometimes childlike playfulness. So why give up on that asset for a more serious way of playing? On the other hand: If rehearsals are drifting apart solely into silliness and fooling around, I feel empty afterwards. I’m missing the seriousness, the “substance”. Still, I would not sacrifice the silliness and playfulness for seriousness! I think you can be serious in playing improv, and still be easy, playful and silly. The seriousness here is on a different level than the silliness: If you take what you’re doing (playing improv) serious in itself (not too serious, though!!), and you have the vision of really telling something, really communicating something – then you can be as silly and playful in the implementation as you want! The other way round, though, is a rather bad combination, I think 🙂

And, as often, all of that can be applied to life in general: There is no black and white. There is no “This is right and this is wrong.” There is no “We are like that and you are everything we’re not”. Usually, it some kind of “both … and …”. So, if somebody is trying to sell you some kind of dichotomy, I’d rather be skeptical…

Translation by: Claudia Hoppe

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Wir gehen in die Verlängerung

In etwa einer Woche (am Montag, 19. August) ist es soweit: Unser Impro-Kurs geht in die Verlängerung! Diesmal gleich an zehn Abenden mit je 2,5 Stunden. Als Schwerpunkt haben Felix (von den Improbanden) und ich uns diesmal das Thema “Charaktere” sowie weiterhin das szenische Arbeiten gesetzt – ggf. ergänzen wir die Agenda zum Ende hin noch um das Thema “Storytelling”. Der Kurs richtet sich dieses Mal an Leute mit geringen Vorkenntnissen im Bereich Impro – aber auch an Neulinge, und wir werden den Anfang des Kurses einer kleinen Wiederholung der wichtigsten Impro-Grundlagen widmen, so dass auch jeder Impro-Neuling gut rein kommt. Wie vorher auch wird der Kurs jeweils Montag Abend ab 19 Uhr im Fliegenden Theater in Kreuzberg statt finden.

Weitere Infos findet Ihr unter www.improbanden.de/training. Es gibt noch einen freien Platz, wer sich anmelden möchte schreibt bitte eine E-Mail an info@improbanden.de.

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