Improvisation 3

It`s been already 3 weeks since we started working on impro. As we do it on Thursday session, there we have just couple of hours of playing improvisational games. For the start we did warm up: tongue twisters, dancing, shaking our heads, etc. I would say that we could do it every morning as it is very helpful. I tried to woke up earlier to do warm up but there is always just not enough time. It only takes 10 minutes and doing warm up all together is much more fun than doing it alone.

Secondly, we began with easy game: Rob put his glasses` case on the floor and we need to create a few seconds scene, changing the subject of the glasses` case to everything apart glasses. For instance, Matthew came up with idea of using it as TV remoter, whilst Isabella used it as a shot gun and shouted out EVERYONE GET DOWN! It is a good exercise to begin the day with, because it is funny and energetic.

Later on, Rob divided us into two groups: A and B. So A`s were standing in a circle facing outwards then B`s stood in front A`s. The main task for A`s was to think of a short opening line. It could be anything. As I was A, because A is for Amber, my opening line was `You forgot to bring my cookies?` and in my observation almost everyone suggested me another pack of cookies and apologized. This suggests that it is a general opinion of everyone. I would say it just a certain way of politeness that everyone is used to do. Of course, there were some blocking like `no, you didn`t ask me to bring cookies, you asked Rebecca(name is made up as I don`t remember what my partner exactly said). The purpose of this game is just go for it, no matter what the opening line is. It might even be `You`ve got ice cream on your hair, should we eat it?`. The answer always has to be positive. And it is important to remember that attacking other actor is not acceptable as gives just cheap laughs.

Another exercise we done Thursday morning was to get into pairs and create a short, improvised piece related to touching themes such as

• abuse
• bullying 
• FMG
• self-harm 

My partner was Ryan and we chose to work on bullying theme. Ryan pretend to be a bully and I was the one being bullied. I quickly picked up some people`s weaknesses that is often associated with bullying: stuttering, being obsessed about the bully, giving everything to him, worshipping Ryan, forgetting about myself and my needs. I have seen these things happening in lots of teenage movies.

I tried to think of how would I feel if that happened in real life. Basically, I tried to use Stanislavki`s technique Magic If. When we started throwing out our ideas I knew that Ryan does not mean what he says, it just because of the theme we chose. You picked at me, which helped to get under the skin and understand that being bullied people have serious problems.