sour, frustrated.

[arthursimone]

I really want improv people to start studying theatre and art theory in addition to the standard improv library that's always being discussed.

The Reenchantment of Art by Suzi Gablik is the best goddamn book I've ever read about the expectations of the modern art/entertainment world. It delivers a brutal, chilling critique while still positing a terrific, enriching alternative for the role of the artist.

Culture of Spontaneity: Improvisation and the Arts in Postwar America by Daniel Belgrad doesn't uncover the birth of comedy improv per se, but does trace how the spirit of improv opened doors to abstract expressionism, beat poetry, and jazz... good shit to know.

If you aren't familiar with the artists covered in these books, you will; the authors tell you all you need to know about them.


as far as theatre goes, I'd be interested to know how many Artaud fans are in the house...

[valetoile]

The surrealists used to play all sorts of delightful games like exquisite corpse, where someone starts a drawing, folds it over so only the last bit shows, someoe else continues.... But there were dozens of games, involving writing and drawing and doing whatever they could to shake things up and make them strange. I used to have a book of surrealist games. I think I may have loaned it to Madelinne many years ago- do you remember that, Madeline? When we made exquisite corpses? I still have the pictures.

[valetoile]

Surrealist games and procedures are intended to free words and images from the constraints of rational and discursive order, substituting chance and indeterminancy for premeditation and deliberation... In one particular and important respect Surrealist play is more like a kind of provocative magic. This is in its irrepresible propensity to the transformation of objects, behaviours and ideas. In this aspect of its proceedings Surrealism makes manifest its underlying political programme, its revolutionary intent.

- Mel Gooding

The book I had is tiny and delightful and called "A Book of Surrealist Games" by Alistair Brotchie ()

Here are some website with some surrealist games:
http://www.purselipsquarejaw.org/surrealist_games/
http://www.surrealistmovement-usa.org/pages/time.html

[ChrisTrew.Com]

Then a group of improvisers, having just seen the lecture, get up and do a series of scenes using/inspired by their new found knowledge.

Off-topic Warning!
This sounds fun. I love experimenting with the Armando format (see: The Lumberjack Match). It's one of my most funnest ones to play. I'm definitely looking forward to the monologist show we're going to put up at ColdTowne (eventually). All the Armando's I saw in Chicago were always so smoooooooooth and funny.