Austin Improv

One of my students was talking in my Improv Basics class about a moment in the Give & Take exercise we were doing when the moves he was making felt like the only possible moves, as if he were not making a choice.

Aren't those moments lovely??!

Yes. Let's revel in those moments when improv is like the end of the tube at Schlitterbahn woooooooooooooooossssshhhhhhhh, it's just happening and you're doing it.

jillybee72 wrote:... he was making felt like the only possible moves, as if he were not making a choice.

Yes. Let's revel in those moments when improv is like the end of the tube at Schlitterbahn woooooooooooooooossssshhhhhhhh, it's just happening and you're doing it.

Hmmm... my mother always used this analogy in referring to labor and childbirth.

free will is an illusion. we're all just puppets in the shadowplay. death is our only curtain call.

FUN!!!

mpbrockman wrote:Hmmm... my mother always used this analogy in referring to labor and childbirth.

Mama Brockman really knows how to ruin a trip to Schlitterbahn.

I still don't have many of those moments. I hope to have more.

i can't say it's ever felt like that to me. i'll have moments where it feels like the momentum is carrying me down certain channels, but i still perceive the other forks in the road that could have been taken (and sometimes for fun, i nudge myself towards one of those just to see what will happen. ). so...less water slide, more plinko. lol!

It happens a lot in individual scenes, when there's the "correct" plot development or line or character entrance that makes the whole scene click. If I'm watching it, I feel this anticipation—hoping to God that the people onstage are seeing it in the same way the audience is—and then an amazing fitting-the-last-puzzle-piece satisfaction when it actually happens.

Brad Hawkins wrote:I still don't have many of those moments. I hope to have more.

first, you'll have to get pregnant...

Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell wrote:i can't say it's ever felt like that to me. i'll have moments where it feels like the momentum is carrying me down certain channels, but i still perceive the other forks in the road that could have been taken...!

This makes me wonder a bit. When I am doing music I can see multiple paths at any given moment. When I'm improvising as an actor (which I seem to be doing more of lately (aaaaugh ), I'm rarely able to see more than one or two. I can't think that far ahead, so I just say/sing whatever pops into my head

So - do beginners have it easier?

To be fair, I've been watching y'all for years, so I'm not a complete alien to the process, but it does make me wonder when I compare the two roles.

mpbrockman wrote:

Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell wrote:i can't say it's ever felt like that to me. i'll have moments where it feels like the momentum is carrying me down certain channels, but i still perceive the other forks in the road that could have been taken...!

This makes me wonder a bit. When I am doing music I can see multiple paths at any given moment. When I'm improvising as an actor (which I seem to be doing more of lately (aaaaugh ), I'm rarely able to see more than one or two. I can't think that far ahead, so I just say/sing whatever pops into my head

So - do beginners have it easier?

To be fair, I've been watching y'all for years, so I'm not a complete alien to the process, but it does make me wonder when I compare the two roles.

there's an old (i believe) Zen saying (and i may have quoted it before), that the beginner sees the mountains as just mountains, the rivers as just rivers and the trees as just trees. once he was walked the path for a time, he sees the mountains as more than mountains, the rivers as more than rivers and the trees as much more than trees. when he has mastered the path, the mountains are mountains, the rivers are rivers and the trees are trees.

so when we start out in improv, we don't know "right" and "wrong" so we just go on instinct and it leads us so well that sometimes we feel like there was no other choice that could have been made. once we've studied and trained and performed, we start to understand the beauty and complexity of the form better and how we can manipulate it. which carries the flip side of making us consciously aware of the choices we're making, so it becomes easier to get stuck in our heads (hi!). but as we learn and practice even more, we understand the beauty and SIMPLICITY of the form even better and come back to a place where we trust our instincts and sense of play...still perceiving everything we have learned and trained, but allowing it to inform and influence rather than dictate.

at least i hope this is the case, because it's something i've glimpsed in others and felt like i've brushed up against myself and i'd love to get there more often.