Putting the word in your body

Last Friday, we did a traditional Friday at the Improv session. I taught them What are you doing? A game that frustrates, but keeps them involved whether they are on stage or observing.

This week, I'm starting with movement and using words from their individual poems. We will get to the group poems at some point this week.

We started today with the basic Balancing the Space exercise, one of the greatest gifts given to me by the folks in New World Performance Laboratory.

We move in the space, taking care to keep it balanced. Actors must stay constantly aware in order to move into the next available empty space. As each actor moves, another empty space opens up. Vision and hearing become heightened as one works to achieve the balance.

Then we move into responding to words in oppositional pairs: Crooked vs Straight; Slow vs Fast, Wide vs Narrow, Low vs Tall and so on. After exploring the extremes, we find the steps from slowest to fastest or most crooked to straightest, using a scale of numbers from one to ten make the adjustments.

Next I asked them to find one word from their individual poems, and create a walk movement pattern that fits the word. They all balance the space, working their words. We then play follow the leader, taking turns to reveal the individual word patterns and allow everybody to try them on for size.

Each student then shows her/his individual movement before the class and we try to guess the word. After all the words are revealed, we finally bring sound into the space by playing Word Tennis. In pairs, they toss one of the words back and forth, using their movement pattern to "toss" the word to their partner. For example, the actor with "backward" as a word, propels it with a flick of her hip with back to partner. The actors are exploring sound shapes and velocities without prompting. It comes out of the word. No one appears shy or scared. Projection happens without prompting.

This was a good class today!