Applied Improvisation

Author:
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350014389
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
This collection of Applied Improvisation stories and strategies draws back the curtain on an exciting, innovative, growing field of practice and research that is changing the way people lead, create, and collaborate. Applied Improvisation is the umbrella term widely used to denote the application of improvised theatre's theories, tenets, games, techniques, and exercises beyond conventional theatre spaces, to foster the growth and/or development of flexible structures, new mindsets, and a range of inter and intra-personal skills required in today's volatile and uncertain world. This edited collection offers one of the first surveys of the range of practice, featuring 12 in-depth case studies by leading Applied Improvisation practitioners and a foreword by Phelim McDermott and Lee Simpson. The contributors in this anthology are professional Applied Improvisation facilitators working in sectors as diverse as business, social science, theatre, education, law, and government. All have experienced the power of improvisation, have a driving need to share those experiences, and are united in the belief that improvisation can positively transform just about all human activity. Each contributor describes their practice, integrates feedback from clients, and includes a workbook component outlining some of the exercises used in their case study to give facilitators and students a model for their own application. This book will serve as a valuable resource for both experienced and new Applied Improvisation facilitators seeking to develop leaders and to build resilient communities, innovative teams, and vibrant organizations. For theatre practitioners, educators, and students, it opens up a new realm of practice and work.

Applied Improvisation for Coaches and Leaders

Author: Susanne Schinko-Fischli
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429851839
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 214

Book Description
Leadership, teamwork, creativity and storytelling are hot topics in contemporary training and management. They are also an integral part of applied improvisation, which as a result gives us a valuable stock of exercises and methods to impart these skills. In Applied Improvisation for Coaches and Leaders: A Practical Guide for Creative Collaboration, Schinko-Fischli provides a complete introduction to applying the principles and techniques of improvisational theatre to working life. Schinko-Fischli uses her wealth of experience to illuminate how trainers and managers can add new stimuli to their work through applied improvisation. The book begins with a general introduction to the development of improvisational theatre and to applied improvisation, defining the foundations of improvisation and how we can usefully apply these methods to teamwork. It then focuses on how we can use creativity, with a particular focus on co-creativity, to pave the way for new visions of the future and innovative solutions, and explores how storytelling can be applied to teamwork and presentations. Finally, Schinko-Fischli examines status, examining how we present ourselves and appear to others, and how we can influence and control this. This unique book takes a fresh and nuanced look at many soft skills and presents a complete overview of the areas in which applied improvisation may be used by coaches and managers. It contains practical exercises throughout and clearly explains relevant theory and terminology. Applied Improvisation for Coaches and Leaders: A Practical Guide for Creative Collaboration will be essential reading for coaches in practice and in training, particularly executive coaches, and those who work with leaders in teams and organisations. It will also be a key text for leaders, trainers and managers seeking to enhance and expand their soft skills and make learning gainful and enjoyable.

The Applied Improvisation Mindset

Author: Theresa Robbins Dudeck
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350143626
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 361

Book Description
How can the practice of improvisation become the lens through which we view the world? The Applied Improvisation Mindset takes readers deep into the maturing field of Applied Improvisation (AI), with stories of 18 practitioners from five countries who embrace an improvisation mindset to create a more collaborative, equitable, sustainable, and joyous world. Myriad organizations have discovered how the mindset and skills applied by great improvisers onstage can reveal emergent, generative ways of interacting with others offstage. With case studies on developing presentation skills, reducing anxiety in teens, or preparing climate risk managers across the globe for the challenges ahead, this second volume serves as a valuable resource for both experienced and new AI facilitators. It is a primer for higher education and K-12 faculty combatting traditional teaching limitations and a practical “how to” for theatre practitioners, artists, educators, or anyone seeking to transform their organizations and communities.

Learning Social Skills Virtually

Author: Susanne Schinko-Fischli
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000509036
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 102

Book Description
Digital workshops and meetings have established a firm foothold in our everyday lives and will continue to be part of the new professional normal, whether we like it or not. This book demonstrates how workshops and meetings held online can be made just as interactive, varied and enjoyable as face-to-face events. The methods from improvisational theatre are surprisingly well suited for online use and bring the liveliness, playful levity and co-creativity that are often lacking in digital lessons and meetings. Applied improvisation is an experience-oriented method that is suitable for developing all soft skills – online and offline. Alongside brief introductions to the most relevant themes, the book contains numerous practical exercises in the areas of teamwork, co-creativity, storytelling, status and appearance, with examples of how to implement them online. This book, written in the climate of the COVID-19 pandemic, is important reading for everyone – coaches, professionals and executives – looking for new impulses for their digital workshops and meetings, and who would like to expand the variety of their online methods. It offers new perspectives on many soft skills topics and supports interactive, engaging, lively and profitable online learning.

Interactive and Improvisational Drama

Author: Adam Blatner
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595417507
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 463

Book Description
Are you a drama student looking for other ways to practice in your field? Perhaps you teach drama students or as a teacher want to enliven your lessons. Are you an actor who wants to diversify your role repertoire? Are you a therapist who uses active approaches to promote your clients' creative potentials? Maybe you want to be involved in a meaningful form of social action? This is the book for you Thirty-two innovators share their approaches to interactive and improvisational drama, applied theatre, and performance, for education, therapy, recreation, community-building, and personal empowerment.You are holding the only book that covers the full range of dynamic methods that expand the theatre arts into new settings. There are approaches that don't require memorizing scripts or mounting expensive productions. Dramatic engagement should be recognized as addressing a far broader purpose. There are ways that are playful, and types of non-scripted drama in which the audience become co-actors. This present book is unique in offering ways for participants to become more spontaneous and involved.

Improvisation Hypermedia and the Arts since 1945

Author: Roger Dean
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134376065
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 349

Book Description
First Published in 1997. The authors’ purpose in this book is to dissect developments in improvisation in the arts since 1945, with a particular emphasis on process and technique. The approach is analytical and theoretical but is also relevant to practitioners and their audience. Their key argument is that improvisation has been of great importance and value in the contemporary arts, particularly because of its potential to develop new forms (often by breaking definitions).

The Routledge Companion to Applied Performance

Author: Tim Prentki
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351120123
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 409

Book Description
The Routledge Companion to Applied Performance provides an in-depth, far-reaching and provocative consideration of how scholars and artists negotiate the theoretical, historical and practical politics of applied performance, both in the academy and beyond. These volumes offer insights from within and beyond the sphere of English-speaking scholarship, curated by regional experts in applied performance. The reader will gain an understanding of some of the dominant preoccupations of performance in specified regions, enhanced by contextual framing. From the dis(h)arming of the human body through dance in Colombia to clowning with dementia in Australia, via challenges to violent nationalism in the Balkans, transgender performance in Pakistan and resistance rap in Kashmir, the essays, interviews and scripts are eloquent testimony to the courage and hope of people who believe in the power of art to renew the human spirit. Students, academics, practitioners, policy-makers, cultural anthropologists and activists will benefit from the opportunities to forge new networks and develop in-depth comparative research offered by this bold, global project.

A Culture of Play

Author: Brad Fortier
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1300608528
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 145

Book Description
Improvised Theatre as a form of performance has blanketed the globe. From New York City to Hong Kong to Mumbai, there are performers who share a common philosophy and vocabulary of action that allows them to create stories and relationships that move and entertain people. In this book of essays, Fortier explores this art as a tool for reflection, a means of cross-cultural communication, and a window into a way of being that may be our key to survival as a species. Fortier's interdisciplinary approach to the subject brings together the fields of anthropology, performance, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience to help expand the view of improvised theater beyond trite games into a grass-roots form of social rebooting. These essays are relevant to anyone who is curious about new approaches to personal, professional, and group development. This book may also be the beginning of the conversation on how we can transform away from disparate cultures of fear to a more unified Culture of Play.

Yes, And

Author: Kelly Leonard
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062248553
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Book Description
Executives from The Second City—the world’s premier comedy theater and school of improvisation—reveal improvisational techniques that can help any organization develop innovators, encourage adaptable leaders, and build transformational businesses. For more than fifty years, The Second City comedy theater in Chicago has been a training ground for some of the best comic minds in the industry—including John Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Mike Myers, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, and Tina Fey. But it also provides one-of-a-kind leadership training to cutting-edge companies, nonprofits, and public sector organizations—all aimed at increasing creativity, collaboration, and teamwork. The rules for leadership and teamwork have changed, and the skills that got professionals ahead a generation ago don’t work anymore. Now The Second City provides a new toolkit individuals and organizations can use to thrive in a world increasingly shaped by speed, social communication, and decentralization. Based on eight principles of improvisation, Yes, And helps to develop these skills and foster them in high-potential leaders and their teams, including: Mastering the ability to co-create in an ensemble Fostering a “yes, and” approach to work Embracing failure to accelerate high performance Leading by listening and by learning to follow Innovating by making something out of nothing Yes, And is a must-read for professionals and organizations, helping to develop the invaluable leadership skills needed to succeed today.

Improv for Democracy

Author: Don Waisanen
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438481179
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294

Book Description
While much has been written about what democracies should look like, much less has been said about how to actually train citizens in democratic perspectives and skills. Amid the social and political crises of our time, many programs seeking to bridge differences between citizens draw from the surprising field of improvisational theater. Improv trains people to engage with one another in ways that promote empathy and understanding. Don Waisanen demonstrates how improv-based teaching and training methods can forward the communication, leadership, and civic skills our world urgently needs. Waisanen includes specific exercises and thought experiments that can be used by educators; advocates for civic engagement and civil discourse; practitioners and scholars in communication, leadership, and conflict management; training and development specialists; administrators looking to build new curricula or programming; and professionals seeking to embed productive, sustainable, and socially responsible forms of interaction in and across organizations. Ultimately this book offers a new approach for helping people become more creative, heighten awareness, think faster, build confidence, operate flexibly, improve expression and governance skills, and above all, think and act more democratically.