Well…

It’s been a while.  How are you?  Sorry, I was taken hostage by six short angels wearing leather.  They said they were angels and at one point after they gave me a drink, I was sure I saw them fly.  I’m sure they were flying.  ANYWAY… I escaped.

 I’m in Kiel Germany with Dennis Cahill - Artistic Director of the loose Moose theatre.  Derek Flores, the third member of our entourage has been lost in Frankfurt and his luggage is in London.  Tomorrow we have our first show.

Loose Moose is doing a fancy little German tour, teaching and improvising around the country.  (special guests Al Howell and Eric Amber - long time members of Loose Moose will join us in Berlin.

So… hopefully I will have further things to tell you and lessons learned as we go along through to the end of March and into April. 

 I hope you are all well,
Shawn Kinely

Formats Games and Theatre Companies – What’s there to do when the theatre company isn’t drawing the audience you want? When the show is falling apart before your eyes, what can be done?  And the floundering scene, how can it be saved? The specific answers depend on the situation, of course, but the path to the answer is the same.  CORRECT the problems with the tools you have.  DON’T mess yourself up with them.

  Let’s start with the show.

 In the past 6 weeks I’ve seen about ten different groups in 3 countries and have had a chance to see a few of their shows.  Many of them suffer from a similar problem.  They like the GAMES a little too much.  Groups often force themselves to do non-game scenes as ‘something special’.  Even though all of the groups I have met aspire to narrative improvisation, few of them actually move themselves in that direction. Of course it takes a brave improviser or director to say “Start a scene” without also saying, “And I want you to do it as an ‘arms expert’, while singing and in a western genre… also, you might want to get a suggestion from the audience of a problem you are going through.”  The problem is in the set up already.   

What do you find interesting?  Do a scene on that.  Drop all the baggage.  Most groups will say “But the audience wants to give suggestions,”.  Anywhere I’ve been, the audience wants good work.  And while they laugh in the short term at all the hoops you’ve created for your dancing poodles to jump through, they will soon be thinking about their shopping lists and home renovations. 

More shows than not suffer from an audience reaction arc that looks something like this:  Audience is whipped into enthusiastic fervor to start the show.  They may get a little more giddy and explosive in the first couple of games as they see people cleverly battling the game structures and then…. The decline.  The show ends with less energy for players and audience. With rare exception will a show increase in audience enthusiasm when games are the main meal on the menu.  Don’t ask them why, because like a child given a choice between candy and potatoes, they will almost always choose candy.  And in the child’s case, they get used to the candy but are sick and in poor shape.  Feed your audience “candy” all the time and they will be less healthy in the long run (they will be quieter near the end and thinner as time goes by). 

Games are there to address problems the show is having. Connect your players who are controlling with a word at a time or Speaking in one voice game.  When a scene has gone on for 30 second and it is weak, there are many solutions.  One solution is to put a game on top that addresses what is at the root of the problem.  Yell out – from now on, you cannot talk unless in physical contact (if they are being distant and talky).   Yell out – “Do the rest in Gibberish” If you want them to be more physical. SO… Don’t create a show with games. Correct a show with a game.   Find variation in a show.  A short scene is a great relief to a show with long scenes one after the other (just an image will do fine… it doesn’t need to be a great narrative)  .  Do something political in the mix.  A pathos scene in a show that has been crazy is great.  The most memorable scenes at The Court Jesters show in Christchurch NewZealand the other day was when amongst the games and wackiness, a slow, emotional scene came out.  And it got the biggest applause for a scene that night.   

And in a scene?  Well as you see above, the same methods applies.  If you can see a problem, throw in a corrective measure.  Games are only one way to correct problems.  If you are in a scene that is tanking and no one is being altered, have an emotion.  Any emotion will do.  It’s a brave improviser who can put up the emotion without a thought and justify it later, and more often than not, it will help the scene.  That’s a good risk to take in your scene.  Many people say they are taking a risk by introducing an element that is completely absurd.  That’s not a risk.  It’s like saying if I cross my eyes as I jump off this cliff, maybe I won’t hit the bottom. What do you have to lose, the scene is dieing anyway.Maybe it takes a simple adjustment of Listening to the offers and accepting your partners offer as better than your own.   Maybe you are spinning your wheels.  Stay calm, figure out what’s holding you back and correct what’s at the root of the problem.

Now let’s take a quick look at formats and Theatre Companies. How do you choose a format for your show?  Look at what it is NEEDED in your company and use a format to correct the problems.  Simple right?  Yeah… 

The problem, especially if we have had a hand in creating the format, is that we are blinded to the problems. Don’t justify a bad show and don’t say “I think the audience had a good time” when in reality you aren’t very happy with what you did.  Get your ego out of the way (that also means not beating yourself up about the work).

MANY Long form formats for example suffer from self indulgent adherence to a story that has been boring the audience for twenty minutes and is showing no sign of finding it’s way back to the surface.  The story is Bad.  The Format is worse. 

The format should have tools at it’s disposal to correct that situation.  The horn in theatresports is there to save audience and players from disastrous moments. (it sheds light on bad work and allows us to say to the audience - WE ARE WATCHING THE SAME SHOW AND AS YOU AND WE AGREE THAT THIS SCENE IS NOT VERY GOOD.  LET’S TRY AGAIN!!!)   The German Super Scene and Loose Moose’s “More or Less’ format  both “long forms”, have built into them a mechanism to check with the audience to see if they want to continue on the chosen path or go somewhere else. 

So… Save a format by giving it the right tools – NOT by making it “clever” and full of artificial gimmicks that are geared to create hoops or artificial enthusiasm from the audience. 

Well how do you save a theatre company?  Whew… many many many… problems and many fixes and solutions.  I have a feeling that the first step is: DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT TO BE!!! Having a direction allows people to face the same way and start moving there.  Are you an educational centre?  Are you a Narrative Impro group?  Are you a bar-prov group who just wants to do 45 minute sets with “punch”. 

When you have some understanding of what you want to be, realize that this is not democracy.  Have a leader who is open to others but is not always bending to the will of the group.  You are a leader for a reason.  Guide everyone in the direction that is intended and re-direct when the path changes or when others are trying to pull things out of shape… OR, if your system values those kinds of changes, create a safe environment for those who want to try something different under the umbrella of your company. 

It’s hard work developing your company.  For their own reasons, the last three Company leaders have all been at crossroads about where to go and what to do .  Why not drop a line to other groups and see what they are doing with the same problem.  It amazes me that in this family that we call improvisation, so few of us have sat down and written a little hello, how are you, to our cousins up north or over seas.  Groups, Scenes, Companies are all having the same problems, successes and goals.  Ask around and you may find solutions to your own problems.

So

..

Japan is in the past and the sushi is gone.  Goodbye to 30 degree days and hello to New Zealand Winter… which is about 15 degrees.  Flying over the country was beautiful.  Saw some old volcanoes and a beautiful green country.  Ever flown Singapore Airlines?  Try it some time… They dress cool and service is pretty good… except from that one woman who said I could change seats but then kept telling me to wait and then it was too late.

I was flying about 6 or 7 hours into Singapore for about 20 hours.  This is a shopper’s paradise in Singapore.  It’s a crass bit of decadence.  Everything imaginable is sold there.  There’s a gym upstairs. There’s free internet, chairs that are so cushy, you hope that your flight will be delayed.  And there are the lovely gardens…             Had a cool experience over what I think was North Australia.  Everyone was asleep and I was in the middle of a movie on my Singapore air personal TV (good airline - did I mention that?),  I opened the blinds and looked out. The sky had a magical look – “other worldly”.  There was a hazy mist straight out which cleared up as I looked to the sky with millions of stars in different pattern than the ones I am used to.  The mist seemed like an aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) except they  were southern lights – faint. I looked down and the wing of the plane had a magical glow like it was a movie prop sticking out sharply into the surreal sky and below it was black.  It wasn’t exactly black because down there in the water or land (not sure what was down there) were giant partial rings of molten fire (that’s what they MIGHT have been).  Because we were so high I think the most massive ring would have been a few hundred kilometers wide.  I wanted to ask someone about them but no one was awake and no staff were around. So that was pretty cool. 

No sleep so I was pretty out of it when I landed in Auckland.  And then I had to deal with Customs.  They were nicer than most Customs people… BUT… Originally I was planning on buying my flight to Australia while I was here.  When I landed in New Zealand however, the customs officer said that by law I needed a proof of ticket out of the country.  So they sent me into holding.  They took my passport and I got my luggage… which had the smell of Beer.  I was bringing Calgary beer for Derek in Wellington because he asked for some Calgary Beer.  One of them exploded in my suitcase.

 So I am waiting and luckily the sniffer dog doesn’t like beer and he ignores me.  The officer comes back with my passport and chats with me, explaining the law.  He’s nice enough and says they are going to make an exception and says there will be a notice by my name on the computer for next time. OUT OF THERE>…  My first stop is nice.  There are two dogs and Wade and his wife and new baby are cool.  I am sleeping outside the house in a little – shed… thing.  They bring a heater in and I am sleeping at first on what seems like animal fur (might be fake).  And with my bags, there is a dense smell of beer in the air… mmmm I hate beer.  So  New Zealand begins and part two of this journey. 

I’m not much of a tourist so in my first little bit of time here, I go up to the top of the old Volcano, and look at the city on one side over the top of crater of the volcano and the view behind me of “One Tree Hill”… which has no trees on it because a protestor of European colonialism cut it down.

 That was it for my Auckland tourism and I was happy to meet and hang out with Auckland people.

OK - the first part of my adventure is over.  Japan and 4 or 5 groups of improvisers have been met and I’m off to New Zealand BUT let’s wrap up Japan first:

Some beautiful images in the country:  Osaka castle was great

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And the citys were always busy….

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And there were the ODD things that were out of sync for my cultural reality like the immigration issue.  Consider this: You are 18 years old.  You were born in the country that you currently live in.  You go to University and have never caused any problems.  The government comes along and says you have to leave the country.  Why?  Because your parents were born in another country.  A person born in Japan isn’t a citizen unless their parents are.  They can get papers to live here like the few foreigners who do but it is difficult for many.  They take in FEW refugees and you have to prove your worth. And the intimate side of relationships here was difficult for me to reconcile with my reality.  It is socially acceptable for men to have a mistress but not women.  And it seems common that sexual relations leave relationships of most married people (it’s a bit of a joke with marriages in many cultures but seems more common here. When a young couple wants to have sex, many of them go to “love hotels”.  Walls are thin and people leave very near one another that it makes sense to go off to a place where you can rent a bed for an hour or two to have some fun.  Sex is more of a sport than a part of intimate relations.  This is what I have heard from a couple of Japanese people.  A common feeling (not expressed by everyone BUT definitely expressed by many is…) When a woman says “No,” she means Yes (ohhh….) and when a woman is quiet, things aren’t good and when a woman says “I don’t know” she means “no.”…    Work that out.  And the current leader puts forward the idea that it is ‘understandable’ that a man might rape a woman.  It is in a man’s nature and somehow justified.   The same leader, on a positive note does things like tax the banks (which has never been done before) and thus saves the common folk from higher taxes.  He also says things like, authorities should always be prepared to arrest foreigners. 

 Want to disgust a Japanese person?  Give them Licorice. YUCK… but many Japanese like gooey, fermented soy beans (nutto) which is commonly described as snot and less commonly described in ways that would make you ill if I mentioned it. 

“Beheading” is not as horrible an act here as it is in our culture.  The reasoning was given to me by a Canadian living here for 15 years who has heard about a lot of beheadings and limb removals in crimes.  He said that in our “Christian background” removing the head was partly a way of separating the dead from their path to heaven.  Westerners were buried whole.  Heads on pikes was a gory act against the body and spirit.  Here, there is not the same connection.  When a body dies it is burned.  The family use chopstick things and pick through the ashes to keep certain bones. (did I mention about the boy who brought his mother’s head to the police station in a bowling ball bag?  He went to Karaoke first)

They have AMAZINGLY clean streets.  It’s not acceptable to litter… so they generally don’t. Try to find someone yelling at someone else.  You can’t.  Where’s the road rage in a city of 30 million?  Probably there somewhere but not common. Not sure what to make of the world here.  I have met a lot of very nice people but as in many countries, I associate with liberal minded people who are often at odds with their culture.  Here I was told that people don’t like to cause problems, so when there is a problematic element in the world, no one stands against it. In a school in Tokyo, a teacher was beat up by a student.  What was the school’s response? Well during the fight he was told by other teachers not to hit the student or he could be fired.  The teacher was badly beaten.  And in follow up to that… the teacher was told not to go into classes where the student was.  That was a ‘solution’.   Because the education system here protects the student, supposedly no student can be thrown out of a school.  I was told by one teacher that the real punishment is that a student might be yelled at by the phys-ed instructor.  The question of national identity is very difficult here.  In one Jr. High school a principal was faced with the “problem” of making his students sing the national anthem in school or not… How did he solve the problem?  He killed himself.   And it is difficult to find japanese flags.  I searched for ever to find a sticker of the national emblem with the word Japan on it.  It could not be found.  It still has connections to a more aggressive side of Japan.  It seems like they see it more as a symbol of war rather than of their country.

They take care of their plants with great precision.  Many places feel like an homage to Dr.Seuss landscapes.  They seem less conscientious about their old people or disabled (I only saw disable people 2 times in three weeks).     It’s a world of “suggestion” and “hints”.  And they are patient so that if you don’t catch on… they just keep trying. It’s not an easy culture for vegetarian eating “Is ham or chicken OK?” was a constant response to my question of “Is there something here for a vegetarian?”

Some nice people and lots of tradition.  What got me thinking was this: We see tradition as a good thing but how does that balance in with the growth and evolution of people?  Is there a point where holding on to traditional ways of being can damage current identity and future growth. Change is hard as we get older so we try to preserve what we were.  Change and rebellion (asserting identity) is easy and common in the young… both are needed in the world.  How do you keep a healthy balance?

Here I sit in a little public area in Osaka eating my corner store lunch of cold buckwheat noodles and… I can’t really tell you what the other stuff is because I don’t know.  That’s been a bit of a theme here.  Do stuff and sometimes not know whether you are doing the right thing.  Just hope that ‘intuition’ drags me through.

The noodles come in a plastic dish with 6 compartments (indentations in the plastic).  In 4 compartments are little noodle nests - filled with cold brown/gray noodles, a little stuck together as you would expect cold gray noodles to be… In the two others compartments are empty little hollows waiting… for… something.  (…love?)

I also get three little plastic pouches.  One pouch is Wasabi.  I know that, because it is green and potentially sinus exploding.  Even a little bit has the power to bring tears to your eyes if eaten concentrated.  In another pack is diced seaweed… (I think) and  in a big package is brown liquid.  Too sweet to be soy sauce and not vinegary enough to be vinegar.  It seems to suggest that I should use the two extra hollows for…?  Mixing?  Well I do it anyway and dip my noodles in the brown, not soy liquid, wasabi and maybe seaweed… I pick up my noodle nests one by one, dip and dunk and all is well. For dessert I bought a package with what seems like pastry and a picture of melon on the side.  It IS pastry.  It ISN’T melon… but it vaguely reminds me of Melon flavour.  Inside the pastry is something that North Americans would recognize as CHEEZE WHIZ… but the taste is sweet. And I bought a rice thing speckled with black – seeds? This is covered in what seems to be some deep fried gluten with a bit of sweetness…  I took a pass on the fish head snacks.  (The other day I was told I could order the salad safely as a vegetarian.  It arrived with many little eyes looking up at me.  Tiny little crunchy fishes with very distinct eyes… Tiny little Vegetarians possibly.) 

So… Osaka you ask?  What is it all about?  I would say that Osaka is “Tokyo Lite”.  Much less filling but you feel so much better after the experience.  They say it’s busy, but after the compressed feeling of Tokyo, I feel like I am in Moose Jaw (small town in Saskatchewan, Canada).  Even in this little spot where I’m sitting a little girl rides by on her unicycle with no one to bump into. Little show off!!! I knock her down and continue my lunch. 

(Noooooo… I knock her down and  take her unicycle and eat my lunch.  I don’t want her to get back on and show me she has spirit)

(come on… seriously… Do you think I would do that?  I couldn’t continue eating with all of the laughter coming out.) I’m actually in Kobe at the moment (all the cities are like one mammoth city-zilla) and , I hadn’t planned it but I realise I was here 5 years ago - In this same seat. 

I remembered as I saw the place again that the same circumstances brought me here before.  I had a couple days off.  I bought a lunch in a corner store.  I wandered around.  I said to myself, “I want a quiet little place to sit down and eat.”  I had no idea that this place was here the last time and no idea I was in the same part of the city this time. 

My eyes saw hints of things that made me feel like my “intuition” was pulling me to where I would like to be.  In the end, it wasn’t as magical as intuition.  It was my bias towards certain types of streets and prejudice against others.  Maybe that’s what intuition is.  Our history is pulling us and pushing us, and the non-conscious bias that we don’t manipulate with our intellect guides us through our reality.  We feel it is right because we can’t put our intellect on it and we need to call our decision making something.  Otherwise we would just BE… Be-ings.  Human Be-ings.  And My same bias brought me here when I was in the country the last time. (I couldn’t have found the spot if I tried and could not have recalled the memory before I stumbled on the spot again.)

Improvisers aspire for a sense of trust in the “be-ing” state. The sad thing is for us humans is that we often want to impose reasons on top of our doings to justify our ‘being’.  The beauty of improvising done right is the un-reasoned actions at the beginning of a scene will often be justified by our actions later in the scene. 

For example – you unwrap your toothpick after a meal from a cloth that you always carry it in.  A peculiar detail.  Then you fold it back in the wrapping and put it away for next time. (I made that up without thinking of a reason for the behaviour… probably inspired a little bit by the fact that I just ate).  THEN, later in the scene you will magically find justification for the behaviour (maybe you are an environmentalist and don’t throw things away… maybe you have the quality of stingy-ness and will not waste money on a new package of toothpicks.) 

Most of the time we try to find the reason first - “I want to save the world’s forest so what can I do?  I know- I will recycle my toothpick”  

In reality, the use of the toothpick would have been BECAUSE of the nature of the character, but in improvisation it is inspiration FOR the character to come into existence. 

In Improvisation, DO.  Justify later.

  

Ohhhh my…..

Well I am having the ultimate Japanese experience…  I am staying in a CAPSULE hotel.

I finished late with a class organized by the Tokyo Comedy Store (actually it was a spontaneously organized class after the first workshop ended and the participants said, “why don’t we do this again in two days?” Like good improvisers, they said YES!!! And it all came together.)

So we went out for a bite to eat and I managed to miss my last train… (Actually, the missing of the train was preceded by a little farce of commuting from train station to train station in hopes of connecting to a train line that would get me back to my hotel.  We always JUST MISSED ‘the last train’ for each train line that we tried for.  Each time, Jun and Chris were saying “NO PROBLEM” there’s another way.  Eventually they had to accept defeat.)

Jun suggested, half jokingly that there was always a capsule hotel to stay at and I knew that I had to try it.  A capsule hotel is a uniquely Japanese thing.  Why pay a high price when all you want to do is lay down and sleep?  A capsule hotel is, as it suggests, ‘capsules’ that you climb into and sleep. The price is accordingly cheaper – around $35 a night for the place that I stayed.

It’s not quite the coffin like experience that it sounds like… It’s more like an upscale morgue.  The sleeping cubicles are stacked two high (I had a top cubicle).  On one floor is a public hot bath for relaxing and a lounge with drink machines and TV.  My cubicle was about six feet long and three feet wide and I could sit up in it with about an inch of head room.  Most cubicles have a TV and air conditioning (fan)

So Jun finds a place (by asking the police) and giggles all the way to the hotel and through the check in.

It looks like a regular lobby except for a strange vending machine and a couple hundred compartments which have shoes in them (You leave your shoes in the tiny lockers in the lobby)  Jun keeps taking pictures like I feel like the child going off to his first experience living away from home.  In the vending machine you chose the extras – like a Japanese bath… It’s past 1AM so all I want to do is got to bed.  I choose the 3700 yen card for a cubicle.  You give your card to the guy at the desk and check your shoes in and off to your space age cubicle in the sky.  I go to the 7^th floor and feel like one of the cars that are parked in Japanese high rise parking towers. (You drive into what looks like a garage and then a crazy lift picks up the care, transports it up into the building and deposits it into a cubicle above the streets.).

Me and a young Japanese businessman are in the tiny elevator going up and I think of him as an ally in this new experience. I think it’s his first time too.   Also in the elevator is a man in a thin, light brown robe leaning against a wall (looking drained and a little defeated – he just came from the hot baths).   Elevator stops and another man in a brown robe comes  in.  They strike me as patients in an asylum or members of some cult.  Soon I will have the same brown robe and be interned with my brothers… they will experiment on our bodies but they cannot take out souls!!! (what have I got myself into?)

I CAN’T FIND MY ROBE… There’s a couple guys smoking at the lounge area on my floor (no more room on the non-smoking floor), There are containers with Japanese writing on them… I’m not brave enough to look inside… (probably snakes and porn I’m guessing) But… I just don’t see any robe.  Oh well… I’m the foreigner (the Gaijin – or Gaikokujin.) so they can just shake their head and wonder how I survive and I can get away with this little disgrace.Bathroom has razors, toothbrushes, brushes hair product and more…  I grab a toothbrush… but can’t find the toothpaste.  OH well… So I unwrap my brush, wet it and… Ohhhhhhhh… there’s toothpaste in the bristles of the brush… INGENEOUS… and wasteful… There’s a trash bin full of  used toothbrushes.  I’m sure the Japanese have a tonne of space for the landfill… or they can turn it into robots or something…

 Off to my cubicle.

My Sci-Fi sleeping quarters are hallways of cubicles piled two high and go around the corner.  I find cubicle 710, open the bamboo door and climb in…  There’s a hint of smoke from down the hallway but not horrible and the light snoring from the creature below me isn’t horrible… Just a little Japanese lullabye.I spend a few minutes pushing buttons and exploring my 6 foot by 3 foot haven.  I try on the head set and see what’s on TV…

There’s two women talking about their bra in Japanese (not what you think) and not much else.  I get out the camera, document my home and get undressed for a cozy little sleep…DAMN it’s hot.Air conditioning on… Not so bad now.Wow… This is crazy.Consider though that the alternative is a hundred dollar cab ride back to where I’m staying.  Yeah, the bed isn’t the best but it isn’t bad and I have a bag full of free toothbrushes I can give away as gifts when I get back home.Ahhhh

Japan! 

Japan update …OK…

I am busier than I thought I would be.  Workshops have been breeding more workshops.  I just finished an impromptu workshop with THE TOKYO COMEDY store and people set up another workshop in the lobby.  They seem hungry for two things here:  Improvisation AND a foreign instructor.  When people tell why they are interested in workshops they often answer “…because you are a foreigner and we wanted to see what you would show us.”  Funny attitude… but I guess we are always a little more interested in things that seem “outside our reality”.

So… I arrived on a Monday after 15 hours (travel and  hanging around airports) and promptly got lost for four hours in the subway station.  OH DEAR LORD – Picture a hellish purgatory: It is the Tokyo Subway station.  It’s like a hundred octopus having sex.  AND it’s not like you can use a map effectively because there are two train systems (and there may be more)… The two main systems are the Tokyo Subway metro and the “JR line” Each system runs independently but often from similar stations and you need both to get to many of the places.

I’m on a train now and I may be lost.  But I have no where to go and it’s only 5:30 so there’s no problem.  The trains go until at least midnight.

9 hours after I landed I taught the first workshop at Toho Gakuen Performer school. 

click for full Picture

One teacher there, Sensai Zenchiko, is a Kyogen master (Kyogen is a traditional Japanese comic style often played in Noh theater.)  He’s been teaching for 41 years.  He invited me into his class to watch and they showed me a traditional fishing scene – stylized and elegant.  Then he asked me to show the class the mime version of a fishing scene.  So I improvised a little piece for all of these beautiful Japanese students.

After the class, the master Kyogen teacher tells me that he is taking me to lunch.  So we walk across the street to a 50 year old establishment where the cooking is done very near-by and there are only four or five cramped tables.  He knows the only other customer and the lady who does the cooking, serving and cleaning.  By the end of the meal, the other customer, a lady who used to work at the school has been charmed by the old master and will not let him pay for the bill.  She pays for both of us and we are off.  I was told that situations like that happen a lot to him.

There have been a few tears in the classes.  It seems that sentimentality is a strong trait in many Japanese women.  I guess when there’s a lot of talk about the freedom of improvisation and the good natured attitude, then it brings a bit of an emotional reaction in some people.

Tokyo… Ohhhh no… It’s just too crowded.  And Rumi was telling me that once she fell in the subway because the train was so packed that when the doors opened she fell into the space between the train and the landing and ripped her clothes.  She said that people looked at her but no one stopped or helped. 

It’s a double edge here I think.  There are very tight rules but there is also very loose expression of the rules – so it’s easy to make the mistake because you don’t know what’s going on.  There is a softness and gentleness in individuals but a harshness in groups.  There’s a warm inclusiveness but on the outside edge there is an abrupt separation.

I am told that Tokyo is a whole different culture than the rest of

Japan.  I think that might be true.  I was in a little place called Shizouka many years ago and it is different.  How many people in

Canada?  Say… 35 million?  There are 30 Million in

TOKYO… one city with that many people.  For all of it’s failings, it manages pretty well.  Oh.. there was the story in the newspaper the other day about the teenager who walked into the police station.  He put a bag on the counter.  In the bag – his mother’s head.  I think the stress MIGHT be getting to some people.  (I was told that occurrences like that were not entirely uncommon).

Crime is generally not a problem here though.  And on the streets you rarely see any sign of cigarette butts or garbage even though it is difficult to find a garbage can.  Most people who bike will do it on the sidewalk.  Little old ladys seem to stake out spots by the road as gardens.  I wasn’t sure what it was for a few days but I realized these women were growing plants (herbs and flowers) near the busy traffic.

They seem to address things that we ignore in the west like guys who sit on the bus with their legs spread wide.  You know the type, right?  Check the picture.  This is on their trains.  And when old people get on a train, young kids move to give them their seats.

They are “packaging crazy”.  Food in a bag in a box in cellophane in a sack… but one piece of packaging is pretty cool.  I have been trying a lot of the foods.  Most corner stores like 7-11 have a lot of  meal possibilities.  One thing that I like is ONIGIRI… basically rice wrapped in seaweed and usually fish or meat in the middle ( I eat the one with plum in it)    The packaging is ingenious.  The seaweed is crisp and if it were to stay in contact with the rice it would become soggy… SO- there is a thin layer of cellophane between the rice and seaweed.  When you open the packaging just right, the two parts come together.  Look at the pictures to get an idea of how special this is…  .

First you pull tab #1 which splits the packaging.  Then you pull tabs 2 and 3 to pull the packaging apart.  The nori, the dark green seaweed wrapper is not touching the rice inside until you pull the packaging apart.  Voila crispy tasty food…There’s video here: http://www.portigal.com/blog/tag/onigiri

Not too expensive here.  Lunch can be had for under 5 bucks and accommodation can range from 35 dollars a night to a few hundred a night (guess which end of the scale I’m on).  Haven’t stayed in a cubicle hotel (although I should at least once).  A cubicle hotel is a little like a coffin.  It’s a tube just a little longer than a person and most have a tv on the roof or at the end to watch.  There are lockers to store stuff in but these things are primarily for sleep.  And most are men only.  For couples there are LOVE HOTELS… rent them by the hour or two.  Japanese walls are thin so considerate Japanese often take their erotic adventures outside the crowded apartments.

Japan hey…  It’s a very different culture… soooo different.  And it’s more different the deeper you look into it…

OK I’m off to get some Onigiri.

 

“Can I have two people up.   Great.  Start a scene.  One person start on stage, one person enters.” The first person is a man in his early twenties who has improvised on and off for a couple of years. He sits slowly on the sofa looking like he’s thinking of something ‘heavy’ (something serious and important).The woman walks in.  She has a brief case and throws her head back like she’s had a hard day.  (I think maybe she’s been fired or harassed by the boss)This entire beginning is typical of MANY scenes we start.  The characters have a problem.  There’s an issue to deal with (or in this case two).  They aren’t in a good state. A good director should probably restart the scene BUT I want to see where they’ll  go. 

Two minutes into the scene they are sitting on the sofa.  The man is talking about how he needs to change his life.  The woman is talking about how rough it is at work.  3 minutes later they go to the kitchen for food.  So… are we entertained?

What’s up?

Watch most improvisers enter the stage.  There’s some heavy ‘drama’ going on.  They look ’serious’, they’re ‘sick’; they’re bothered by one thing or another. Why?

Because they think it’s “worth more”.

 It’s an odd thing that we do.  We step in front of an audience aiming to give them something they don’t experience in their lives.  But somewhere inside us we want to give them “MORE” important, SOMETHING BIG.  It’s got to be MORE than average.  It’s got to be “BETTER” than average. So we get all theatrical and “IMPORTANT”. We rush towards conflict because we think that is “worth more”.

It’s the same attitude that says LONG form is worth more than SHORT form impro because there’s MORE to it. (A LONG boring improvisation is definitely not worth more.  As they say, it’s not about the size. ) We are poorly affected by some traditional theatre misconceptions.

At a rehearsal at the Loose moose, one improviser stares out of a window when the scene starts. Another man walking up to him solemnly says,”Chris I just got some bad news.  I got cancer.”

SO WHAT!??!  I’m not being insensitive. In reality the topic is heavy but the performance has us rolling our eyes.  Who cares if this guy is GOING TO die at some point in the future?  We don’t know him or have an interest in him or a desire to wait for this unknown point in the future.   The consequences aren’t going to impact us when we don’t know what’s at stake.

What if a happy family is having a picnic?  Dad starts a water fight with his son and the mother scolds them both and when they think she’s seriously angry, she turns the water hose on them both.  The whole family is laughing and the father’s cell phone rings.  IF the audience knows that the test results come in and he’s got ANY disease and Mom and Dad now sit the son down to tell the beaming child that he won’t have a father by morning THEN we might be a little more interested. 

You can start with misery but why not let us get to know you first.  Give us a reason to feel something.  Make us like you before the guillotine drops.  THEN we FEEL something. 

Want a HORROR scene? Start in the honeymoon chamber of the loving newlyweds instead of the Haunted house.  Want a scene of MISERY? Start in the most successful kingdom of a prosperous ruler. …AND above all - develop the relationship. Let us know the hero you are tormenting.

 MAKE US CARE.  MAKE THE ACTIONS WORTH SOMETHING BY DEVELOPING A STRONG PLATFORM WITH A MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIP!

Remember, Drama is not  conflict per se.  Drama is when relationship is altered (your relationship with another person, with the world around you or yourself). 

In the early example when the characters get into instant conflict they leave the room.  MANY scenes leave the location they are in for relevent reasons but just as many leave because they are looking for a new beginning.  Somewhere inside, they recognize the initial conflict is a dead end.  Watch for that as a performer or director.

Keith had a great suggestion for improvisers who walk on stage all serious and tormented.  He said, start the scene with the hidden belief that you are HAPPY, HEALTHY and SEXY.  It’s simple and it makes a difference.  With these “ALIVE” people, we want to watch more of them.

In a note from an improviser…the following was written

On Sunday we did a bunch of teamwork exercises to teach us to work together to make things happen. Would doing some trust exercises help with that too? For example: you get into partners and one stands behind the other. The one in front closes their eyes and lets themselves fall backwards and the other person catches them. It’s just a thought.

 I thought it might be helpful to post it here and continue it with a little thought… 

Those kinds of “trust” exercise are fine for any group working together.  Anything an individual learns will be useful in their work.  And anything a group learns will benefit them and their shows (and their audiences).    Some of the best improvisers I know conciously search out new topics to learn regardless of how important it seems to their work because at SOME point in their improvisation careers there will come a point where that information will make them look brilliant in a scene.

A creativity company developed by improvisers sent me a magazine recently about “CATS”.  I like cats but don’t know anything particularly interesting about them.  The note attached to the magazine was an encouragement to search out some information that I would not normally look for and find comparisons in my everyday work.  So I was challenged to find the relationship between “Show Cats” and teaching.  It was a good challenge and an exercise on movement was developed because of it.  An architect recently said that a specific style of furniture development is based on that way of thinking.  See something in the world and relate that to the new chair, table or sofa you are designing.

Here’s a common note in a show —

Read a book or newspaper.   Know something - ANYTHING. 

 I suggest groups take classes in Mime, jugging, stage combat, singing, dance, or any other skill.  AND SOCIALIZE - go to movies, have a party, get a common reference base.

Specifically on the “teamwork” topic… there’s a great area of improvisation we worked at years ago at the Loose Moose called MEET THE MONSTER which was a play in a very special format created by Keith Johnstone. We have developed it and generalized a name for the style calling it VIRTUAL THEATRE.  Basically, the group creates environments and experiences for an audience of ONE… or two.  These experiences can be incredibly real.  People feel like they ACTUALLY FLY or they go through what seems like a real bank robbery experience or they travel beneath the oceans.  It’s amazing and takes a

strong group effort.  It doesn’t feed the ego much of the individual performers because the ’subject’ is blindfolded.    BUT it gives great group satisfaction when they see the individuals experience and listen to the enthusiastic (almost ‘life altering’) reactions afterwards.  We should proabably workshop that a little more for some teamwork experience…Work together, Work a lot.  Create an enthusiatic and ’safe’ environment for creating.  Learn something new….

Watch scenes where improvisers REALLLLLLY  WANT to be in the scene.  Watch a discussion where people are passionate about what they are talking about. Watch  enthusiastic teachers.  What do you see? 

THE EYES.

Passionate, interested people have WIDE eyes.  Now watch their audience, students, partners… what is common about them? 

THE EYES!

They mirror what’s in front of them.  AND usually, that audience, those students, those people are connected to what’s being said and who’s saying it.

WHY THE EYES???

There are biological reasons:  the wide eyes make us desirable, so as babies, or small puppies, we will be taken care of (we are soooo loveable) and maybe we mirror the wide eyes because we mirror what we want and what we like so that we can be part of it .  And  by mirroring a behaviour we support it . It probably doesn’t matter so much ‘WHY’ we do it though.  It occurs.  It’s effect is strong and it might be a great tool for improvisers and others.

(UPDATE MAY 2007 - Recently scientists have stumbles upon something called “MIRROR NEURONS” it turns out that our brain is wired to do that mirroring…  When we notice audience members mouthing our words when we are doing a word at a time, that is the mirror neuron doing it’s thing.  When we mirror the people we like in a conversation at a party… that’s the same thing.  Interesting… Maybe to connect to someone or to give them the idea you are on stage (or in life) just shift yourself physically to mirror their body position… and probably would help to reflect the emotional state of the person)

If you open your eyes when you are passionate, and being passionate makes others more likely to positively support you, could it be possible that the opposite works?  Could you simply open your eyes to change into a more passionate, engaging creature?

Try it.  See if it works.  Go have a conversation with a friend and open your eyes a little wider.  Go ahead.  I’ll wait for you.  What occurred?

Hmmm… try a scene like that.  We often coach players to play a scene with wide eyes.  It has a strong impact on the audience and makes the performers more engaging.  It’s a trick you can play on yourself that changes some negative behavior.

MAYBE… you could build a library of physical behaviors that change you in ways you want to be changed.  How do you behave if you leave your elbows glued to your ribs?  How do you behave if you play the entire scene with your bottom lip tucked under your top lip?
Instant characters?  Behavioral problem solving?  Does it matter?  See how it affects you in ONE scene the next time you get on stage.  Small risk to take and can be a lot of fun and it might make you a more interesting and engaging improviser.