In addition to the slides in the previous post, a brief description of one of the exercises during the workshop “Silence/time in improvisation”.
Groups of 4 or 5 persons are simply making association circles (each person says a word that is a spontaneous association on the previous word).
In the first version they do not get any other instructions.
In a second version they are asked to physically “receive” the previous word (eyecontact, holding hands like receiving a present,..) before turning to the next person and “give” the next association.
In the third version they can take more time to make the association: it does not necessarily has to be the first word that comes in mind, just the first word with a strong “resonance” inside.
(I thank Bobbi Block introducing association exercises of this kind during a workshop she gave here a year ago.)
It’s amazing to observe this from the outside. Watching and hearing different groups doing this at the same time in one room, I would describe the atmosphere in the room going from a loud café, to a tea-room, to a good restaurant.
Participants described the differences in following words:
– much more connection
– more imagination triggered and used
– more vulnerability, less fear to say something stupid and less judgmental thoughts going around
– more feeling of interest from and in the other persons
Also in other exercises where there is more awareness in the act of giving and receiving (instead of ideas just bouncing around), you can experience that the improvised stories are not getting more “slow” or “boring”. As a participant pointed out: “You discover another kind of speed, a speed from another dimension.”
