Group Improvisation Ideas

For a final group project, we are setting up a collaborative improvisation with mixed-media.  For the next couple of weeks we are going to generate materials to integrate into our performance environment, practice working and improvising with each other, and develop some basic structures for our final performance.  I think that it might be useful to either develop a score of structures or games or develop a list of structures (that we all understand) to choose from and also decide on a rule for starting and ending each structure.  

Some Group Improvisation Exercise Possibilities:

1-  "dubbed movie"

Two or more people perform a mix of movement/ dance/ acting in front of an audience that provides a live sound score of text, music, human-made sound effects.

2- "walking and stopping with peripheral vision"

A movement activity where the whole group lines up shoulder to shoulder, keeps their focus straight ahead, and simply walks from one end of the room to the other while trying to stay in exact unison.  

After the group feels comfortable and in-synch with the walks, another variation on this activity is repeating the walks going backwards and forwards and trying to play with the speed of the walks.  Another variation is to allow individuals to make the decision to drop out of the group whenever they want and either stand in stillness or move around the space but the rule is they have to re-integrate themselves into their space in the line as the group sweeps back.  Multiple people can drop out at a time.

3- "circle polyrhythm"

Everyone stands in a circle and one person establishes a steady down-beat.  Then everyone individually adds their own rhythm.

4- "distorted mirroring, or distorted call and response for a whole group"

For partners, one partner is a mirror and takes the contributions of other partner and changes one or two aspects of it (could change the pitch, volume, speed, reverse it, alter the phrasing or accents, shape, direction, effort, part of the body or any other creative abstraction).  This could be done with a variety of things like movement, text, or music.  This can also be done with a group with one person offering an idea and then the rest of the group simultaneously responding with a distorted version of that idea.

5- "mixed media echo"

Everyone picks a different form of communication that is different from each other (dancer, singer, using just hands, using an instrument, using a voice, drawing...) and one person performs a short idea and the next person tries to translate that idea through their mode of communication however they can.

6- "programmatic voice over narration"

Half of the class improvises a dance or music experience while the other half narrates out loud attempting to develop a related story.

7- "near and far"

Everyone decides on a person to either try and be very close to or stay away from at all times without telling them.  

8- "manipulated movers"

Need about six people.  Two people try to be very impressionable while two other people try to direct their movement or actions.  Simultaneously, two other people attempt to speak for the manipulated movers.