Thursday, February 10, 2011

Three Levels

One person must be sitting, one person must be standing, and one person must be lying on the ground at all times. A location is suggested and the actors assume their positions and begin the scene. After just a few moments of conversation, one of the actors should positions (perhaps from sitting to standing). Then, one of the two other actors must assume a new position. The trick of the improv game is to create a genuine scene with interesting characters while making sure the sitting, standing, and lying down occurs at the appropriate moment.

Exit Game

You need at least 3 players for this one. Give each player a word. Start playing a scene with 2 players. As soon as a player hears her word, she has to leave the scene. As soon as she hears her word again, she needs to walk into the scene again. Walkouts and re-entrances need to be justified.

Human Knot

Have the players stand in a tight circle, with their hands in the center. Then have them grab other hands at random. The puzzle is for the whole group to work together to get themselves untangled.

Twin Tag

In twin tag everyone has a partner, except the person who is "It" and the person they are chasing. Each set of twins stands together with linked arms. The person being chased by the person who is "It" runs around being chased, and linked arms with anyone making the third person (the person whom you linked with's earlier partner. If the person being chased gets caught, that person becomes it. Recommended for ALL AGES!

Do you want to buy a duck?

A group of people sit in a circle formation. A beginner, usually a staff member, starts off the game by saying to the person on his or her right "Do you want to buy a duck?" The person on the right replies "A what?" Beginer: "A duck." Right person: "Does it quack?" Beginer: "Of course it quacks." Then the person on the right goes to the person on his or her right and everything is the same... except after the "Of course it quacks" the person adds another question like for example "Does it eat blue berries?" and the questions alway go back to the leader. The last person, or the person to the left of the beginner, must ask all of the questions. May be confusing, suggested for ages 10 and up

Moving Through Space

Participants begin to walk around the room. The facilitator calls out physical states –such as a shift in tempo, heaviness, lightness, larger, smaller, tightness, jerkiness, bubbles, traveling through a cloud, etc. – and the players respond with their bodies as they move around the space.

Pass, Catch

Once everyone is in the circle make sure that they have enough space to move freely without accidentally clouting each other in the head. One player in the circle throws themselves into a bizarre stance and makes a corresponding noise along with it. This gesture is made to the player to their right in the circle. That player immediately reflects back the gesture and noise, imitating the other player as best she can. Once she has done that she immediately turns around and creates a new and wonder gesture and noise to the player to her right. The process is repeated and goes around the circle for a few minutes. It is important that the players not stop to think in between the poses. The player should receive, reflect, turn and create a new pose without pause.

Leading

All the players are milling around and someone suggests a body part to lead with. Everyone move around as if your left foot was leading your body everywhere. Continue on with various body parts like: knee, stomach, right ear.

Hello

The players mill about the room. At some point the leader asks them all to greet each other by shaking hands. Then endow each of the greetings with an element. For example, “greet each other like you are long lost friends”. You can continue to endow the greetings with elements like: someone you have a crush on, someone you are afraid of, someone you love, a smelly person, etc. The greetings can be embellished with emotions like: greet everyone angrily, greet everyone happily, greet everyone like you have a secret, etc.

Pulse

One person squeezes that hand that they are holding. The person that received the squeeze squeezes the hand of the other person that they are connected to. This should generate a squeeze pulse that races around the circle. A second squeeze can start circling in the opposite or same direction. There should be no clue that they are receiving the hand squeeze, and therefore no one can really predict when it will come to them. The exact same warm-up can be done with the players contacting palms and giving a push instead of a squeeze.

Please, Go

Players form a circle. Player 1 starts and asks Player 2 “Please”. Player 2 then tells Player 1 to “Go”. Player 2 must ask someone else “Please” and then get permission to “Go” before Player 1 has gotten to their spot in the circle. The “please, go” goes from player to player.

Clap Focus

One person in the circle picks a random person in circle and claps at them. Sometimes taking a half step into the circle while doing so. The person that was singled out with the last clap immediately picks another random person out, by clapping at them. In turn the clapping flies back and forth across the circle. Ideally there will be a constant clapping noise. Eventually the players will be so attentive and so quick to respond it sounds like one person clapping rapidly.

Emotional Symphony

Players are lined up in a performance fashion. One person is chosen to conduct the players in the symphony. Each player is endowed with some emotion. It is good to get a range of contrasting emotions for the players to use. Once each player is given their emotion the conductor points from one player to another. The players do not speak, but express their emotions through physicalization and noise. The intensity of the emotion is increased as the conductor raises her hand while pointing at the player. The conductor moves from player to player conducting an emotional symphony.

Mirror

One of the players in the pair begins to gradually move. The other player mirrors the movements of the other player. Initially one player is leading the other and then the lead switches. Eventually there is no way to tell which player is leading the exercise the focus is being shared rather than taken by one player or the other. The object is not to mess up the other player, but to make the reality of the mirror the priority.

Counting

Everyone in the circle looks down at the ground and closes their eyes. Someone will count off the number one. Then someone else will count off the number two. No one knows who will speak the next number. If two people speak out at the same time then the group must start again at one. It is common to try and count to twenty.

Yes, And

In Yes And, the players are constantly saying, ‘yes and’. The mechanism goes something like this. One player may start off with, “Your coat is so lovely.” The response of the other player could be, “YES AND I made it for you.” The other player responds, “YES AND I have a thousand dollars for it.” “YES AND I am going to use that money to make a hundred more coats for you.” The players must always have the ‘yes and’ at the beginning of their sentence.