Since I arrived in Slovenia for my EVS, working with Park Istra, I organized a few improvisation theatre workshops. In summer, I planned and mentored the first workshop with Melanie, another volunteer from France who also had some experience in theatre improvisation. Then she left but I felt that I had to continue anyway. Recently, we had the chance to welcome five French volunteers (Vincent, Mathilde, Elsa, Pierre and Loris), nice, open and full of energy, which gave me the desire to organize a workshop for them, and also of course for Ziga, Bea, Jan, Petra and Janez.
What does improvisation theatre workshop mean? For me it means to play and to have fun, it means laughs, it means to share with partners and with public, it means benevolence, it means to discover yourself by doing things you didn’t expect to do… Basically it means to connect with yourself and with people in a playful atmosphere.
I organize these workshops as a succession of games which allows us to wake up different things that will be important for playing improvisation theatre: to wake up our energy and our attention towards others, to become aware of the space where we are playing, to wake up our voice and our imagination… Then in the end people who are willing to can do a performance. This time, it was two groups of three people (including me), and I prepared some guiding lines: a personality trait for each person; a place, a time and an action for each team.
We had lots of fun:
– first improvisation: a retirement house / Christmas / a party / someone in love / someone full of advice for the others / someone scared of everything.
So René was in love with Jacqueline but Jacqueline was scared of everything and particularly of him… Fortunately Gertrude was there for convincing René to confess his love to Jacqueline and for convincing Jacqueline to listen to him… However, they were so old and full of emotions, that René had a heart attack in the middle of his declaration (‘Jacqueline, I lo…’). Gertude died of frustration seeing that and Jacqueline died of sorrow because she realized that she loved René and also Gertrude… It was a beautiful death in which we all communed.
– second improvisation: a very little kitchen / in 2055 / a misunderstanding / someone shy / someone clumsy / someone always nice.
Two fellows bought a robot for making pizza but this robot was really clumsy, unable to make the dough for pizza, so they eventually just used his belly as an oven… One of the fellows was shy enough for slapping the ass of the robot which made quite a lot of animation and surprise, as much for the robot as for the public. In the end of course the robot exploded and they all died, because it’s funnier like this and it also helps a lot to finish a story when we are beginners in improvisation theatre, as we all were.
Thank you to everyone for your willingness of participating, your attention and your laughs. It was a great workshop! Vincent discovered improvisation theatre and discovered that he really likes it… maybe a beginning of a career?!
And as for me, it confirmed to me how much I like to offer these theatre workshops and I got an idea few days later about what to do with this in my life… But because we don’t know the future, this is another story.
Anna Vittet, EVS volunteer from France