1.0 INTRODUCTION
Improvisation as a pathway to open expression and creativity performs invaluable role as a training tool in acting. In this unit, we shall explore the meaning and uses of improvisation in the theatre. We shall equally examine sources of improvisation, types of improvisation, as well as suggest situations for improvisation.
3.1 The Concept of Improvisation
Improvisation as an experience pervades all aspects of life. According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, “The skills of improvisation can apply to many different abilities or forms of communication for example, cooking, presenting a speech, sales, personal or romantic relationships, sports, flower arranging, martial arts, psychotherapy, the arts and much more”. The same encyclopaedia further states, “Extemporize”, “to vamp”, “ad lib” and “riff” all have basically the same meaning as improvisation. Colloquial terms such as “lets play it by ear”, “take it as it comes” and “make it up as we go along” are all used to describe improvisation”.
To extemporize, according to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary means to “speak or perform without previous preparation” . To do something in an ad lib manner, according to the same dictionary, is to do something “in a spontaneous way” at the spur of the moment or impromptu. In a nutshell, ‘improvisation is the art of acting and reacting, in the moment, to one’s surroundings’, ideas or emergency situations. “It often focuses on bringing one’s personal awareness “into the moment” (Wikipedia). Improvisation is an experiential response to a situation. In our daily life, we often encounter situations that require that we respond immediately, and when we act on the spur of the moment to address such situations, we engage in the act of improvisation. So, everybody in one way or another is an improviser.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1
What do you understand by improvisation?
3.2 Improvisation in Theatre
To A.B.C. Duruaku, “in theatre, the word improvisation should be thought of in terms of invention, exploration and “experimentation” (28). It is a “free and unrestricted approach to creativity”, an uninhibited “deeper search into the meaning of things and how to overcome odds” (28). According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedic, improvisation to the theatre artist, “is the primary interface with the Muse and is therefore, at its most fundamental level a form of soulful or spiritual communication”. Muse in a nutshell is the goddess of creativity, the source of creative inspiration. Therefore, Wikipedia’s view of improvisation is that it is a means of connecting with creativity itself. “By inspiration, learning is immediate expression, an unrehearsed pulling out of knowledge, skills, attitudes, awareness, and perception into something that has personal meaning” .
It is important to note that the word theatre can be used to describe anything that can be turned into performance. Thus one can talk of dramatic improvisation, musical improvisation, dance improvisation, singing improvisation, etc.
MUSCICAL IMPROVISATION
Creativity in performance is something elastic, something not foreclosed but ongoing. In music, improvisations take place as a solo performance, or independently in ensemble with other players” (Wikipedia). The same Encyclopaedia expresses the view that “musical improvisers often understand the idiom of one or more musical styles e.g., blues, rock, folk, Jazz and work with the idiom to express ideas with creativity and originality” . On stage, the classical musicians, Bach, Beethoven and Mozart were known to have thrilled audiences with their improvisatorial arts. In an essay “EDN: probe: Learning as improvisation”, the author posits:
For Bach, Beethoven and Mozart Improvisation was an assumption in their musical creativity. Bach was an incredibly inspired improviser, Beethoven was known to vary his compositions in live Performance. Mozart literary lived and breathed a life of improvisation. It was practical means by which they built incredible musical compositions for human kind.
In the oral tradition, improvisation in music, song and dance is the only means of expressing expertise, the only means of introducing variation and colour and rhythm to what the people already know.
DANCE IMPROVISATION
Improvisation can be used as choreographic tool in dance. According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, “Experimenting with the concepts of shape, space, time and energy while moving without inhibition or cognitive thinking can create unique and innovative movement designs, spatial configuration dynamics, and unpredictable rhythms. Improvisation without inhibition allows the choreographer to connect to their deepest creative self, which in turn clears the way for pure invention”.
DRAMA IMPROVISATION
In drama, improvisation can be a source for play-making, and a means of training of actor. Most community theatres create their plays through improvisation. Ahmed Yerima observes that in community theatres, “improvisation and continuous experimentation of scenario and its logic is the bulk of their rehearsal schedule and practice” (102).
‘Improvisation improves the training of an actor by stimulating his dramatic imagination, enhancing his response time in given situations, encouraging spontaneity, improving his tolerance threshold, developing the character, honing his movement skills as well as grooming his feeling of ensemble” (Duruaku, 37).
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2
What does improvisation mean in theatre?
3.3 Sources of Theatrical Improvisation
Theatrical improvisation can be sourced from imagination, personal experience and observation of human qualities and conditions of life in society.
EXPERIENCE
Experience they say is the best teacher: John Lock once said that the human mind is an empty or blank sheet, and that whatever impression it has is made by experience. To this seventeenth century philosopher, “knowledge was not imprinted, once and for all, on a man’s brain by God; it was to be discovered, by experience, in the world” (Bronowski and Mazlish, 235). To Lock therefore, man acquires knowledge through experience. Theatrical improvisation draws largely from live experience. Duruaku opines that “the store of experience of the individual greatly appreciates his ability to respond to situations and execute movements consequent upon unexpected conditions” (29). Stanislavsky advocates emotional memory as technique of character development. This technique involves the actor taking a mental tour to his past experience in order to be able to recreate desired passions on stage. Method actors rely heavily on their past experiences in order to actualize their roles on stage.
IMAGINATION
Imagination is that aspect of our mind that enables us to create mental images or picture. It is the nerve-centre of creativity because it is the only faculty of man that connects him to the source of inspiration. Before its physical realization, creativity first takes place in the imagination as a “flash of insight”. Actor who stretches his imagination can delve into the unknown as well as recall past events. This helps him to handle emergence situations and to predict future happenings.
Apart from being the repository of creative ideas and talents, liberating the imagination increases absorption and concentration. The actor encounters fleeting and often times contradictory ideas. Absorption and concentration will enable him to select ideas that would not make him to loose touch with his role but those that will promote its development.
Again imagination encourages sublimity in acting. According to Bowskill, “when improvisation is working at optimal level the student is in complete solitude and his creative imagination takes him into a living dream” (62). In this condition, the actor can move from the world of the possible into that of the miraculous, and that is when he can develop skill that will launch him into the world of unique actors. Bowskill cites Lonesco as saying:
The free development of the powers of imagination must not be restricted. There must be no canalization, no directives, no preconceived ideas, not limit. I believe that a genuine work of art is one in which the initial intentions of the artist have been surpassed; where the flood of the imagination has swept through the barriers or out of the narrow channels in which the first tried to confine it; extending beyond messages, ideologies, and desire to prove or teach. This absolute freedom of imagination is called escape or evasion by the gloomy critics of our time; whereas it is true creation (62-63).
To Lonesco, therefore, “to make a new world is to satisfy the insistent demands of a mind that would be stiffened if its needs were not fulfilled” (63). Imagination enables the actor to give “insight into related ideas or occurrence” (Duruaku, 30).
OBSERVATION
Theatrical improvisation can be based on things observed from the society. In the society, the actor is surrounded by a ‘busy world.’ filled with good and ugly events, men, women and children of diverse behaviour and attitude to life. An actor must be conscious of the trivia of this so called busy world. What he observes makes impressions on him; he must listen and look at all manner of things. The more the actor takes in the more he brings to bear on his work. Bowskill insists that “for the actor, there can be no looking without seeing, or listening without hearing”, the actor “must see and hear anything that will shed light upon the human condition”(9).
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3
Explain one source of improvisation in theatre.
3.4 Functions of Theatrical Improvisation
One of the objectives of improvisation in theatre is to help the actor to get away from “the dull, the routine and the clichés” of acting. Bowskill notes that “if the student is to create new and rich dramatic experiences, or to offer new insights into them, he must be ready to leave behind the probable and excavate from within his resources the unexpected” . And through the digging out of the unexpected, the student is encouraged to deal with “change and its possibilities”. Since our society is dynamic, the good student is equipped through improvisation to live in a changing society. “This practise in innovation should cover movement habits, clothes, speech, make-up and all those aspects of behaviour that students generally accept as unchanging” (63).
In an internet essay entitled “END: Probe: learning as improvisation”, the author writes, “with respect to learning, improvisation allows us to open ourselves up and literally play with the things that we think, feel and do. Through improvisation we discover our own unique expression and identity through open expression in our particular circumstances”. In learning, improvisation encourages immediate response to situations, and shatters the idea of convention, that is the static approach of doing things. “Improvisation forces content (i.e. knowledge and skills) to be responsive to the moment and sensitive to the existing circumstances. What was once imposed as static content becomes malleable and dynamic under the pressure of improvisation”, the author further states.
Again improvisation promotes flexibility in acting. Bowskill opines that in “performance its function is to enable the actor to give a free- wheeling flexible response to the audience’s reception of his performance” (63).
Improvisation promotes creativity. Duruaku posits that improvisation “tasks the imagination and improves the creative power through an exercise of the faculties” (31). Improvisation implies that the person is the source and origin of design. It enables us to “explore what our lives can do and how we can connect our lives to the sources of inspiration greater than ourselves” . According to Duruaku, “creativity is not possible without imagination because the creative ability evolves from the ability to synthesize experience and re-work it to accommodate present circumstance” (30).
Furthermore, improvisation enhances the actor’s physical abilities. Through unhindered and constant experimentation, the actor can acquire unique movement designs, unnatural postures as well as dynamic rhythms. With a lot physical skills and abilities, the actor can introduce outstanding novelties and produce an infinite variety of effects during productions.
Improvisation helps the actor to build a lot of confidence in himself. If through improvisation an actor has mastery over all the members of his body and voice, he does not fear to take up acting challenges. On stage, he executes movements and speeches with precision. He never makes nervous movement nor falters in speech. Even if he looses his lines, he fills the missing link with stored vocabulary, and never gives the audience a chance to feel that something has gone wrong.
Improvisational exercises help the actor to build and sustain energy, the ability to work tirelessly on stage. Certain role requires that the actor should possess wonderful kinetic energy. For example, it requires the possession of extra ordinary energy to play the role of Macbeth or King Lear. An actor that will play the role of Macbeth must have enough force that can impel him to do exploit on stage for about three hours. He must, therefore, indulge in serious physical exercises that will enable him to build up the energy required to perform the role.
Again, improvisation is a tool for exploratory rehearsal. Apart from certain objective blockings by the director, the actor is often encouraged to research into his role through improvisation. The objective of this is to enable the actor to find hidden truth about the personality of the character he is playing. During this exploratory rehearsal, the actor experiments with his total physical and psychological being in order to discover in great detail, the physical and emotional dispositions of the character he is recreating.
Improvisation is a means of soul-searching. This is because through exercises in meditation, the actor builds connecting bridge from the purely physical realm to the spiritual. The aim is to pull out hidden knowledge from the abode of inspiration. Greatness in acting depends largely on this encounter. For the actor, therefore, to loose contact with improvisation is to severe himself from the Muse, the source of inspiration and creativity. “Improvisation places us into direct and intimate contact with our own identity, our own interior world, and inspires us to pursue purpose and meaning in life” (See the essay, EDN: Probe: Learning as improvisation).
Improvisation encourages ensemble or team work. In group improvisation, “the strong can work with the weak, helping them to build confidence in this non-competitive situation, thereby diminishing showmanship (Duruaku, 33).
Finally, improvisation is a means of entertainment. According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, “improvisational comedy is a common art performed throughout the world and throughout history” . In the University of Nigeria, we have an improvisational group called the Comedy Squad. This group goes about performing improvised drama. Some of the more famous North American comic improvisational groups are the Upright Citizens Brigade of New York City, the Groundlings of Los Angeles, the Second City group in Chicago, etc. There are many such groups in the United Kingdom.
“Whose Line Is It Anyway” is for example, a popular Channel 4 TV programme based purely on improvisation. In oral tradition artists perform music, song and dance “without the bias of print manuscripts, musical notation, musical theory or sheet music….improvisation is so prevalent in this tradition that it becomes hard and perhaps impossible to isolate, separate it, and classify it” (EDN: Probe: Learning as improvisation).
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 4
List and discuss two functions of improvisation
3.5 Approaches to Improvisation
Three approaches to improvisation can be isolated. They include private improvisation, leader-directed and group improvisation.
PRIVATE IMPROVISATION
In private approach to improvisation, the individual is both the source and origin of the design. A good actor thinks about his role all the time. He knows that character development does not end until the last production night. He therefore, makes ceaseless attempt to improve his role. Through private improvisation, he can open up new vistas, new ways of interpreting his role. In private improvisation, the actor embarks on a grand journey of self-discovery, without anybody accompanying or directing him.
LEADER-DIRECTED IMPROVISATION
This mostly occurs in class or workshop situation. In this type of improvisation, the leader presents the student or group with a theme or idea and asks him or it to flesh it up with spontaneous speech and action. The suggested idea carries sufficient charge in order to impel the student or group with readiness to express it. This is what Bowskill implies when he states that if the student is to be involved in improvisations, (as relationships) that stimulate his urge to expression and communication, the content must be charged with symbols he will immediately recognise and wish to pursue” (60).
THE GROUP APPROACH
Group improvisation can either be leader-directed oriented or trainees oriented. The most important thing is that group improvisation involves ensemble or team spirit. In a class or workshop situation, the leader may divide the students into group and assign each group a task to perform or each group can be made to originate an idea and develop it. Whatever the case is, “the responsibility for producing end products lies with them. Not only do they have to negotiate with each other the choices they wish to make about the scene created, but they have to use their own resources for ideas” (Duruaku, 36-37). Group improvisation plays tremendous role in the realization of workshop plays. In fact, complete plays are known to have been created through group improvisation all over the world.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 5
Discuss any one approach to improvisation you know.
3.6 Situations For Improvisation
Improvisation can be based on all dimensions of life. No aspect of the human condition or preoccupation is immuned to it. However it is necessary to observe that dramatic improvisations are usually based on situations that are rich in conflict. In a group improvisation, every imaginable obstacle should be caused to stand between characters. Vargas opines that “without conflict of some kind in a play, if there are no twists, turns and surprises up there on the stage, you will very soon
have an in attentive and yawning audience out in front” (19).
Below are some situations the students can be asked to improvise.
MARITAL INFIDELITY
A man is caressing a concubine in his office when his wife makes an unsuspecting entry. The woman saw the act but the man attempts to defend himself with a fake excuse.
THE DELIQUENT CHILD
A delinquent child enters the kitchen where his mother is preparing their dinner. His mother has just gone to her bedroom to pick an item. No sooner than the child picked up a piece of hot meat from the pot than his mother appeared. The child should try to hide the meat in his pocket.
THE GOSSIPS
A group of the three women are gossiping about one of their friends who is nearby eavesdropping. In the heat of the gossip, the subject bursts into the room without knocking at the door. The highly embarrassed women find themselves in a fix to change topic.
MIMICRY
A young undergraduate male student is mimicking his Professor before his class. His mimicry touches on the Professor’s voice, mannerism and gesticulation. As he appears to be in his best, the professor enters without announcement. The student on seeing the Professor rushes to the blackboard and begins to wipe it with his hand.
ROBBERS
Three armed robbers are caught by the police patrol team. The robbers begin to blame one another for their trouble.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 6
Create one situation for improvisation.
4.0 CONCLUSION
We explained that improvisation is a vital tool in acting. We observed that though improvisation, the student can build up confidence to take up acting challenges, gain mastery over his body and voice, as well as come in contact with the source of creativity.
5.0 SUMMARY
In this unit, we examined the concept of improvisation, the objectives of improvisation as a tool in actor’s training; we looked at the sources of improvisation, its approaches and functions, as well as the situations for improvisation. We equally suggested some scenario that the students can improvise.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
List and discuss two functions of improvisation.
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS
Bowskill, Derek (1979). Acting and Stagecraft Made Simple. London: W.H. Allen.
Bronowski, J and Bruce Mazlish (1970). The Western Intellectual
Tradition. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Duruaku, A.B.C. (1997). A Handbook on Drama and Theatre. Owerri: Colon Concepts.
“EDN: Probe: Learning as Improvisation”. http://www.experience designer network.com/archieves/000358.html.
“The British Theatre Guide: Improvisation”. http://www.britishtheatre gudie. Info/school/improvisation.htm.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. “Improvisation” http://en.
Wikipedia.org/Wiki/Improvisation.
Yerima, Ahmed (2003). Basic Techniques in Playwriting. Ibadan: Kraft Books.
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