Improvisation Techniques

Improvisation Techniques

We’ve looked into two types of improvisation in our lessons, spontaneous improvisation and prepared improvisation. Spontaneous improvisation is performed without a particular stimulus and without any background. Prepared improvisation is performed with a stimulus and background information of place, character, story ect…

 I personally found spontaneous improvisation very challenging because creating an entire scene without any background or set facts about any characters or storyline is hard to do on the spot and to keep the flow of the scene and ensure that there aren’t any silences which is awkward to be in and also to watch. The accept and add concept made it slightly easier in some ways as it gives you no option but to accept what the other person has said which encourages the flow of the scene.

I found prepared improvisation a lot easier as you have the comfort that you have already committed to a character which you should have given some background too which you should be able to develop quite quickly. You also have an agreed environment between actors and also agreed given circumstances.

In general, old and young characters are given more freedom and options in improv activities as they can get away with saying or doing things that aren’t necessarily normal for a teenager or adult to do or say. Also, I found that whole group improvisation activities are a lot easier as there are more characters to interact with so if something isn’t working between certain characters, you could turn to another character and try something with them, so basically it gives you options. Silences are also more accepted in whole group improvisations as they generally come across as less awkward.