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improv_games:improv-games_1_with_focus_on_status_games [2020/08/12 21:22] – [Individual games with movement to wake up] luchorobiimprov_games:improv-games_1_with_focus_on_status_games [2020/08/12 21:29] (current) – [Status games in groups] luchorobi
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 ====== List of Games #1 with focus on Status ====== ====== List of Games #1 with focus on Status ======
-Length: 2 hours +Length: 3 hours
- +
-Done on 05.05.2018+
 ====== Introduction for promoting this topic ====== ====== Introduction for promoting this topic ======
 **Status Workshop** - On Saturday **Status Workshop** - On Saturday
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-===== Warm-up with circle games ====== + 
-  * **[[https://improwiki.com/en/wiki/improv/samurai|Samurai or Hi-Ha-Ho:]]** LOL+===== Mental or Physical games in circles =====
   * [[https://improwiki.com/en/wiki/improv/circle_up|Circle Up]]: Moving your legs and arm faster. Move your right arm counting back from 7 to 1, move your left hand counting back from 7 to 1, move your right leg countin from 7 to 1, move your left leg counting from 7 to 1. Then repeat faster counting from 6 to 1, 5 to 1, continue until counting only one.   * [[https://improwiki.com/en/wiki/improv/circle_up|Circle Up]]: Moving your legs and arm faster. Move your right arm counting back from 7 to 1, move your left hand counting back from 7 to 1, move your right leg countin from 7 to 1, move your left leg counting from 7 to 1. Then repeat faster counting from 6 to 1, 5 to 1, continue until counting only one.
-  * [[improv_games:improv-games_1_with_focus_on_status_games|1, 2, direction, 3, 4, 5, 6, direction]] +  * **[[https://improwiki.com/en/wiki/improv/samurai|Samurai or Hi-Ha-Ho:]]** LOL On player says "Ho" and points with his hands formind a sword to another player. This one defends himself with his sword -pointing his two palms to the air - saying "Hi". The two player on his sides cut his body with a "sword" saying "Ha". Then he points to the next player saying "Ho" and using his palms as a sword 
-  * [[http://improvencyclopedia.org/games//You.html|3 Different Sequences with a cities, fruits and cloths (movements, drinks, food, animals)]] LOL+  * **Synchroapplause**: LOL You make eye contact with the player on your left and applause synchronously. Then he does the same with his left player. If you applause two time, you change the direction. You can also add an asociation word if the group is unconcentrate 
 +  * [[http://improvencyclopedia.org/games//You.html|3 Different Sequences with a cities, fruits and cloths (movements, drinks, food, animals)]]: People are standing in a circle. First each person says a city and choose the next person without repeating until the first one is choosen. Each can mark that they are already choosen. Now fruits with a new random sequence are choosen. Finally cloths with a new random sequence are choosen. The first person starts slowly all sequence und each person has to listen to the fruit, city and cloth of the person before him and they continue the sequence with his fruit, city and cloths. Each person has to check that the next one received the word. Make eye contact and concentrate.
  
 ===== Individual games with movement to wake up ====== ===== Individual games with movement to wake up ======
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   * **1, 2, direction, 3, 4, 5, 6, direction**: All players are standing in a circle. The first player starts counting "one" putting his hand on his **left shoulder**, then the player on this left says "two" putting his hand on his **left shoulder**, the third one says "three" puting both arms horizontal in front of him with the upper one indicating the direction. The next player says "four" with this arm on his shoulder (right or left depending on the direction). Then it comes five and six. For "seven" the player has to put his arms horizontal and decide with them who is next. After seven, the players start counting from one again. If someone is too slow or makes a mistakes he has to run around the circle. The goal is to generate chaos and accept our own mistakes.   * **1, 2, direction, 3, 4, 5, 6, direction**: All players are standing in a circle. The first player starts counting "one" putting his hand on his **left shoulder**, then the player on this left says "two" putting his hand on his **left shoulder**, the third one says "three" puting both arms horizontal in front of him with the upper one indicating the direction. The next player says "four" with this arm on his shoulder (right or left depending on the direction). Then it comes five and six. For "seven" the player has to put his arms horizontal and decide with them who is next. After seven, the players start counting from one again. If someone is too slow or makes a mistakes he has to run around the circle. The goal is to generate chaos and accept our own mistakes.
  
-===== Mental or Physical games in circles ===== 
-  * **[[https://improwiki.com/en/wiki/improv/samurai|Samurai or Hi-Ha-Ho:]]** LOL On player says "Ho" and points with his hands formind a sword to another player. This one defends himself with his sword -pointing his two palms to the air - saying "Hi". The two player on his sides cut his body with a "sword" saying "Ha". Then he points to the next player saying "Ho" and using his palms as a sword 
-  * **Synchroapplause**: LOL You make eye contact with the player on your left and applause synchronously. Then he does the same with his left player. If you applause two time, you change the direction. You can also add an asociation word if the group is unconcentrate 
-  * [[http://improvencyclopedia.org/games//You.html|3 Different Sequences with a cities, fruits and cloths (movements, drinks, food, animals)]]: People are standing in a circle. First each person says a city and choose the next person without repeating until the first one is choosen. Each can mark that they are already choosen. Now fruits with a new random sequence are choosen. Finally cloths with a new random sequence are choosen. The first person starts slowly all sequence und each person has to listen to the fruit, city and cloth of the person before him and they continue the sequence with his fruit, city and cloths. Each person has to check that the next one received the word. Make eye contact and concentrate. 
  
 ===== Games in pairs ===== ===== Games in pairs =====
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     * Emotions: Exagerate the feelings of the people or characters     * Emotions: Exagerate the feelings of the people or characters
  
-===== Status games in groups ===== 
  
-I minimise ‘status resistance’ from my students by getting them to experience +===== Playing Scenes - Status ===== 
-various status sensations before I discuss the implications, or even introduce the term. +[[https://improwiki.com/en/wiki/improv/status|Introduction]] 
-I might ask them to say something nice to the person beside them, and then to say +  * **Status in a row**: The players stand up in two rows. One is for high status and the other one for lower status. Each pair of players face each others and play a scene with the status of their row. After the scene they go to the opposite row. In a second round the players choose the status and the audience **guess the status** and give a grade: 1 for lowest status and 10 for higher. 
-something nasty. This releases a lot of laughter, and they are surprised to find that +    * 2nd Round: Both players rise their status 
-they often achieve the wrong effect. (Some people never really say anything nice, and +    * 3rd Round: Both players lower their status 
-others never say anything really nasty, but they won’t realise this.)+    * 4rd Round: There is a status change 
 +  * **High and low status at a shop: **While one is the saleman, the other one is the customer. One has a high status and the other one low status during the whole scene. At the end, the public says if how the status was. The player decide together what is sold in the shop 
 +  * [[https://improwiki.com/de/wiki/improtheater/hackordnung|Hackordnung]] **Pecking Order II** (In German) LOL The player with the higher status can only speak with the middle one, the middle one is the only who speaks with the lower one. They a bad boys and the public choose what the will do. 
 +  * **The dictator and his assistant**: There are two pairs. The first one plays a scene where the dictator gets angry (The coffee is too cold) without expressing any emotion. The second pair of players has to replay the scene showing emotion. (note: once Flo did this game without the theme of dictactor-assistant, which also worked very nice. Maybe the essence of this game is just the emotion play, with any kind of setting: first without emotions, then with a lot of emotion)
  
-I ask a group to mill about and say ‘hallo’ to each other. They feel very +  * [[https://improwiki.com/de/wiki/improtheater/statuskette|Statuskette]] (In German) LOL with many players with and without place changes. Who comes, has always a higher status
-awkward, because the situation isn’t real. They don’t know what status they should be +
-playing. I then get some of the group to hold all eye contacts for a couple of seconds, +
-while the others try to make and then break eye contacts and then immediately glance +
-back for a moment. The group suddenly looks more like a ‘real’ group, in that somepeople become dominant, and others submissive. Those who hold eye contacts report +
-that they feel powerful—and actually look powerful. Those who break eye contact and +
-glance back ‘feel’ feeble, and look it. The students like doing this, and are interested, +
-and puzzled by the strength of the sensations.+
  
 +===== Second warm-up if needed =====
 +  * [[http://improvencyclopedia.org/games//Kitty_in_the_Corner.html|Kitty in the Corner]]
  
-I might then begin to insert a tentative ‘er’ at the beginning of each of my 
-sentences, and ask the group if they detect any change in me. They say that I look 
-‘helpless’ and ‘weak’ but they can’t, interestingly enough, say what I’m doing that’s 
-different. I don’t normally begin every sentence with ‘Cr’, so it should be very 
-obvious. Then I move the ‘er’ into the middle of sentences, and they say that they 
-perceive me as becoming a little stronger. If I make the ‘a’ longer, and move it back to 
-the beginning of sentences, then they say I look more important, more confident. 
-When I explain what I am doing, and let them experiment, they’re amazed at the 
-different feelings the length and displacement of the ‘ers’ give them. They are also 
-surprised that it’s difficult to get some people to use a short ‘er’. There wouldn’t seem 
-to be any problem in putting an ‘er’ lasting a fraction of a second at the beginning of 
-each sentence, but many people unconsciously resist. They say ‘urn’, or they elongate 
-the sound. These are people who cling to their self importance. The short ‘er’ is an 
-invitation for people to interrupt you; the long ‘er’ says ‘Don’t interrupt me, even 
-though I haven’t thought what to say yet.’ 
  
-Again I change my behaviour and become authoritative. I ask them what I’ve +===== Playing Scenes: (Topic: Storystelling) ===== 
-done to create this change in my relation with them, and whatever they guess to be the +  * [[https://improwiki.com/en/wiki/improv/backwards_interview|Backwards Interview ]]
-reason—‘You’re holding eye contact’, ‘You’re sitting straighter’—I stop doing, yet +
-the effect continues. Finally I explain that I’m keeping my head still whenever I speak, +
-and that this produces great changes in the way I perceive myself and am perceived by +
-others. I suggest you try it now with anyone you’re with. Some people find it +
-impossible to speak with a still head, and more curiously, some students maintain that +
-it’s still while they’re actually jerking it about. I let such students practise in front of a +
-mirror, or I use videotape. Actors needing authority—tragic heroes and so on—have +
-to learn this still head trick. You can talk and waggle your head about if you play the +
-gravedigger, but not if you play Hamlet. Officers are trained not to move the head +
-while issuing commands.+
  
-When actors are reversing status during a scene it’s good to make them grade 
-the transitions as smoothly as possible. I tell them that if I took a photograph every 
-five seconds, I’d like to be able to arrange the prints in order just by the status shown. 
-It’s easy to reverse status in one jump. Learning to grade it delicately from moment to 
-moment increases the control of the actor. The audience will always be held when a 
-status is being modified. 
- 
-One way to teach transitions of status is to get students to leave the class, and 
-then come in through the real door and act ‘entering the wrong room’. It’s then quitenormal to see students entering with head down, or walking backwards, or in some 
-other way that will prevent them from seeing that it is the wrong room. They want 
-time to really enter before they start ‘acting’. They will advance a couple of paces, act 
-seeing the audience, and leave in a completely phoney way. 
-I remind the students that entering the wrong room is an experience we all have, 
-and that we always know what to do, since we do ‘something’. I explain that I’m not 
-asking the students to ‘act’, but just to do what they do in life. We have a radar which 
-scans every new space for dangers, an early-warning system programmed-in millions 
-of years ago as a protection against sabre-tooth tigers, or bigger amoebas or whatever. 
-It’s therefore very unusual to refuse to look into the space you are entering. 
-As soon as the ‘wrong room’ exercise becomes ‘real’ they understand that a 
-change of status is involved. You prepare a status for one situation, and have to alter it 
-when suddenly confronted by the unexpected one. I then set the students to 
-predetermine the direction of the status change, and of course errors are often made. 
-Someone trying to play low status may have to be told to smile, and if he smiles with 
-both sets of teeth (an aggressive smile) he may have to be asked to show the top teeth 
-only. People who want to rise in status may have to be told to turn their backs to us 
-when they leave. Neither smiling nor turning your back is essential but it may help the 
-student get the feeling. In difficult cases it helps to use videotape. 
-A more complex version of this exercise is really a little play. I invented it at 
-RADA when I was asked if I could push the students into more emotional 
-experiences. It’s for one character—let’s say he’s a teacher, although he could be any 
-profession. He arrives late carrying the register and a pair of glasses. He says 
-something like ‘All right, quiet there, now then’, treating us as the class. As he is 
-about to read the register he puts the glasses on, and sees not his class, but a meeting 
-of the school Governors. He apologises, dropping in status frantically, and struggles to 
-the door, which sticks. He wrestles with it and after about ten seconds it comes free. 
-The actor feels a very great drop in status when the door jams. It takes him back to 
-feelings he may not have experienced since childhood: feelings of impotence, and of 
-the hostility of objects. 
-Once outside, the actor either stops the exercise, or if he feels brave, re-enters, 
-and plays the scene again and again. This exercise can turn people into crumbling 
-wrecks in a very short time, and for actors who like to ‘pretend’ without actually 
-feeling anything, it can be a revelation. One Scandinavian actor who apparently had 
-never really achieved anything because of his self-consciousness, suddenly 
-‘understood’ and became marvellous. It was for him a moment of satori. The 
-terrifying thing is that there’s no limit. 
 ===== Playing Scenes - No topic ===== ===== Playing Scenes - No topic =====
  
-  * **The dictator and his assistant**: There are two pairs. The first one plays a scene where the dictator gets angry (The coffee is too cold) without expressing any emotion. The second pair of players has to replay the scene showing emotion. (note: once Flo did this game without the theme of dictactor-assistant, which also worked very nice. Maybe the essence of this game is just the emotion play, with any kind of setting: first without emotions, then with a lot of emotion) 
   * **Speech and Die**: LOL Four players are on stage. The moderator points to one of them using his arm, he starts talking until the moderator's arm is up. Then a second player continues the story. If one of them says "and" or "then", they have to leave the game. :!: There is competition in this game   * **Speech and Die**: LOL Four players are on stage. The moderator points to one of them using his arm, he starts talking until the moderator's arm is up. Then a second player continues the story. If one of them says "and" or "then", they have to leave the game. :!: There is competition in this game
    * **Storystelling with sounds**: Two people play a scene while two players have their eyes closed. The scene must have less words and a lot of sounds. When the moderator applauses, the roles are changed and the second pairs must continue the scene as they image. Then the moderator applauses again, and the original pair comes back. At the end, the second pair must say what the topic of the scene was about    * **Storystelling with sounds**: Two people play a scene while two players have their eyes closed. The scene must have less words and a lot of sounds. When the moderator applauses, the roles are changed and the second pairs must continue the scene as they image. Then the moderator applauses again, and the original pair comes back. At the end, the second pair must say what the topic of the scene was about
    * **Puppets:** LOL Two players are puppets, they can speak but not move. Two other players have to indicate them how to move but can't speak     * **Puppets:** LOL Two players are puppets, they can speak but not move. Two other players have to indicate them how to move but can't speak 
- 
-===== Playing Scenes - Status ===== 
-[[https://improwiki.com/en/wiki/improv/status|Introduction]] 
-  * **Status in a row**: The players stand up in two rows. One is for high status and the other one for lower status. Each pair of players face each others and play a scene with the status of their row. After the scene they go to the opposite row. In a second round the players choose the status and the audience **guess the status** and give a grade: 1 for lowest status and 10 for higher. 
-  * **High and low status at a shop: **While one is the saleman, the other one is the customer. One has a high status and the other one low status during the whole scene. At the end, the public says if how the status was. The player decide together what is sold in the shop 
-  * [[https://improwiki.com/de/wiki/improtheater/hackordnung|Hackordnung]] **Pecking Order II** (In German) LOL The player with the higher status can only speak with the middle one, the middle one is the only who speaks with the lower one. They a bad boys and the public choose what the will do. 
-  * [[https://improwiki.com/de/wiki/improtheater/statuskette|Statuskette]] (In German) LOL with many players with and without place changes. Who comes, has always a higher status 
- 
-===== Playing Scenes: (Topic: Storystelling) ===== 
-  * [[https://improwiki.com/en/wiki/improv/backwards_interview|Backwards Interview ]] 
  
 LOL The group enjoyed these games LOL The group enjoyed these games