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--- improv_games:improv-games_1_with_focus_on_status_games [2020/08/12 21:27] – [Playing Scenes - Status] luchorobi
+++ improv_games:improv-games_1_with_focus_on_status_games [2020/08/12 21:29] (current) – [Status games in groups] luchorobi
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 ====== List of Games #1 with focus on Status ======
-Length: 2 hours
+Length: 3 hours
-Done on 05.05.2018
 ====== Introduction for promoting this topic ======
 **Status Workshop** - On Saturday
@@ Line 53: / Line 51: @@
     * 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
-various status sensations before I discuss the implications, or even introduce the term.
-I might ask them to say something nice to the person beside them, and then to say
-something nasty. This releases a lot of laughter, and they are surprised to find that
-they often achieve the wrong effect. (Some people never really say anything nice, and
-others never say anything really nasty, but they won’t realise this.)
-I ask a group to mill about and say ‘hallo’ to each other. They feel very
-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.
-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
-done to create this change in my relation with them, and whatever they guess to be the
-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 =====
-  * **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
-   * **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 =====
@@ Line 165: / Line 65: @@
 ===== Second warm-up if needed =====
- * [[http://improvencyclopedia.org/games//Kitty_in_the_Corner.html|Kitty in the Corner]]
+  * [[http://improvencyclopedia.org/games//Kitty_in_the_Corner.html|Kitty in the Corner]]
 ===== Playing Scenes: (Topic: Storystelling) =====
   * [[https://improwiki.com/en/wiki/improv/backwards_interview|Backwards Interview ]]
+===== Playing Scenes - No topic =====
+  * **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
+   * **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
 LOL The group enjoyed these games

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