Jill Bernard's workshop was really good for me. I love how whenever I'm feeling bad about improv (my improv not improv in general) or frustrated with how much of my life it consumes, something happens to make me remember why I do this. I walked into a the room of some hideout people and then some people I had never seen before. I was the only ColdTowne person there. The normal social anxiety stuff was all triggered at the beginning, but i think ultimitely I benefitted even more from being in a room with mostly strangers and a few aquaintences. It was a lot easier for me to not care and take risks. First of all, Jill is a giddy and joyful nymph with a slight mid-western accent. This is very delightful combination to experience. You almost feel like you're watching a child; she seems free of inhibitions and just so full of genuine joy. It didn't seem like an act either. I'm sure she isn't always a joyful little child nymph, she is obviously bright and thoughtful and I don't mean to take aways from that by comparing her to a child. The genuine joy just really impressed me. My favorite exercises were pretty simple but very fun and helpful. In one exercise, one person started doing something on stage and the other person came in and told them somethin mundane. Person one then had to have an extremely emotional reaction to whatever was said. Jill kept side-coaching us to get bigger and really let go. or to take the lid off as she said. I ended up on the ground crying, which is something I've done in scenes before, but never to this level, making crazy non-human noises, hitting the floor etc. It felt a little self-indulgent and we discussed that, if we are pouring out that much emotion aren't we taking up all the attention, pulling away too much from our scene partner. If it's self-indulgent to accept the focus sometimes and make strong emotional choices, then all of improv is self-indulgent and what's the point? I think I sometimes get caught in my head too much cause i do feel inherently guilty for wanting the attention that comes from being on a stage, making strong choices on a stage, being fast and decisive. I tell myself, I'm not good enough and the only way i can justify being in the spotlight is if Im doing everything perfectly etc. So... get caught in my head, making bad choices cause Im so nervous.
Back to Jill; Jill said it was okay to be the focus, you just have to be the support too sometimes. There was a lot of discussion of basic fear based decision making stuff, how much easier it is when you are given strong gifts from your partner and giving them right back. These are all things I know but it is so necessary to keep reminding myself. I make improv so much harder than it has to be. The next exercise that I really liked was this: one person comes across the stage endowing themself (out loud) as a character and then when they get to their scene partner the scene partner corrects them and endows them as someone else. and then the scene begins. We all made pretty strong character choices initially because we knew we were going to be throwing these characters away, so there was no pressure. It was also ridiculously easy and fun to switch instantly. Which illustrated that it's okay to endow someone with something and you may change what was in their mind but you're giving them something to work with . Jill also talked about trusting yourself to figure out what you've created after you create it. Youdon't need to figure it out before you create it. I liked this idea a lot, it's simple, but I rarely trust myself to do something and then figure it out on stage. Im always trying to use my brain first, forgetting that my brain can and will catch up. The last exercise we did was my favorite. Jill called it Ralphing. We would run around snapping and saying Banana banana banana until Jill said stop and then we would let whatever noise came out transition into a word and a scene start. Not letting our thinking brain in to work on the scene until we'd already made the intial sound. It's a similar idea to the switchboard style of transitions between scenes and I had sort of forgotten how much I loved that. It made me really want to start working on organic sound and movement transitions again. I think I just needed to be reminded, that improv is fun, it is work but it is emotional work, not head work. I need to bring that back into my life again. Im definitely getting out of my slump but I needed concrete things to focus on, like not trying so hard to focus.