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Improvisation techniques
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These exercises in a playful way let a person experience expressing oneself freely. Participants will get a greater confidence in improvising and it will help them in escaping the “perfection trap”.
Counting
- Participants divide inpairs, turn facing the partner and keep counting one, two, three over and over again.
- Once the pair can do so comfortably, ask them to clap their hands instead of saying ‘one.’ They will still have to say two and three out loud. So the pattern will be a clap, followed by saying two, three out loud.
- Once the pair can do this step, they have to exchange the word ‘three’ for the act of bending their knees. So, the pattern will be a clap, say the word ‘two’ out loud and then bend the knees. It has to continue like this over and over again.
- Once participants can master these movements and do them properly, ask them to create their own steps and incorporate the same.
What are you doing?
- One person has to take centre stage and perform an act of doing something, without saying anything out loud. Other participants form a circe.
- Other participants asks the performer what he is doing. He has to answer anything else other than what he is doing. For instance, if he is performing the action of dancing, he will have to say something else, such as “I am brushing my teeth.”
- The participant asked the performer “What are you doing” will have to immediately perform the indicated activity, in this case, “I am brushing my teeth.”
- Now another participant will come up and ask “What are you doing?”. Person in the centre names another activity for him/her to demonstrate. The game continues till everyone gets a chance to perform. Faster pace makes it more challenging.
In One Word
In this fun improv game, participants will build concentration skills and put fast thinking skills to good use.
- Use a ball to initiate the game. The idea is to build up a story where each participant says only one word at a time. For instance, first participant rolls the ball out by saying out a word, such as “there” or “once.”
- The other person who gets the ball says another word to maintain the flow and rolls out the ball. Whoever gets the ball says the next word and so on. Stop to repeat all words and create a solid, funny, attractive story.
- The game can be paused from time to time to repeat the entire sentence. Create a funny, engaging story.