As the
improvisation assistant, I was able to see a side of the students that most
faculty, staff, and counselors weren’t able to experience. The students were
able to take a break from their disciplines, let loose, and most importantly,
laugh.
Regina Saisi,
a native San Franciscan, has made the trek to Quartz Mountain for years now to
teach the improv classes. Regina is a part of a three-person traveling improv
troupe based out of San Francisco. She
has been in the improv theater world for more than twenty-five years and has no
intentions of quitting anytime soon.
There were
three improv sessions every day, each comprised of students from different
disciplines: choir, ballet and modern; acting, creative writing,
drawing/printmaking, and photography; and orchestra. It was a delight not
only to see the students lose all inhibitions and have some fun, but also to see
the different disciplines working together. Each group developed their own sort
of improv “personality.” The choir, ballet, and modern group were completely
different than the acting, drawing/printmaking, creative writing, and
photography group, from sense of humor to subject matter.
Regina
would sometimes tailor the exercises to fit each group. This either meant using
an exercise that would be in the comfort zone of the disciplines in that group
or completely out of the comfort zone. In this way, she was able to challenge
the students and stimulate their imaginations. Men would play women and women
would play men, creative writers would sing, and choir students would dance.
The students learned that anything goes in improv and the goofier and less
inhibited, the better.
There were
struggles in the first few classes. Students were afraid of not being funny or
being made fun of for what they chose to do. Regina made all at ease with an
exercise where every student had to go to one another, throw their hands in the
air, and yell, “I FAILED!” She taught that it is okay to fail, everyone fails,
and it is just part of the process. After this exercise, the students were more
comfortable and relaxed with their peers. This made for an even better time.
A favorite
exercise across all groups was a role-playing one. In this exercise, two
students have to explain to a teacher why their friend was late to school.
While this explanation is happening, the “late” student is waiting outside so
that (s)he does not hear the ludicrous explanation. Then, the “late” student
has to come in and try to tell the teacher why (s)he was late, trying to
corroborate the story the friends just told. How is the student supposed to do
this? Only by watching the friends act out the wild scenario they had built.
Regina said the crazier the story, the more fun it is, and this was definitely
true. One group came up with this story:
The student was late because his
grandmother got “bronchlotia” (an illness, they explained, that is a
combination of getting bronchitis and then being allergic to lotion). An easy
cure for this bronchlotia would be to go to the hospital, but the grandmother
was a Christian Scientist and did not believe in hospitals, so INSTEAD, the
late student had to ice down his grandmother with a mixture of ice and salt
every few minutes, and THAT was why he was late.
Now, imagine two students acting that out and having a
completely clueless student try to guess the story… hilarious. Not only were
the actors having fun, but the audience was, too. The students could not stop
laughing.
A truly
beautiful moment in improv happened on the last day with the choir, ballet, and
modern group. The exercise Regina was doing involved her playing music randomly
and then one, two, three, or all of the students dancing to it in whatever
fashion they wanted. Everyone was having fun, some choir students pretending to
do ballet, ballet students acting like they were at a hoppin’ club, modern
students doing tribal dances, and then the song “I Want You Back” by the
Jackson 5 came on and every single student started to sing. There was a mixture
of beautifully trained chorus voices with perfect pitch hitting breathtaking
notes, and the obviously untrained students belting it out, not caring in the
least that they couldn’t sing at all. The choir was dancing and the dancers
were singing, and it was an amazing moment of unity. Their disciplines collided,
and you could tell a connection formed between them that had not been there
before.
When the
class was over, girls and boys left the room arm in arm, singing, skipping, and
laughing. The transformation that happened in fifty-five minutes was stunning.
It is cases like that that prove the pure power and magic that OSAI has to
offer.
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