Improvisation
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Improvisation is the act of making something up as you go along. This term is usually used in the context of music, theater or dance.
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Music
Jazz and bluegrass are well-known for using improvisation. It features in many kinds of traditional music, including flamenco, pygmy and other African music, eastern classical music such as Carnatic music, and was once an important element in European classical music (see cadenza and figured bass). Improvisation can be structured, with certain rules constraining the improvisation (for example, "make up a song about bicycles", "use these chord changes", and so on), or can have no such constraints (free improvisation). A growing number of contemporary composers are requiring a greater degree of improvisation in their music, including Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Karlheinz Essl and Christian Wolff.
Theater
Most aspiring actors do a lot of improvisation. It is a staple of drama and theater classes at most colleges and high schools. According to the dominant acting theories of Konstantin Stanislavski, an actor improvising a scene must be trusting his own instincts. According to Stanislavski (see method acting), an actor must use his own instincts to define a character's response to internal and external stimuli. Through improvising, an actor can learn to trust his instincts instead of using mugging and indicating to broadcast his motives. Improv is also useful in its focus on concentration. Obviously, in an environment in which anything is allowed to happen, the actors must be capable of keeping their concentration throughout, even in difficult and stressful circumstances. Concentration is a staple of acting classes and workshops; it is vital that an actor be capable of concentrating on the scene or action at hand. Actors who fail to keep up with an improvisation are said to be blocking.
Film
The director Mike Leigh uses lengthy improvisations developed over a period of weeks to build characters and storylines for his films. He starts with some sketch ideas of how he thinks things might develop but does not reveal all his intentions with the cast who discover their fate and act out their responses as their destinies are gradually revealed, including significant aspects of their lives which will not subsequently be shown onscreen. The final filming draws on dialog and actions that have been recorded during the improvisation period.
Comedy
Improvisation is also performed as an art form itself in theatres around the world, sometimes with dramatic intent but more often in comedic form (the most famous is Chicago's The Second City). Extemporizing on the methods of pioneers such as Viola Spolin, Paul Sills, Del Close and Keith Johnstone, actors improvise often wildly funny scenes with amazing character work and believable behavior.
Television
In the 1990s, a TV show called Whose Line Is It Anyway? popularized comedic improvisation. The original version was British, but it was later revived and popularized in the United States with Drew Carey as a host. More recently, television shows such as HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm (starring Seinfeld co-creator Larry David) and Bravo series Significant Others have used improvisation to create longer-form programs with more dramatic flavor. Another improvisation based show is PAX-TV's "World Cup Comedy (http://www.paxtv.com/shows/worldcup/)." In Canada, the Global Television soap opera Train 48, based on the Australian series Going Home, uses a form of structured improvisation, in which actors improvise dialog from written plot outlines.
Role-playing games
Some role-playing games (tabletop games, live action games, MUDs and some MMORPG computer games) often involve a casual form of improvisational acting. (See gamemaster for an example.) A player's character may be pre-defined, with game statistics and a history, but the character's response to game events and to other players is improvised. Some players are more interested in the depth of the "acting" than others; some are purely combat and game-mechanic oriented, while others enjoy elaborate plots, emotional investment in characters, and intense or witty repartee.
Links
- Improvisation on "Improvisation" (http://www.essl.at/bibliogr/improvisation-e.html): Karlheinz Essl and Jack Hauser talking about musical improvisation
- Impro.infini (http://www.impro.infini.fr)
See also
- Commedia dell'arte
- Improvisational theater
- Improvisational comedy
- Longform improvisation
- Shortform improvisationde:Improvisation
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