ALT/space

I recently taught a workshop on Dramatic Improvisation for a Comedy Festival focused on Improvisation and Stand-Up comedy for adults. Mine was the first workshop of the day (a Saturday), and I had anticipated a small turnout of people, mostly men, who might resist all but the hilarious and shallow. Why? Because Dramatic Improvisation only works with deep vulnerability and an almost intimate relationship with a scene partner, who may be a stranger. It’s hard to do, and if the commitment to the scene partner is not complete, the scene is unsatisfying. It’s also not necessarily funny (although it can be), and has the potential to be beautiful and raw. Kinda doesn’t fit Saturday Improv Comedy Fest, but that’s what I was asked to teach.

Well, it’s true that people dribbled in and it’s true that they were men with one late exception, BUT they were receptive, worked hard, took direction, and did some poignant, funny, breath-stopping work that was character-driven rather than joke-driven. They took direction and critique and grew in awareness and, yes, intimacy.

I have given this outcome and my own prejudice a great deal of thought in the days since. I typically teach Dramatic Improv and Contact Improv (another deeply personal and wonderful improv form that is movement based) to teenagers, and the hard part is always inching them towards the letting go of their outer walls, helping them to launch themselves into a moment where they are vulnerable co-stewards of an intimacy of emotion and raw honesty made public.

To be clear, I don’t mean ‘intimacy’ in the sense of sexuality or sex scenes. In Contact Improv, the intimacy is both physical and emotional; students’ bodies stay in contact as they discover and apply what are, in essence, planetary and geographical physics. They must learn to not be self-supporting, but rather co-steward as they move through poses hunting for balance, center-point, centripetal force of the unit which invariably puts them as individuals in a place where they would fall if they let go or tried to use brute force instead of trust, vulnerability, and connectivity.

There is always huge fear, huge resistance, and then unfettered and profound joy when they nail it. I often take as my partner the largest or least physical comfortable person—I am not very big—in order to demonstrate that it will be okay. I will have the large young man do the pose with me where he ends up standing on my knees as we both lean back, his arm extended, like flying …. because relationships are not about who is stronger, who is bigger, who has what qualities as an individual, but rather how those qualities can be used to find the balance, the center-point, the connected but turning planets, the tectonic forces of people. After this body work, we do an exercise where each person slowly and carefully touches the air about an inch from their partner’s body (with the back of their hand, not the front) in slow consciousness and respect. Then we do scene work.

Although the process of inching teens towards intimacy, vulnerability, and co-stewardship is different when I teach Dramatic Improv (different exercises), the outcome is the same—surprise, elation, pride, bravery, and an enriched capacity for calm and courageous openness. It’s that trusting co-caring that relies on the relationship and not the self; it is intimacy. Inevitably the scene work is extraordinary, regardless if they ever met their scene partner before, regardless if their scene partner is someone they would even like under other circumstances. Inevitably the performers carry forward a heightened awareness of other and interpersonal bonds, and the realization that they can create something truly incredible through this practice…onstage AND in life.

Why was I surprised by my group of adults? Because for teens, the resistance grows of the newness of true co-caring and the ‘terrifyingness’ of such intense vulnerability, and I had presumed that most people who do Stand-Up or joke-type comic improv would be focused on the self rather than the other. Yet in the workshop, they moved more quickly through the steps of deepening vulnerability and emotional intimacy than the teens. Why? Oftentimes, dealing with other targeted performance skills, adults are less willing to take risks than teens. I wonder if, perhaps, the value and impact of a vulnerable, co-stewarding practice was so great in their past (on stage? In real life? In actual relationships?) that they were able, in 50 minutes with people they had never met, practice the art of intimacy and create fabulously engaging Improvisation.

Regardless of the underlying reason, it was an incredible experience for me to work with them and have my assumptions turned upside down, and I will carry this learning forward with me to other times when I am teaching intimacy in performance practice—as something to be mindful of in the workshop participants’ relationships to the material and with each other …. but also in my relationships with them.

Artistic Director of Shearwater Productions, Holly Adams is a long time mask maker, stage combat choreographer, and performer with a focus on physical theatre styles. Holly also loves being a teaching artist! Whether she is giving a master class in NYC or at a college, or creating arts-a-the-core inquiry based curricula for elementary and high schools, she is loving every minute of it. She is the recipient of ATA’s Teaching Artist Service to the Field award for 2009-2010,a member of APA, Ed Bloggers, and a board member for NYSTEA. An interview with Holly is here

Also in ALT/space by Holly Adams:
Working with Children on the Asperger-Autism Spectrum
Rigor and Joy
Don’t Stop Believing

I am a performer, playwright and Teaching Artist with a long history and much training in working with people whose perceptual/interactive experience of the world is on the fringe of typical association. In 2012, I was hired by 3 Tier Consulting to do theater workshops with children on the Asperger-Autism spectrum in Watertown and Fort Drum. Most of these children come from families with a spouse in the active armed forces, oftentimes also facing a possible move to another base; although we ran 2 sets of 2 weekly sessions about six months apart, only boy was in both sets.

Fabulously enough, targeted performance skills are targeted performance skills, regardless of whether the workshop participants are professional adult actors or children with Asperger’s Syndrome.  Working on a stage-sharing Ensemble, creating and understanding dialogue, unpacking meaning, developing a gesture repertoire or honing gestural language are things ALL actors must constantly revisit, which means that ‘Going to Acting Class’ is something an eleven-year-old boy can talk about at school with pride. It is also a context that can comfortably absorb people with a wide range of social skills, including typically-developing children.

We had two groups, one for children from four to seven years old, and one for children (who turned out to be all boys) from nine to thirteen years old. The younger group had children all over the Asperger-Autism map (I have found that ‘spectrum’ implies a linearality that is not really helpful or accurate in a performance context), and the older group was made up of boys in with various manifestations of Asperger’s Syndrome.

With the younger group, I chose the theme of Weather, specifically wind and snow, because it was late fall/early winter, and kids ‘on the spectrum’ in particular respond well to themed structure. I knew that they would need the space and a variety of concrete visual, sound and text clues to guide implicitly, so I created a circle with one “opening” made up of soft blankets with differing colors and designs, folded to create a large ‘mat’, knowing the children would gravitate toward them a places to be, lie down, watch, etc, and that they would choose the design and color best for them.

In the middle of the circle were picture books (fiction and non-fiction) and some magazine photographs about winter, as well as crayons, markers, and paper. As children drifted in, they were given the opportunity to draw, listen, read, look, or talk about the weather and the coming winter. Once we were all there, we shifted from drawing, etc to recounting to imagining we were going to go outside and play in the snow.

Each child in turn (the idea of waiting to take your turn and knowing what the appropriate social cue is for that is HUGE) suggested something we had to wear or bring in order to go outside and play (reinforcing life skills). Once we all agreed we were ready, we got off our mats and pretended to do snow things—skate around the circle to music, sit on our mats and go ‘sledding’, make snow angels, and even rip up paper and throw it into the air for it to fall.

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From mid-September through till mid-December I am a teaching artist in six fourth grade classrooms in two school districts, twenty contact hours per classroom (theoretically).  The project involves using performance modalities (usually as alternative learning strategies) to co-teach academic or social content, then facilitating the creation of an original piece about that content. Although all six of these teachers are new to me, I have been happily doing this project with this arts organization and one of these districts for fifteen years, and at one of these schools for three years running.

Normally, I love this project and look forward to it every year. I love rediscovering the material through students’ experiences, I love mid-wifing their process of becoming artists, writers, performers; it is such an honor. I look for ways to grow and tailor my own process, and the students get to a place where they actually embrace hard work and then make big performance leaps — and I am going to go bold here and say ‘every time’.

This year, however, has been particularly challenging.  I’m not quite sure why, but it seems the teachers don’t want a Teaching Artist to be there.  It may be because we started too early in the school year.  Or, perhaps they are feeling the pressure of new state regulations and requirements.  It is quite probable that the resistance to my presence is because all but one of these teachers were not fourth grade teachers last spring. In addition to being a whole new ball game, they are not the original stakeholders of the project and are being required to participate without having been included in the development process. 

Regardless, I was assigned to the schools in late August, and began in September. By the end of the first week, I realized I was walking on eggshells, tiptoeing around their resistance which seemed to deny me the ability to do what I’ve been hired to do in years past, something at the core of my teaching practice.  I was unable to create/require rigor and joy.  Rigor and joy are what, for me, define an artistic experience; they are also at the core of what makes it possible for a nine-year-old to re-imagine herself as Learner, Artist and Writer! 

Having had no part in the administrative process myself means I have had even less power than the teachers to make big changes to the situation.  Early on, the only thing I could do was stay positive despite being ignored, delayed and undermined, and supporting the teacher regardless of the situation.  I wracked my brain every day to find ways, however small, of being supportive of their work in the bigger picture and thereby make the classroom experience better for everyone.  This was what, ultimately, began to make a difference.

I began to find ways to bring small pockets of delight into every class, like fireflies in cupped hands. Sometimes it would be presenting an idea with fun but gross examples, sometimes giving sections of the lesson as various silly characters, or twirling my invisible mustache when they were given a challenging idea, or revealing the secret treasure of what artists do that was ‘underneath’  whatever observation they had made. Slowly, slowly, the hard work for which silliness created space began to have an impact.

The room with a high percentage of children with learning and developmental challenges began to rejoice with me, running to set up the space and get in their spots for warm-up or rehearsal, working to finish up their other requirements so we could get to work, which they came to love. We scolded the set or props when they got in the wrong place, and roared with laughter with me when I ‘threatened’ in my silly and upbeat clown pirate or Groucho Marx voice to ‘beat someone with the script of Death’ if  they were not giving the process or their work partners the rigor they knew.

Finally, in our fifth week, the atmosphere in each of the classrooms had grown lighter and more nourishing, such that the final productions were committed and energized and – most importantly - full of joy. At least for the kids. For the adults, I am not so sure; even though things definitely improved, I am not sure they are resolved for the teachers, especially in terms of the timing of the residency. For myself, I am grateful for the hard work and joy that we DID find.

Artistic Director of Shearwater Productions, Holly Adams is a long time mask maker, stage combat choreographer, and performer with a focus on physical theatre styles. Holly also loves being a teaching artist! Whether she is giving a master class in NYC or at a college, or creating arts-a-the-core inquiry based curricula for elementary and high schools, she is loving every minute of it. She is the recipient of ATA’s Teaching Artist Service to the Field award for 2009-2010,a member of APA, Ed Bloggers, and a board member for NYSTEA. An interview with Holly is here

Also in ALT/space by Holly Adams:
Don’t Stop Believing

“I think, I think, that we should end it with, with a party.”  J.T. Is the last one to make a suggestion about how our movie should end.

This is the third session of “Theatre 101”, an open workshop for adults with a range of developmental challenges, and our group has grown to ten counting myself, the Coordinator of Recreation Programs for Individuals with Disabilities, and the Specialist in Recreation for Individuals with Disabilities. Although I have worked with folks with various challenges and disabilities all my life, this is a pilot project with this particular organization.

The Coordinator and I weren’t sure this workshop would fly, especially since we had only two participants on our first day, and those two brave souls were so very apprehensive.

But the opportunity to have an individual voice, and to, as a group, bring to life a story that never existed before is so exciting and wondrous and powerful that people  – all people — are drawn to it. I never cease to be awed by the creativity and joy that comes pouring out of people who do not normally perceive themselves as artists.

For the first two sessions, we created and performed scenes and bits inside classic theatre exercise frameworks, and talked about the scenes using Visual Thinking Strategies-type questions and lots of support. During our second session, the group decided to make a movie.  As with any group, we have been exploring the meaning and importance of ‘Who’, ‘What’, and ‘Where’, with emphasis on performing the answer to the question, “How does the audience know?”  Once the group decided to make a movie, we applied those questions to a brainstorming session of ideas, which included a haunted house, various spooky beings, the idea of fear and friendship, and the need for lots of songs. It was certainly fun and fabulous, but not mind-blowing.

That is, not until the third session. After our warm-up and acting exercise, we begin to lay out an outline, with me just asking questions. The group decides that the movie begins with a character in her room, dancing to Monster Mash. She is afraid of monsters, so when witches and a bat and a cat and Wolfman come into her room to dance and have scary fun, she screams and runs away. The monsters are left on stage to wonder what happened and call after her, “We didn’t mean to scare you!” They are then all at a baseball game (as players who sing Take Me out to the Ball Game), and the first character is uneasy, then freaks out again, so the spooky characters have a meeting to talk about it (and sing a piece from Friendship from Anything Goes). Then what? How does it end? A party. A party to which the first character has been invited, and they sing Don’t Stop Believing, and the first character realizes that it’s all okay and they should be friends.

Then the group casts themselves and casts me, although I had not planned on performing, and resisted doing anything more than a small supportive role. But the group was insistent and unanimous in their decision—I was to play the person who had only liminal experience with monsters and was afraid, not realizing that monsters are wonderful, fun, loving people until the party, where I join them in singing Don’t Stop Believing.

Holy metaphor, Batman.

So we make the movie, film and project it during session four, just using “photobooth” on my laptop, and it is awesome.

I cannot share the movie with you, as a few of the folks had signed “Do not share my likeness” forms, but I can share with you that they all requested another series of workshops.

I can’t wait.

Artistic Director of Shearwater Productions, Holly Adams is a long time mask maker, stage combat choreographer, and performer with a focus on physical theatre styles. Holly also loves being a teaching artist! Whether she is giving a master class in NYC or at a college, or creating arts-a-the-core inquiry based curricula for elementary and high schools, she is loving every minute of it. She is the recipient of ATA’s Teaching Artist Service to the Field award for 2009-2010,a member of APA, Ed Bloggers, and a board member for NYSTEA. An interview with Holly is here