By Phoebe Kozinets
Hi blogosphere! I am feeling like Carrie Bradshaw right now. What if the actual plot of Sex and the City was that Sarah Jessica Parker was on a UCB House team and wrote about the power of Yes, And?! Anywaysssss…… we all know the magical feeling that comes from participating in joyous improv. That “improv high” – dare I say. When you have just done an excellent show/class/rehearsal and you laughed so hard your stomach hurt. You leave feeling connected to your body, sense of play, community, and the world around you. It’s why we keep coming back, choosing to spend our evenings in windowless rooms turning strangers to friends by playing pretend together until we have all created something beautiful when nothing was there before. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could feel a little bit of that freedom and joy every day? Here are some hypotheses on how we can bring that magic into the mundane.
- Presence! Every moment we encounter during the day is bursting with information if we are willing to slow down and notice it. The texture of petals on a flower, font on a restaurant sign, the way someone on the tube looks at the pages of their book. When we improvise effectively, we are forced to pay attention to everything unfolding. The subtext behind your scene partners words, the direction they hand you the pantomimed cigarette, a phone ringing in the audience. In real life, it can be hard to feel present when you are nagging and being unkind to yourself about it. Instead, try simply listening and noticing. How many circles or triangles can you spot on your commute? How does your body feel when you walk into Sainsburys? What does your mouth taste like when you are writing an email? I wonder if simply making an effort to pay 10% more attention to the world around you, and how it affects your body and heart, will help you tap into that state of presence we feel while improvising.
- Connection! The core of improvisation is connection, being able to build a story brick by brick as a collective takes tuning into the elusive “group mind”. To me, connection with others is what makes life meaningful. It’s quite easy to rush through daily interactions and forget about the magic of connection. I would love to challenge anyone reading this to spend one day with the intention of connecting with someone whenever possible, even in a way that feels small. Ask the person you are buying coffee from how their day is going and really mean it. Give a stranger a compliment. Tell your mom or dad something you have learned from them, even if that feels really strange to say out loud. When we do great improv, it feels thrilling because we are allowing ourselves to be witnessed and seen. Try to let someone *see* you offstage too, and let them know you see who they are in return. I promise it’ll make you feel awesome.
- Play! Improv is so much fun because we are being freaking PLAYFUL! Sing in the shower! Hug the security guard at your local Nisa (I actually did this and now we know each other by name and every time I go to Nisa he lights up and gives me a hug and I have a giggle shout-out to Wilhelm you rock). Put on some music and get out a piece of paper and draw hearts and smiley faces and wiggly worms and things that make you smile! Make a joke to someone on the spin bike next to you in cycle class! Laugh when you fall down (literally and metaphorically)! Life is so much more fun when we can see the silliness of it all and have a laugh with our everyday tasks. Pick another day and make it your play day and see if every single thing you do you can make it into a little game or put on fun music on or just infuse it with the spirit of silliness and play!
- Listening! Great improv feels powerful because we are really listening to each other. Ask someone a question, and really listen to what they have to say. Try not to think about what you want to say next while they are talking, and know it’s okay if you have nothing to say back at all. Just hear them, their words, the story under their words, their body language. Really listen. Repeat back to them what you think you heard, even if you get it wrong. Ask questions.
- Be curious! When we are improvising, we have to be curious because we don’t know what is going to happen next. There can be no ego, because no one has the script or the answer. In real life, we tell ourselves stories about how the world looks. We are bad artists, only good at sports, bad at math, not good at making friends. When in reality, these are just stories that have been formed because of experiences we had and are not cold hard facts about reality. How could you be good at math if you never practice it and whenever you do try you are thinking about how terrible you are? If we can get curious about where these stories came from, and how we can challenge them, imagine how many more joyful parts of life we could tap into and limiting beliefs we could remove!
Thank you all for reading and my playful song recommendation to go listen to is “Avant Gardener” by Courtney Barnett! Xoxoxoxoxo Phoebe :,)
Phoebe Kozinets