Applied Improvisation Network 2012 World Conference Storify

Have you been intrigued by my AIN12 posts? Here are some more goodies via Viv McWaters – Applied Improvisation Network 2012 World Conference (with images, tweets) · vivmcwaters · Storify. Look at all the little gems, or perhaps more aptly, facets that the tweets expose. I think you had to be there for the gems. I think my favorites are:

  • “‘Go towards the thing you’re scared of.’ Gary Hirsch#ain12
  • “@improvapy: “Trauma sucks people into the past. Laughter pulls people into the present.” Genie Joseph#AIN12
  • #AIN12 @brentdarnell Traditional training is a conspiracy create by sellers of 3 ring binders
  • #ain12 Matt Smith: “do what you can to get into a sense of gratitude before you perform” …or teach, or host, or lead, or…
  • Adam Blatner: “I’d rather learn something new than be right” #ain12
  • “You have to find people who are broken and help them heal. Laughter is my weapon of mass construction.” Genie Joseph #AIN12

Gotta love “laughter is my weapon of mass construction” from a woman who uses improv to help soldiers heal from the trauma of war. Mind blowing.

AIN12: Shifting Resignation to Empowerment Workshop

Rebecca Stockley and Matt Smith led one of the most engaging workshops I attended at the Applied Improvisation Conference. I never totally connected the title “Shifting Resignation to Empowerment Workshop” to the activity until I slept on it for a few days and then was treated to a little “neuron connecting” via Viv McWaters.

Viv blogged about the learning intersection between improvisation and facilitation. This probably was the door that allowed my thinking to go a bit further than a fascination with an applied improv method. In “Facilitation Tips for Improvisers” Viv gently reminds both sets of practitioners how much they know, add and, perhaps, don’t know about the other’s practice. I love how she teased out the mutual learning that is possible at the intersection of these practices and for me, thinking about how and where to use an improv exercise or method needs that practice-boundary-crossing.

Then, after I drafted the first part of this post, Viv posted about the exercise. That made this blog post easier. Thanks, Viv.

Bacl to Rebecca and Matt. They shared three improv exercises to help shift thinking, to get out of that “stuck” spot. To see possibility.

They started with “Invocation,” part of a more complex style of long form theatre improvisation known as “Harold!” (I’ll let you read about that yourself!)  After a little searching, it seems that the Invocation is often uses as an opening for longer form improv. But we were interested in the application of this form in business or organizational life. Here is how Viv summarized it (Viv, I hope it is ok I’m borrowing so boldly!)

Here’s how it works. You start with an inanimate object. Anything really – a hat, a salt shaker, a cup,a book…

There’s four rounds. In groups of say four people, you can throw comments in at each round. It’s okay to talk over each other, to jump in. The idea is to keep the comments coming. There’s no need to incorporate other people’s ideas, although that might happen. Anyone can move on to the next round whenever they choose. Once one person moves on, everyone else moves on too. Whether they’re ready or not.

Basically you invoke the object as follows:

It is…

You are…

Thou art…

I am…

You can discover things about yourself through objects. You can also do an invocation on fear, age, stress or something else you are wrestling with.

We then moved on to Naikan, which comes from a Japanese reflective process. The form is:

What have I received from ______ (name the person, thing, group)?
What have I given _____?
What troubles and difficulties have I caused ____?

Clearly my upbringing in a guilt centric religion caused me to first experience this as GUILT GUILT GUILT! But I do appreciate it can, in its deeper form, be really useful. I would not use it in a meeting. No way. No where!

But then they gave us a mashup between the Invocation and Naikan, the Nipon Invocation   and this one was more accessible to me and thus I can see using it. In fact it is already slipping into a few designs. Here is how Viv described it:

And for people completely out of touch with their calling, here’s another one that Rebecca and Matt mashed up. It too is powerful. In fact, I think I like it even more. Rebecca and Matt demonstrated this as a pair. I think it could also be done in small groups, or individually. It’s a way of using improvisation to go deep with people – or with yourself.

Let’s say the subject is ‘talent’, and I’m using this on myself. Here’s the script for the Nipon Invocation:

My (talent) is…

To serve my (talent) I…

My (talent) has served me by…

The trouble I have caused my (talent) is…

Viv, I am your (talent) and I…
Viv is experienced with improv, so I think she “saw” the application before I did. I had to experience the form, then muddle on it.

Matt and Rebecca role modeled this form so brilliantly, I was a bit awed and intimidated by the high performance standards — both are seasoned improv actors.  But they assured us that “real people” do this to great results.

While I still don’t quite see the traction for these methods in shifting from resignation to empowerment, I REALLY do see their application in unpeeling something to get at it from different perspectives.  As I said, I plan to use this.

I love the APPLIED part of this whole improv thing! (Next step, take another improv workshop here in Seattle. Soon!)

Wholeness: AIN12 & the Museum of the African Diaspora

As part of the Applied Improvisation Network World Conference in San Francisco, we divided up for three “field trips” on the first day. I was on the “Jazz” trip.

21 of us headed off to the Museum of the African Diaspora. We were given a fairly typical introduction to the museum and about the African Diaspora. But things started getting interesting when we viewed a short film about Howard Thurman, who talked about, among other things, the importance of being whole. (Read some of his quotes here.) This had so many layers of resonance for me, not just in terms of improv, but in every aspect of life.

Then we entered the current exhibition, Choosepaint!chooseabstraction! Celebrating Bay Area Abstract Artists.

From the moment I entered the gallery I was gobsmacked by color, emotion, ideas, layers… and eventually, some sense of wholeness. I’ve always loved abstract art.

As I walked from one canvas to the next the power of both thought, intention and improvisation came across. Reading the artists quotes about the paintings, reading the titles, seeing that many of these artists were born in the 40’s was incredible. I regret not writing down more than a few of the quotes, after some assurance from the staff that they were online. Alas, they are not. No catalog either. But the resonance was around things such as “letting the paint speak,”

Arthur Monroe wrote:

“If I had not been sanwhiched between jazz and Abstract Expressionists, I would have lost my way and may chances to paint.”

Museum of the African Diaspora :: Gone, 2005 by Squeak Carnwath
Museum of the African Diaspora :: Gone, 2005 by Squeak Carnwath

While our host from the museum did some Q&A to elicit the connection between this art and improvisation, I kept circling the room. I was so moved.

What an interesting start to a four day gathering on Applied Improvisation. MoAD gave me insights to my own practice of facilitation, communities and graphic facilitation. About wholeness, about being in the present, about color and beauty in every sense of the word. Simply Amazing.

Innovation: the human flip chart

I love reading Gillian Martin Mehers’s blog, You Learn Something New Every Day. Now there is my kind of person! Recently she posted about a facilitation challenge that I related to: going to a gathering venue and not being allowed to post things on the way. As I’m fully into flip charts and graphic recording/facilitation, I always ask in advance if I can put stuff on the wall, and if not, I arrange for pin boards or some alternative. However, Gillian and her team came up with a new one – human flip charts. Tight Parameters = Opportunities for Innovation.

There are two things I appreciate about Gillian’s improvisational response to a challenge. One, it is creative. Two, in engages and involves everyone in the room in the solution. The “problem” isn’t just the facilitators’. It is the challenge and operating conditions of the group.

Where we are able to give over both control AND responsibility, I find we get greater engagement.

Edit: a few hours later, I find this picture of CIFOR’s annual meeting Open Space Marketplace — one of the more innovative ones that I’ve seen!

If you like creating music, do you like social media?

Today on Twitter there was a lovely conversation about improvisation. Alas, my twitter timeline doesn’t go back far enough to capture it, but it was something that I think Jeremiah Owyang wrote about the importance of improvisation and achitwood and I chimed in about improvisation being a key skill these days. We noted that often it is seen as something risky and all about disruption, but it is in fact an amazing practice to bolster collaboration and innovation.

achitwood achitwood Improv – you gotta know your instrument (whether music, theatre, collab) to make music with others!

Jeremiah jowyang Nate wrote a great blog post on Jazz Improve because of this thread: http://tinyurl.com/23wtxj

As the conversation progressed, Jeremiah brought in the thread of jazz as one branch of improvisation and people started chiming in that they played an instrument or were in a band. That triggered some collective wondering if people who are interested in improvisation might be better suited to or interested in social media. That’s when Jeremiah came up with the idea of a wikis. So I set up a wiki! social media musicians. Come join in the play! In the meantime, here are a few snippets from the Twitter conversation.

Jeremiah jowyang Since there are SO many musicians here, I propose over the next 30 days we record ourselves playing and put it on a public wiki….. jowyang The wiki wouldn’t HOUSE the videos, but just point to them wherever they live (blip, youtube, metacafe, facebook, whatever)

Veronique veroniquec wishing I had a musical bone in my body to contribute to @jowyang ‘s music wiki — sounds like fun!

Karoli Karoli @jowyang: that was a great post. My kid is a jazz studies major in college…improv is as much a gift as a learned skill. I’m in awe

Jim Benson ourfounder @jowyang – A public Music Wiki sounds fun actually. I wouldn’t mind contributing.

Jeremiah jowyang @all jazz social media folks, see this video of Bobby McFerrin involving crowd http://tinyurl.com/yq8369