Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Intriguing Interruption

Most creative work is a process of people passing ideas and inspirations from the past into the future and adding their own creativity along the way.

Joichi Ito
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Hello y'all.

This quote reminds me of an acting exercise I was involved in many years ago. It was an exercise that developed a whole bushel of things that actors need to be able to do: concentration, listening, alertness, improvisation, story telling, etc.

We would stand in a circle. The director had a small kitchen timer, one that would go "ding" when the time was up. At first he would set it for 30 seconds and the first person in the circle would start to tell a story which he made up on the moment. When the bell dinged the next person would immediately pick up the story, even if it was in mid sentence. Meanwhile the director reset the timer for another 30 seconds.

The rule was that you had to include all the characters that were brought into the story unless you found some way to get them out of it.

On another day he would set the timer for various times, so we didn’t know how long we would have to speak and invent, it may be 15 seconds or 2 and a half minutes.

Then one day he brought in a ball (it was actually an orange) and when the timer dinged whoever was speaking would toss the ball to someone else so then, not only didn't we know how long we would have to speak, we also didn't know when our turn was coming.

At first we hated this exercise. But we eventually got to love it.

Y'all have some merriment today.

DB

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8 comments:

Linda's World said...

That sounds like a fun excercise. I would have loved that. Thanks for sharing that story with us. Linda in foggy and cold Washington

Beth said...

I can see how it would be very difficult to think on your feet that way, but I bet it WAS a lot of fun!

betty said...

sounds like a great exercise! I can see how constructive it could be to get those creative juices going and also to be paying attention to what was going on around you as others were talking and telling the story. I could see it could also be incorporated as a game for parties or also an exercise at school to help kids remember things and stay on task

bet there were some intriguing stories told throughout this exercise as people were being creative

enjoy the day DB

betty

Anonymous said...

I won't post what my "fun" exercise is :-0
~Mary

Arlene (AJ) said...

Very intersting way to keep everyone sharp and using their creativity and a great way to keep your mind thinking ahead. Hope you are staying warm in your cold neck of the woods.

Ken Riches said...

We used to play that game around the campfire with the kids :o)

Big Mark 243 said...

I think that would be a class that inspired one to expand their horizons ... and you'd be surprised to find out what came out of your own mouth!

Sage Ravenwood said...

I think this would be fun as a game among a few friends. (Hugs)Indigo