Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Improv Advent #24

24 - New Languages 

To have another language is to possess a second soul.
- Charlemagne (apparently)

I'm taking this quote to encourage everyone to keep playing with new people. When you're very comfortable with another improviser, it's like you share a common dialect. You can grasp subtext and meaning from the smallest move, and you can understand far more because of you intimacy.

This comfort can breed complacency. There is something scary and refreshing about sharing the stage with someone new, especially in a format that is extremely focused like a duo. But it's in this environment that you can figure out new and interesting things about yourself and learn how to listen and play in ways you may have forgotten how to.

Take a chance. Ask a stranger to do a duo. If there's an improv jam available that lets you play with your own team, take advantage of that and make it happen. You may find your self pushed in new directions, and in that, you may find yourself growing.

Don't let you ego get in the way. Don't let you preconceptions of someone else get in your way. Reach out, be open, and you can discover something new an satisfying.

Or it can crash and burn.

But that's learning too.


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