iO Level Three - Week Four

So tonight was the half way mark for level Three at iO.

We found out when we'd be able to register for the next session of classes earlier today (Feb 22nd - for those who are interested) - though the schedule won't be posted for a few more weeks.
I'm hoping I can find a good teacher with a class that fits mys schedule (as it's a tad hectic ... and this session the only evening class was Tuesday night - which I can't do, thanks to rehearsals). Also a consideration each session is trying to remain with other people you enjoy working with

It's kind of an odd three way balancing act from session to session: on one hand you need to find the class time (and teacher ... teacher is very important) that works for you, then you have to take into account what classes you friends (and those people you simply enjoy working with) are thinking about, and finally there's the whole registration time concern (there's no guarantee you'll get into the class unless you're one of the very first people to call/submit on-line for it). Especially with the higher levels at the training center it can get pretty crazy - as there are less and less classes (slightly less so at iO say compared with the Annoyance - though depending on the teacher, classes fill up within minutes at levels 4 & 5).

The Class:
Back to the class itself. We started off with all of us standing in a circle. Bill had one person simply start walking across the middle with, as he put it, "a little something behind it." That player was to walk towards someone else, who would (once the first person reached them) would start walking - doing their absolute best to mirror the previous person's walk in every way. And thus the focus would get passed in this way - each new walker was give the instruction to only focus on mirroring the person walking toward them and not worry about what went on before.
This of course led to the walk slowly morphing organically as it moved around the circle (as each person's body moves in slightly different ways, and some people naturally stress different aspects of the physicality). Eventually Bill had the person walking add a noise to the walk and we watched as that too changed slowly.
Next Bill tapped another player on the shoulder and sent them walking into the circle - suddenly there were two walkers. As this progressed Bill tapped more and more people until we had upwards of six different walkers moving about the circle.

After a little while of this Bill had us pause and then asked us to just bang out a few short warm-up scenes - in order to get the kinks out.

Next Bill had all but a small group (about a third of the class) sit down. He divided up that group into two lines. A player form line A was to step out and initiate by basically simply saying "Hello" with a specific emotion behind it. The other player would then have to respond with how the first person was feeling : "You seem very ______ today." If the second player was right about the vibe player A was giving, a short scene would then commence with that as the initiation. However, if the second person was wrong in their assessment the initiating player would step back and then deliver the greeting again with more emphasis on their emotion - until Player B got it.

After everyone in the class had gotten a chance to do a couple of these Bill switched it up by just having two people ho on stage. For the rest of the class we worked on longer two person scenes where one player would initiate verbally (say something) and then the second player would make some sort of emotionally based noise (a sigh) or emotionally based exclamation (Yipeee). After that the scene would continue normally with the second player being asked to really hold on to whatever emotion their noise had inspired.
There were a surprising amount of super happy characters through out this exercise as I feel that was the easiest for most people to convey (or at least figure out a noise for in their mind).
Everyone ended up playing both roles before class ended, so you got to both initiate verbally and then come in with a simple noise. I have to say this was definitely a fun exercise when you were on stage .. but off it - you really began to wish the class sizes were capped a little more rigorously (there were 20 of us there btw).

Bill left us with these thoughts:
Subtext is key
A Character's Behavior is either appropriate or inappropriate for any situation - either is fine to play, just realize it and have fun with it.
Most Denials in Improv are Denials of Omission - one person ignores (either on purpose or accidentally) an offer or bit of information. Sometimes because they are too focused on their own offers/plans - or because the don't know how to handle the new offer.
Feel free to make assumptions to move the scene along.