Week 2
Posted March 21, 2022
My apologies for the delay in posting week two’s blog entry. This was caused by my falling ill on Friday of week two. I’m now back in action.
In this blog entry, I’ll reflect on our work during week two.
Before I do, a brief note of future blog-developments: I’ve decided to develop the blog in a different direction in my entry for week four. I'll reflect on what happened during the week as I've been doing, but I'll also reflect more deeply about workshop in terms of dramaturgical and pedagogical process. The entry for week four will be ready by March 25, 2022.
Also, our entry for week three will be posted in the next few days. It will consist of reflections by other members of the working group.
For this entry, here's a reflection on the work we did during week two.
Tuesday, March 8, 2022
We began this week by discussing some key texts about IwIP. Students often ask for something to read about IwIP. This helps buttress their on-stage experiences rehearsing with ideas beyond those IwIP leaders offer in their feedback.
The readings were:
Alexander Komlosi, A Model First Lesson.
Ivan Vyskočil, Authorization Code.
A Discussion with Ivan Vyskočil about (Inter)acting with the Inner Partner.
If you’d like to read any of the texts, you can download each by clicking on the text's title.
When I sent the participants the texts, I asked them to prepare a few ideas about what they found interesting, as well as a few questions. I explained that we would open these up in a discussion.
During our session today, participants discussed their finds and questions from the texts in small groups. We went through a selection of their discoveries and questions in the full group. One topic that was of particular interest to all turns out to be one of IwIP’s basic principles: conductive tension or conductive suspense. "What does that means?" people asked, "And what's its importance?"
We went on to talk about how IwIP creates an improvisational perforamnce structure for us to experiment with different levels of “psychosomatic tension," and how, through IwIP, we can experiment with how to "tune" this tension so that actions flow spontaneously and dialogically.
After these discussion, a break, and some group work, we went back to exploring IwIP on the floorboards.
Thursday, March 10, 2020
Today was the first time we had another member of the working group co-lead an Opening's session. Hanna Raiskinmäki joined me to co-lead IwIP. She began the session with a warm-up exploring different intentions and tensions called “Joyous Heart.” After practicing IwIP, which Hanna and I co-lead, we ended the session opening up the space for people to reflect in the group.
Although we had some absences due to COVID, the week was fruitful as we went beyond the initial splash into IwIP and waded into slightly deeper waters.
-Alexander Komlosi, Openings Leader and CC's Artistic Director
