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Avila
The global conference of the Applied Improvisation Network was held in Avila, Spain in July. I was there!
A group of improv nerds in Spain . . .
In late July of this year, the Applied Improvisation Network (AIN) held its global conference in the sun-drenched medieval town of Avila, Spain. For about a week, people from all over the world met to share the ways they use improvisation to improve the lives of others. This conference was supposed to have happened in 2020, and then again in 2021, postponed both times for health and safety concerns. So those of us who made it there in July were like kids for whom a birthday party had been delayed, and then delayed again. We were giddy with excitement and overjoyed to be in each other’s company, off screen and in person.
At the end of my “quest” at the beginning of the workshop.
What is applied improvisation you ask? Think of it this way. Performed improv is used as entertainment. Applied improv is when improvisation and the exercises, games and mindset supporting it are used for any other purpose. Most commonly, applied improvisors work in the business consulting marketplace as coaches, team builders and workshop leaders. But we also work in the fields of healthcare, education and therapeutic research. We have found that the potential application of improvisation to improve the lives of people extends to any field where human beings strive to be in healthy, creative and dynamic relationships with each other.
I was invited by AIN to deliver a workshop on “Using Structured Improvisation with People with Disabilities.” I had an hour to condense the years I have spent with people with autism, cerebral palsy and other disabilities, co-creating structured improvisations and devising pieces of theatre. I delivered the workshop to a small group Saturday morning and it went well. I was even able to squeeze in a short slideshow of our Ability In Action classes at the end. On the last day I led a spontaneous session examining the issue of diversity and inclusion at AIN, which remains a very white network. That has led to an ongoing relationship with like-minded AINers and a commitment to hold each other accountable as we work towards a more diverse AIN.
First night dinner out. Nations represented: Norway, France, New Zealand and the U.S. Waiter looks pissed but he was actually nice.
But if I’m honest, the most meaningful aspect of the trip were the connections I made with applied improvisors from Norway, The Netherlands, Bermuda, New Zealand, Sweden and other places. These were my tribe, and we spent many hours over meals, walks and late night drinks and coffees connecting, sharing, listening and rejoicing in our shared commitment to this extraordinary art form. And yes, the Spaniards stay out late. Speaking of Spaniards: the whole event was organized and facilitated by group of Spanish applied improvisors who were heroic, both in their accomplishment and also in their cheerfulness under duress. Ole tu!
For weeks now I have been trying to distill some punchline, some “moral of the story” to put a neat little bow on this experience. But I can’t. Like improvisation itself, the event was ineffable. But I will say that the world is waking up to the value of skillfully facilitated group experiences grounded in the innate optimism and problem-solving of improvisation. Bright Invention is part of a worldwide movement and, like improvisation, the possibilities are limitless.
Next year, the conference will be in Vancouver. I plan on being there. In the meantime, visit the AIN website and look for ways you can get involved!
Diversity, equity, inclusion and improv
Concord, MA
Last June, Bright Invention offered its first Creative Corporate Training (CCT) workshop on a diversity, equity and inclusion theme to the League of Women Voters, Concord-Carlisle MA chapter. We were asked to support an investigation into the concept of the “welcoming community.” What does it mean for a community to be welcoming? Welcoming to whom? And how do we know? Concord MA is predominantly White, politically liberal community. The good people who brought this workshop together had a great deal invested in the notion that Concord is a welcoming community. And yet, they had the awareness to know that it wasn’t to some, and they wanted to explore why. We were hired by a group of folks from both the League and the local school system to use our scenario-based technique to start a collective conversation. We resisted the urge to run to Black folks and ask, are we doing this right? We knew this was our work to do.
Except in our scenario, the human is in the space ship and the alien is working the pump.
When CCT develops scenarios on a sensitive topic, one of the approaches we use is to begin with a scenario that employs humor and distance. We created a funny scenario taking place at a space station. A human driving for “Uber Gallactica” needs to get the dilythium crystals in her space taxi topped off. She stops at a space station run by two non-humans. They are rude to her, they speak in ways that are unfamiliar to her, they refuse to use the “translator” she has, and they are very skeptical of how she is going to pay. She leaves vowing never to visit that space station again.
For this scenario, we used a White actress as the human, and Black and White actors as the aliens. In this way, we were focusing on the topic - “welcoming” - without dealing directly with race in an American context. We were also pointing out that many times the first place an outsider encounters a community is through a commercial transaction: at a gas station, a restaurant, a gift shop, etc. Remember, we were not trying o fix a problem. We were trying to support a conversation.
Andre?
The next scenario employed drama and proximity. In this scenario, a Black citizen of Concord meets two White members of the local zoning committee at a coffee shop. They want to see if he is interested in joining the committee. In what should be a completely positive encounter of welcoming and inclusion, “Joe” and “Sarah” employ so many racist assumptions and micro-agressions that at the end, Andre, the Black guest, fakes a phone call to get out of the meeting and leave.
Here, we felt it wasn’t enough to demonstrate “liberal Whites behaving badly.” We wanted to activate the feedback about the scenario. So we focused the feedback around the question: how can Sarah or Joe be Andre’s ally when they witness a racist assumption? This question has become a focal point for our work in this area. When and how should White people speak up when witnessing not only Black people, but anyone being marginalized, belittled or oppressed by the assumptions of the dominant culture.
Challenging the dominant culture has different consequences in different situations. While we believe we must always speak up, we are developing workshops which explore how doing so with one’s boss is a different kind of challenge then, say, doing so with your neighbor at a coffee shop, which is different than doing so with a family member.
Finally, we acknowledge in these workshops that the deep work of anti-racism is necessarily individual work. We are each called upon to use whatever resources we have at our disposal to explore our own, individual histories and experiences with differences, race, and culture. We make sure to explore what resources are available to the companies and nonprofits we serve in this area, so that they may continue to explore this work.
Our next online demo of our scenario-based technique will use the scenario with Andre, Joe and Sarah and specifically showcase how we work with DEI issues. It’s on Friday November 5th at 1 PM Eastern online. Click here if you’d like to join us.