Space Walk Commentary (from the Theater Game File Handbook by Viola Spolin: published by Northwestern University Press)

Space Walks and Feeling Self with Self, more than just physical sensory and perception exercises, are organic ways of perceiving/sensing/experiencing the environment (space) around us as an actual dimension in which all can enter, communicate, live and be free. Distractions are removed, and players are helped to enter the moment with self, with other players, and with forms and objects. Each player becomes a receiving sending instrument capable of reaching out beyond the physical self and the immediate environment. A spacewalk invariably creates elation, alertness, and a developing feeling of belonging and real connection (part of the whole) …. The players will intuitively grasp this. “Come out! Come out! Wherever you are!”

In reviewing the side-coaching phrases in the book, Improvisation for the Theater and The Theater Game File (Northwestern University Press), I could not find the phrase, “Let what you see, see you!”
Viola Spolin may have developed this concept later in her work and I feel it is worth noting.

I include this side-coach phrase in every spacewalk I coach. It is a seemingly minor prompt in the wonderful warm-up exercises that Viola Spolin created, but its impact is powerful.

You’ll hear it on the recording Viola Spolin Conducts Spacewalks published by Intuitive Learning Systems and available for download at http://www.spolingamesonline.org.  She remarks after speaking it “You might get a little ping…”

I smile when I hear her say that. I got that little ping she referred to. And the more I use it, the more I understand something very profound about her work in general.

Originally, she used it in conjunction with seeing objects. Seeing without labeling. “Try to see unlabeled” she’d ask. Then she’d comment, “Notice how quickly your mind wants to label it. When you do, find a new object and try again.” She is reminding us how quickly we rush to label everything (and everybody). We’re trained to identify things, know it and store it away for later. But when we do, we stop and do not bother to see further – what Viola called penetrating the object.

Then she adds “When you feel you are really seeing something, let what you see, SEE YOU!”

The first time I heard that I got an actual physical sensation, as well as an “Ah-ha!” moment.  I unhooked from the one-way street I normally look out at the world. It put me in true relation with what I was seeing. Not only did I feel I saw what I saw, but I also realized what I was seeing had as much a right to be there as I did.  Let me repeat that: The object had as much of a right to be there as did I.

I was there in the space and so was what I was seeing. I was part of the space and not some ego, looking out for how I could define, label, use or manipulate what I perceived or felt about what I was seeing. It momentarily stopped my ego, cold.

That is a helluva PING!

In improvisational training, this is a critical point and incredibly valuable. It instantly makes you “Part of the Whole”. You are simply one object in space – in true relation with everything else. And if you can see your fellow players in this manner and more importantly, let them see you, you will have achieved a state of true peerage. You will see them without your personal agenda or the agenda of the game or the scene and you will emerge into the space as part of a larger whole.

Extrapolate this out from just playing a game or creating a scene. If you constantly remind yourself to let what you see, see you – your life will change drastically and you will find enlightenment.

Ah, but who will be there to constantly coach this phrase to you in your everyday life? No one. Only you; and if you’re like me, you’re too busy to keep reminding yourself. There are blogs to write, TV to watch, news to fret over and dinners to plan. Let’s face it we are not the Buddha.  But, if you include it in every improv warm-up, you will get one helluva Ping.

Try it!

Do this, don’t do that! Like this! Here’s how I want it! That’s better! That’s rotten! That’s not funny! Now that was FUNNY! That’s what I want! – spoken by a director at a recent improv workshop I attended.

If you teach or direct, you must be mindful of your role as leader and work to be a fellow player rather than the Authority, Know-it-all, etc.

There is great power in words. Choice of words can influence how relationships are determined. The use of some words to represent direction by improv teachers and coaches can be very destructive. Spolin was highly conscious of this vocabulary of authority and strove to counteract the unconscious use of such words often replacing “don’t” (a command from outside) with “avoid” (self-responsibility); “critique” (subjective opinion) with “evaluation” (objective reality).

A side-coach of “Help your fellow player play the game!” encourages mutual trust and attention by each individual to the group as a whole. It also breaks dependency on the teacher by the students and vice versa. These phrases are used consciously, to create a language of peerage and trust rather than a dependency on authority by “those who know.” i.e., teachers and directors or even senior members of a troupe of players. It is a very subtle point, but one of enormous consequence.

Her work deals in experiential learning. Where, with the support of a good sidecoach, playing the game becomes the teacher.  It is rooted in direct experience that lifts us out of our traditional roles and puts us in touch with our authentic self, each other and our circumstances.

Spolin’s improvisation training provides a way for people of different cultures, with different life experiences, to work together collaboratively to achieve productive outcomes.  It is a way for individuals to participate fully and authentically in the solving of problems. It is a path to innovation and inspiration and personal commitment[1]. That was how Spolin conceived of improvisation, but the word has come to mean something else.

Interpretation and assumption keep the player from direct communication. This is why we say “show, don’t tell”. Telling is verbally or in some other indirect way indicating what one is doing. This then puts the work upon the audience or the fellow actor, and the student learns nothing. Showing means direct contact and direct communication. It does not mean passively pointing to something. – from Tips and Pointers, Improvisation for the Theater 3^rd Edition, Viola Spolin Northwestern University Press.

When you don’t see where you are, all you can do is talk about it.

You get a suggestion for a scene:
Who – A husband and wife.   Where – at Disneyland.   What – waiting to get on a ride.

Most players will begin the scene with dialogue something like this.

Husband:  Well, well, dear isn’t this nice. Look! There’s the Matterhorn. Hi Mickey!

Wife:  Sweetie, Let’s go on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride after this.

Husband: Do we have to? I’m tired honey, can we sit down?

What’s wrong with that, you ask? Nothing really. Except they told in dialogue what they should have been seeing (and didn’t) and they also told their relationship by calling each other honey and dear. After all, that’s what indicates to the audience that there is a husband and wife relationship, right? Where do you go from here? It is likely you’ll use Yes, And… and add more information. Maybe there’s an earthquake or Mickey starts hitting on the wife – and you’d have a pretty funny scene.

But what if you showed where you were and showed you were married rather than telling the audience what they just told you?

Viola wrote a collection of thoughts and musings on teaching that were developed for the text of her book, “Improvisation for the Theater”, but were to be left out of the final edit. She kept these ideas in a shoe box for insertion and elucidation at a later date. Rather than keep them on the cutting room floor, she considered them valuable enough to include in the book simply as ‘tips and pointers’.

I repeat them here with of my own commentary in the hope that teachers may get more fully involved in the teaching and coaching of Spolin’s games.

1. Do not rush student-actors. Some students particularly need to feel unhurried. When necessary, quietly coach. “Take your time.” “We all have lots of time.” “We are with you.”

This deals with the common problem of urgency. Many students panic in an improvised scene because they get overwhelmed; they feel the need to move the scene forward; they feel nervous and judged (in their own mind or for real, as many directors make opinions on a player’s ability and that is picked up by the student).

The Trap

Imagine twenty or thirty students all preoccupied with success or failure in a subject, bent on getting all the right answers in order to pass the subject, all wanting to please the teacher who knows all the right answers, who sits kindly or severely in judgment of all who face him/her. This could be you. It used to be me.

Beginner’s Mind

Beginner’s mind is experiencing a thing for the first time. “Firsts” are always memorable. Improvisation is a constant search for ‘first times’.

I once did a wonderful improv scene in Viola’s class using the game of “What’s Beyond?”

What’s Beyond is a game where you keep some event, past or the future, alive (in No-Motion[1]) without ever bringing it on stage or referring to it directly in dialogue. Yet, the holding of the “What’s Beyond” colors the scene and produces a very dramatic, dynamic scene.

NO FAIL NO FEAR

We all approach new things with some trepidation. I’ve been told by new students that they are there in the workshop because Improv terrifies them and they want to face that fear. Bravo to them for their courage, but ‘sheesh!” I tell them that they need not worry. My workshop is not terrifying. In fact it is the opposite. It’s fun.

Fun is the antidote to fear. My goal is to get their mind completely off their fear by making the workshop more fun than fearful. Rather than talking about the value of the work or reassuring them that it’s not all that scary, I start by playing a game right away. Playing reveals that better than any lecture.

Dependency on authority obstructs players from directly experiencing self and the world – Viola Spolin.

The [Spolin’s Theater Games] exercises are artifices against artificiality, structures designed to almost fool spontaneity into being–or perhaps a frame carefully built to keep out interferences in which the player waits. Important in the game is the ‘ball’ — the FOCUS, a technical problem, sometimes a double technical problem which keeps the mind (a censoring device) so busy rubbing its stomach and its head in opposite directions, so to speak, the genius [spontaneity], unguarded ‘happens’. –Tung, in Film Quarterly

Viola Spolin intuited an important principle while developing her ideas of improvisation — Preoccupation.  Preoccupation games involve paying attention to more than one focus.  By integrating two or more disparate activities in a game the whole self is activated and a doorway to the intuition or X-area[i] opens up.

The spirit of play develops social adaptability, ethics, mental and emotional control, and imagination. These are the more complex adjustments a child learns through play. In play there are adjustments to new situations constantly: Play experience can prepare the person for purposefulness in non-play activities, for true play creates the incentive to use one’s best ability:Ththrough play a person can develop a pattern of self-reliance and self-confidence. — Neva L. Boyd, from the essay, A Theory of Play (Simon, 1971)

Something viewed as fun instead of a chore erases any expectation of judgment or the approval or disapproval of others.

Play creates a happy emotional condition of the organism-as-a-whole.
Play involves social values, as does no other behavior.

Viola Spolin said, “Acting requires presence. Playing produces this state.” She could have said living full and joyously requires presence — and playing produces this state because when people are at play, the physical and mental state merge into a unified whole. devoted only to the problem at hand — the playing of the game.

After all. a game is just a problem or set of problems) that needs solving. When playing, the intuitive ability engages and the mind becomes fully focused on the problem that the game requires. Action and thought merge into an integrated consciousness to attend solely to the play activity.