A Workshop Improvisation Practice

An Improvisation Practice

Prepare an IMPROVISATION using the following materials as an inspirational starting point.
You must choose a TITLE.
Then, depending on the discipline, technique or style that you want to explore, you can chose from the other groups.
You can combine elements.

The length of the improvisation has to be maximum 3 minutes.

TITLES

A Hole in the Darkness
In Spite of Gravity
Meaningless
Sound of Grass
Sin
Circular Ruins

TEXTS

Hotel Waldhaus

We had no luck with the weather and the guests at our table were repellent in every respect. They even spoiled Nietzsche for us. Even after they had had a fatal car accident and had been laid out in the church in Sils, we still hated them.

Thomas BERNHARD, The Voice Imitator

The Fortune Teller

In Sumatra, someone wants to get a doctorate as a fortune teller. The wizard examiner asks him if he will pass or fail. The candidate answers that he will fail…

Jorge Luis BORGES, The Book of Imagination

The Blind Man

A blind man, with his white cane, in the middle of the desert cries out because there are no obstacles to help him on his way.

Alejandro JODOROWSKY, Writings

On the Tram

I stand on the end platform of the tram and am completely unsure of my footing in this world, in this town, in my family. Not even casually could I indicate any claims that I might rightly advance in any direction. I have not even any defense to offer for standing on this platform, holding on to this strap, letting myself be carried along by this tram, nor for the people who give way to the tram or walk quietly along or stand gazing into shop windows. Nobody asks me to put up a defense, indeed, but that is irrelevant.

The tram approaches a stopping place and a girl takes up her position near the step, ready to alight. She is as distinct to me as if I had run my hands over her. She is dressed in black, the pleats of her skirt hang almost still, her blouse is tight and has a collar of white fine-meshed lace, her left hand is braced flat against the side of the tram, the umbrella in her right hand rests on the second top step. Her face is brown, her nose, slightly pinched at the sides, has a broad round tip. She has a lot of brown hair and stray little tendrils on the right temple. Her small ear is close-set, but since I am near her I can see the whole ridge of the whorl of her right ear and the shadow at the root of it.

At that point I asked myself: How is it that she is not amazed at herself, that she keeps her lips closed and makes no such remark?

Franz KAFKA, Posthumous Writings

I Don’t Need Anything From Here

I would leave everything here: the valleys, the hills, the paths, and the jaybirds from the gardens, I would leave here the petcocks and the padres, heaven and earth, spring and fall, I would leave here the exit routes, the evenings in the kitchen, the last amorous gaze, and all of the city-bound directions that make you shudder, I would leave here the thick twilight falling upon the land, gravity, hope, enchantment, and tranquillity, I would leave here those beloved and those close to me, everything that touched me, everything that shocked me, fascinated and uplifted me, I would leave here the noble, the benevolent, the pleasant, and the demonically beautiful, I would leave here the budding sprout, every birth and existence, I would leave here incantation, enigma, distances, inexhaustibility, and the intoxication of eternity; for here I would leave this earth and these stars, because I would take nothing with me from here, because I’ve looked into what’s coming, and I don’t need anything from here.

László KRASZNAHORKAI, The World Goes On

Housewife

She would always sleep with her husband and with another man in the course of the same day, and then the rest of the day, for whatever was left to her of that day, she would exploit by in-canting, “French film, French film.”

Amy HEMPEL, Flash Fiction

Haikus

An old silent pond…
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.

Matsuo BASHO

In the moonlight,
The color and scent of the wisteria
Seems far away.

Yosa BUSON