I’ve taken art classes. One of the first things an Art 101 instructor has to do is get all these pretentious art students to put aside their preexisting “styles”— which have usually grown out of avoiding whichever art skills they struggle with— and learn how to draw like everyone else. Style will come later. For now, learn the rules… then you can break them, consciously & intentionally, instead of breaking them because you’re incapable of following them.
Tag: style
Invasive Species→
When I moved out to Boston from Chicago everyone kept talking about “the game of the scene” and I had no idea what they were talking about. Instead of playing “the game,” I was playing in the style I was taught—and experienced success at—back at iO in Chicago. I looked for relationship and emotional connection over a single focal point. And of course there’s overlap between the two (a scene with a strong game should also have strong relationships, and an emotional resonant scene should probably have some discernible pattern as well), but without fully understanding my new environment, I was making moves that, while theoretically “good,” weren’t connecting with the other members of my team who had been trained a different way. I was being an invasive species, incapable of adapting.
Lessons from Different Theaters→
I’ve long held the belief that the difference between top performers/shows at any given theater aren’t that different from one another, no matter how much the philosophy differs.
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A lot of times students of improv wanna battle over the “right” way to do it or what improv “should” be and that’s just a drag. So tiring. Who the fuck cares? If there IS a “right” way it “should” be done, then it’s a dead artform, incapable of growing into something new, and I reject that idea. Instead, there are preferences and approaches that differ, and, as a student, the more you can understand those differences, the more you’ll be able to figure out what YOUR preferred voice and style will be.