Improvisation

The Philosophy Improv Reading Group centers its meetings on improv games and scenework. We each read the same chapter or article (or in some cases, watch the same video) before arriving to our meetings, like you would in any reading group. When we gather, however, we immediately enter a series of improv warmups. After that, we typically spend some time writing questions, words, or phrases inspired from the reading on the whiteboards lining the walls. For the remainder of the meeting, we engage in collaborative improv games and scenework, using these written questions, words, or phrases as our suggestions. Simply put, the goal is to engage with the reading in a different way, to examine what insights or understandings are made possible when we center play and movement as opposed to discourse.

Past reading

Augusto Boal, Theater of the Oppressed

Who: Open

When: Wednesdays, 11am-12pm.

Where: In Person (Teachers College location shared with participants)

Yes; this is without a doubt the conclusion: ‘Spectator’ is a bad word!

The spectator is less than a man and it is necessary to humanize him,

to restore to him his capacity of action in all its fullness.

Augusto Boal

Theater of the Oppressed