It may seem strange that a foreword for a book about applied improvisation should be written by theatre makers. However, to study the applications of improvisation beyond performance, perhaps the base-camp for the expedition should be the place where it all started. It was in the theatres, comedy clubs, and experimental performance spaces of the 1960s and 1970s that the story of improvisation, as we now know it, began and developed. This is where it was first applied, a new kind of theatre, pitching performers and audiences into a thrilling new relationship.
一本關于應用即興創作的書的序言應該由戲劇制片人寫，這似乎很奇怪。然而，為了研究即興表演超越表演的應用，也許探險的大本營應該是這一切開始的地方。在20世紀60年代和70年代的劇院、喜劇俱樂部和實驗表演空間，我們現在知道的即興創作故事開始和發展。這就是它第一次應用的地方，一種新的劇院，把表演者和觀眾進入一種激動人心的新關系。
As young actors we fell in love with improvisation and, as often happens in a love affair, our initial infatuation was intense. It made us feel more alive.Creating in the moment, saying “yes” to other people’s ideas, sidestepping control, and connecting to our intuitive impulses in front of an audience was exhilarating. We were making people laugh, discovering success and failure onstage, creating comedy and drama from nothing but the air between us, and sometimes we told stories that moved people. But we soon discovered it wasn’t just about the shows or the product, and the learning was not limited to the onstage crucible.
作為年輕的演員，我們愛上了即興創作，正如經常發生的愛情事件一樣，我們最初的迷戀很強烈。它讓我們感覺更活躍了。在當下創造，對別人的想法說“是”，回避控制，在觀眾面前與直覺沖動聯系起來是令人興奮的。我們讓人們開懷大笑，在舞臺上發現成功和失敗，只用我們之間的空氣來創造喜劇和戲劇，有時我們會講一些感動人們的故事。但我們很快就發現，這不僅僅是關于演出或產品，學習也不局限于舞臺上的坩堝。
As we continued to improvise, our relationship with impro matured. It became a deeper love. We found ourselves in a Dojo (a practice arena) where we had to explore our strengths and vulnerabilities and engage in dialogue with our inner critics. Something much more profound and wide reaching was happening: a relationship was being forged to the chaotic part of nature that enhanced our experience of life. We were discovering that we had to confront and include our true selves in the process if we were to grow. We were engaged in a continual practice, which nurtured a set of beliefs and principles that would run through?our careers and lives. Improvisation was the underground river that flowed beneath everything we did.
隨著我們繼續即興創作，我們與非專業人士的關系成熟了。它變成了一種更深層次的愛。我們發現自己在一個道場（一個練習場），我們必須探索我們的優勢和弱點，并與我們內心的批評者進行對話。一些更深刻和廣泛的事情正在發生：一種關系正在形成自然界混亂的部分，這增強了我們的生活體驗。我們發現，如果我們要成長，我們就必須面對并在這個過程中包括我們真實的自我。我們從事一種持續的實踐，培養了一套信仰和原則，貫穿我們的職業和生活。即興創作是一條流過我們所做的一切下面的地下河流。
We have been “applying” improvisation to the making of theatre since the mid-1980s. During that time, we have made improvised shows, used impro to devise shows that end up scripted, and created shows that were hybrids of the two. When directing shows with preexisting scripts, we have used impro to ensure performances are played differently every night. We got puppeteers, opera singers, and “proper” actors in their eighties to improvise and the shows have played everywhere from comedy clubs to outdoors to the National Theatre.
自20世紀80年代中期以來，我們一直將即興創作“應用”于戲劇創作。在此期間，我們制作了即興表演，用即興表演來設計了最終有腳本的節目，并創作了兩者混合的節目。當導演有已有的劇本的節目時，我們使用即興表演來確保每晚的表演有不同的播放。我們有木偶戲演員、歌劇演員和“合適”演員即興表演，從喜劇俱樂部到戶外到國家劇院，演出都在演出。
At Improbable, the work has primarily been the creation of theatre shows;however, we also had to learn how to run a company. We admit there was often a mismatch between the improvisation we practiced onstage and how we organized our business—as if the two worlds did not share the same principles.We were not applying what we did with actors and shows to the running of our own company. We were in need of some applied improvisation!
最不可能的是，該工作主要是創作戲劇表演；然而，我們也必須學習如何經營一家公司。我們承認，我們在舞臺上練習的即興創作和我們組織業務的方式之間經常存在著不匹配的情況——就好像這兩個世界并沒有分享相同的原則一樣。我們并沒有把我們對演員和表演的做法應用于經營我們自己的公司。我們需要一些應用上的即興創作！
It was about twelve years ago that we had a breakthrough when Phelim discovered Open Space Technology (OST), which, instinctively, we understood to be one enormous, self-organizing impro game. We began running forums for the theatre community (that we titled “Devoted and Disgruntled”) to work on issues that people were frustrated about and wanted to take action on. OST quickly became an essential part of running Improbable, onstage and off.Offstage, it now informs our meetings; how we envision our future and how we make that vision happen; it supports how we deal with change; how we create fluidity around roles in the company and how we address conflicts. Onstage and in the rehearsal room, it has become an essential part of our theatre-making process and a guide for our teaching of improvisation. The boundaries between the different areas of our company have begun to blur. There’s a long way to go,but our aim is to walk improvisational methods through all aspects of our company’s life.
大約12年前，當費利姆發現開放空間技術(OST)時，我們取得了突破，我們本能地認為這是一個巨大的、自組織的獨立游戲。我們開始為戲劇社區舉辦論壇（我們命名為“忠誠和不滿”），以研究人們感到沮喪和想要采取行動的問題。OST很快成為不可能在舞臺上和下車的重要組成部分。在場外，它現在通知我們的會議；我們如何設想我們的未來，以及我們如何實現這一愿景；它支持我們如何應對變革；我們如何圍繞公司中的角色創造流動性，以及我們如何解決沖突。在舞臺上和排練室里，它已經成為我們戲劇制作過程的重要組成部分，也是我們即興創作教學的指導。我們公司不同領域之間的界限已經開始模糊了。還有很長的路要走，但我們的目標是通過改進的方法貫穿我們公司生活的各個方面。
This is a book about Applied Improvisation, so perhaps we should unpack what “applied” means to us. One does not “apply” improvisation in the sense of adding something to what is already there. It is not like a coat of varnish or even,14we would argue, a set of skills. It is more like a way of accessing and bringing awareness to processes that are happening anyway. Whether it is in a theatrical or in an applied context, improvisation, as a form, draws from the dreaming world and brings the imagination into embodied life. We must beware of the notion that people doing it in theatre or comedy aren’t doing something in “real life.” Dreams are its “real world” and this is one of its most valuable assets.Improvisation brings together, in a marriage, the imagistic world and consensus reality. It would be missing the point to lose (at least) half the value of impro when it becomes “Applied Improvisation.” We must be awake to the tendency for it to become too goal or product oriented, stressing the technical skills over the more artistic and dreaming aspects of improvisation. When the improvisation gets applied, is the ineffable nature of impro diminished? This question is one that the best practitioners, such as those in this book, are courageously grappling with because not all deliverables are describable.
這是一本關于應用即興創作的書，所以也許我們應該解開“應用”對我們的含義。人們并沒有“應用”即興創作，即在已經存在的東西中添加一些東西。它不像一層清漆，甚至，我們會說，一套技能。它更像是一種訪問和了解正在發生的過程的方式。無論是在戲劇中還是在應用的環境中，即興創作，作為一種形式，都能從夢的世界中汲取靈感，并將想象力帶到具體化的生活中。我們必須注意在戲劇或喜劇中做的人不是在“現實生活中做什么。夢想是“現實世界”，這是它最有價值的資產之一。就像在一段婚姻中，即興創作匯集了意象化的世界和共識的現實。當即興創作成為“應用即興創作”時，它將會失去（至少）一半的價值。“我們必須意識到它過于以目標或產品為導向的傾向，強調技術技能比即興創作更有藝術和夢想的方面。當即興創作被運用時，即興創作的不可形容的本質是否減弱了？這個問題是最好的問題。
Of course, improvisation does have a set of skills and games that can be stated, taught, and learnt. Within these pages are many fine and diverse examples of non-theatre contexts where impro has been used to support change and increase creativity. Each demonstrates the value of impro and its impact. However, it’s important we don’t just pay attention to the measurable technical skills. This is not the whole story.
當然，即興創作確實有一套技能和游戲，可以陳述、教和學習。在這些頁面中有許多很好的和不同的非戲劇背景的例子，其中即興表演已經被用來支持改變和增加創造力。每一個都展示了不專業者的價值及其影響。然而，重要的是，我們不僅要注意可衡量的技術技能。這并不是整個故事。
Between these stories lies a deeper set of skills that points toward what psychologist and process-work practitioner Amy Mindell calls “metaskills.” These are the attitudes and sensitivities that inform how we use the technical skills. These metaskills would be such things as: an ability to be comfortable with uncertainty and “not knowing”; a willingness to say “Yes” not just to an offer but to the whole of reality as it truly is; a trust in the Tao and the wisdom of nature; an ability to see the bigger patterns in chaos; a desire to hold silence and sense what is beneath an atmosphere; the capacity to catch secondary signals and impulses within oneself and in the environment that are on the edge of awareness; a belief that everything happening around you is a valuable part of the process.
在這些故事之間有一組更深層次的技能，指出心理學家和過程工作醫生艾米·米德爾所說的“元技能”。這些都是決定我們如何使用技術技能的態度和敏感性。這些元技能包括：適應不確定性和“不知道”；愿意說“是”，而且對整個現實；對道的信任和自然的智慧；在混亂中看到更大模式的能力；渴望保持沉默和感覺到大氣下的東西；在自己內部和意識邊緣的環境中捕捉二次信號和沖動的能力；相信你周圍發生的一切都是這個過程中有價值的一部分。
These stories are taking place in a wider context of an attitude to life that only 15improvisation fosters. It is this context that tells us how we practice those skills. The application of impro is not just technique but an invitation to explore the deeper understandings this work can bring to us as individuals and as a community.
這些故事發生在一個更廣泛的生活態度的背景下，只有15個即興創作培養。正是這種背景告訴了我們，我們是如何練習這些技能的。即興表演的應用不僅是技術，而且是探索這項工作作為個人和社區帶來的更深層次的理解的邀請。
Notice in these chapters where improvisation has been used to create new cultures within organizations and communities. How it creates intelligent climates where individuals own their own agency while being sensitive to ensemble responsibilities. Where new models of democratic collaboration promote true listening and self-organization. These improvisational cultures support emergent solutions and foster the kind of wisdom that our world is urgently demanding of us.
請注意，在這些章節中，即興創作已經被用于在組織和社區中創造新的文化。它是如何創造出一種明智的氛圍，在這種氛圍中，個人擁有自己的機構，同時又對整體責任保持敏感。民主合作的新模式促進了真正的傾聽和自我組織。這些即興創作的文化支持應急解決方案，培養我們這個世界迫切需要的智慧。
Life is full of uncertainty and each day our world gets more complicated and chaotic. The solution is not an attempt to tame the chaos. The answer is to find more robust and fluid ways of interacting with the chaos, which is merely a fact of life. The call is to become “wave riders,” as Harrison Owen, originator of OST, describes those leaders who know how to trust the flow of nature and take advantage of its emergent energies. The call is to improvise because the practice of improvisation is one of allowing.
生活充滿了不確定性，我們的世界每天都變得更加復雜和混亂。解決辦法并不是試圖平息混亂。答案是找到更穩健和流體的方式與混亂的相互作用，這只是生活的一個事實。這個呼吁是成為“波浪騎手”，正如OST的創始人哈里森·歐文描述了那些知道如何相信自然流動并利用自然新興能量的領導者。召喚是即興創作，因為即興創作的練習是允許的。
You don’t apply improvisation, it simply applies.
你不應用即興創作，它只是適用。
Phelim McDermott and Lee Simpson met in 1986 after a Keith Johnstone workshop that Phelim had been to and Lee hadn’t. They soon discovered that they were both interested in impro that was more theatrical and theatre that was more improvised and spent the next ten years making both these things. In 1996, alongside Julian Crouch and Nick Sweeting, they founded Improbable, a company that deepened and broadened that quest, taking improvisation into uncharted waters and, along the way, creating a bewildering diversity of work (e.g. Animo, Lifegame, The Still, Theatre of Blood, Lost Without Words, etc.). Lee is also one of the Comedy Store Players, and Phelim has directed shows at the Metropolitan Opera. Their latest venture is the International Institute of Improvisation, a way to celebrate, investigate, advocate, and connect all forms of improvisation from 16within and outside the arts; a way to tell the story of how the practice and philosophy of improvisation is what the world needs. Right now.
在參加了 keith johnstone 的工作坊之后，Phelim mcdermott 和 lee simpson 相識于1986年，phelim 去過，lee 沒去過。他們很快發現，他們都對即興表演感興趣，即興表演更具戲劇性，即興表演更具戲劇性，他們花了十年時間來制作這兩樣東西。1996年，他們與朱利安?克勞奇(julian crouch)和尼克?斯威廷(nick sweeting)共同創立了“不可思議”(improbable)公司。這家公司深化并擴大了這種探索，將即興創作融入大航海時代系列，并一路創造出令人眼花繚亂的多樣性工作(例如，阿尼莫(animo)、生活游戲(lifegame)、蒸餾器(the still)、血腥劇場(theatre of blood)、無言失落等等)。李也是喜劇商店的演員之一，菲爾姆在大都會歌劇院執導過節目。他們最近的一次冒險是國際即興創作研究所，這是一種贊美、調查、倡導和連接藝術內外各種形式的即興創作的方式，一種講述即興創作的實踐和哲學是世界所需要的故事的方式。現在！
