Dancing & Moving at Adrenaline Festival
Unterstützen-unterstützen-unterstützen: the German word for support has quite a beatbox feel to it. And it is a good theme to remember for improv. Backstage we liked repeating it as our mantra. Our very cool sounding mantra, that is.
By ‘we’ I mean the 3 workshop teachers, as I was giving a 3-day workshop at the Adrenaline festival: the cool little brother of the big Würzburg improfestival. Same location, same organization but just for young improvisers.
I was lucky to have Jim Libby and Fabio Maccioni as my colleagues. (Yep, you have reason to be jealous.)
Next to their respective Harold and Love workshop, I taught Dancing & Moving. It first covered how to bluff dancing styles. Later we went into moving as an ensemble and using physicality for characters and scenes.
It was a great journey to combine both disciplines: from the gimmick of faking dances on the one side, to using movement for bold decision making on the other side. I think I learned just as much as the 7 sweet improvisers in my group. (And sweat just as much!)
This quote from my favorite song phrases it really well:
Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it. It is the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.
The festival also included 2 shows in Jugendkulturhaus Cairo. On the first night the lovely Nadine Antler joined us on stage for a show Jim named the Metropolitan. It served our most important wish: all 4 of us wanted to play with all the others.
So we played 6 stories in very different worlds, elaborating on the audience’s favorite story in the second half. I loved all of it. It also included my first fully German spoken scene. Challenging, but great.
On the last night there was the heartwarming student show: I felt like a proud mama seeing the participants seemingly afraid of nothing. A totally filled up house that starts screaming for the boy band performance: does it get cooler than that?
There was so much more, but words on paper will not do justice. So to close, one other quote from the same song:
Dance. Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.
To be part of a festival with such awesome people was an honor and a pleasure. I feel spoiled.
Vielen Dank Luisa, Christoph, Nadine, Fabio, Jim, Lena, all the helpers, musician, techs, participants, audience and Cairo Jugendkulturhause.