Tip & Exercise: Using your face

I believe that we can have more different types of people as improv teachers. To encourage you to start, or to improve your teaching, every month I will share with you a tip and an exercise.

Tip: Using your body

Getting into your head: it is one of the most common challenges in improv. (And for some of us: in life.)

That is why I am always looking for new ways to incorporate more physicality in my improv classes. It makes players worry less, it makes the class less talky and -lordy- it makes all scenes better.

When we are teaching either online or offline with distance, having students use their body is not that obvious. But for this month’s tip I would like to remind you that using our body is not just flapping one’s arms or crawling over a stage.

The point is to use the body, not per se ALL of the body. Exercises that focus on sounds, on hand gestures, on spine positions, on tapping the floor with our feet: they all serve the purpose. Do something with that wonderful body you were given.

One of the easiest places to start (for online and offline improv) is the face. Even the slightest change to it, makes the biggest difference. It gives a wealth of possibilities for emotional work, characters and truly having a really big laugh.

Exercise: Give a face

Pair up the students in player A and B (in the space, or in breakout rooms).

Player A will change something in their face (you can also say: make a silly face). Player B does their best attempt of copying that face.

Player A relaxes their own face again, while player B explores the character that comes with the face they were given. Find which voice, body and words come out of adopting this face. Player A helps player B by being a curious, positive interviewer.

After a few lines, switch roles.

Note: It helps to encourage players to normalize these characters. There is nothing ‘wrong’ with them, this is how they always are.

I use this exercise for getting players out of their heads (duh), into their bodies and for finding new characters.