Improbable Theatre Improvisational workshop

An Improbable Approach to Improvisation & Puppetry with Lee Simpson on Friday 6th November 2015,

Lee Simpson – Improbable Theatre Company

Notes I took during workshop.

In pairs, talking with alternate words

Be aware of tense, try to bring it into the present…

Be aware of any emotions you are feeling (me – as metadata)

During this workshop, Lee Simpson talked about the work of Arnold Mindell and its relevance to the creative artistic process. To summarize, what I understood is that there are three components to the thinking behind this system: conscious reality, dreaming and the essence of anything. Conscious reality is the world we are forced to live in, to do with work, responsibility, the suppression of the unconscious, of our dreams and of the essence of everything. Dreaming included intuition, love, community, visions, spirit, theatre, music, fantasies, connections, art.

In conscious reality there are polarities, things are seen as very black and white, whereas in dreaming, whilst there are still polarities, they exist in a different way – as spectrums and as co-existing pluralities – just as in a dream opposites can be simultaneously true. However, with regard to the essence, there are no more polarities, everything is connected.

Points about ‘dreaming’

It tends to get marginalised by ‘conscious reality’.

Cannot be measured.

Is difficult to describe: language is inadequate.

Has limited currency in the education system.