The Blog. At this point I would also like to mention that the Blog is always behind. When I post about a certain city that we were in I then get messages saying “Hey, what about (insert city we just were in or have just arrived at). Generally, I am about 4-5 cities behind. Mostly it is because I tend to have the Blog updated only once a week and that doesn't keep up with our brisk tour. I will now try and catch up.
Berlin again...
The show in Berlin with Zwiebelfisch was a show at a theatre space we have never played at. It was called Studio 70 and the show involved a live Illustrator (their show was the one that inspired the show we did with an illustrator in Mannheim). The Illustrator was really good at illustrating quickly, having very nice symbolic imagery and played well with us. It was also nice to have a musician who played some interesting and not quite so common improv instruments (violin and saxophone... Sax and Violence?).
The boiled down to an exploration... wait, I always use the word “exploration” when I am describing these shows. Does that sound pretentious? It does doesn't it? How about, the show was a journey... No? How about, the show was an open dialogue between audience and performer...Umm.
The show had some funny little skits in it that we made up on the spot. We saw skits about:
-The inventor of the toaster (Charles Toast)
-The inventor of rubber (Charles Rubber)
-A young married couple dominated by the wife.
-A group of best friends have their friendship almost torn apart by the overbearing wife.
-An initiation in Mexico involving 100 tacos and the hottest of hot sauce.
And then...
After the show we then spent a whole weekend in the German countryside teaching workshops to some improv players. Many hours of intensive improv were spent, many theories, games and scenes were tweaked, many ideas and techniques were developed, many songs were sung, many werewolves were present.
These workshops are among the most rewarding as there is time to really crawl inside the beast known as improvisation and figure out what makes it tick. Do beasts tick? Anyways, the groups really bonds and the work really shines brightly.
Off to the airport to fly from Berlin to Basel. Volcanic ash threatens but doesn't rear its ugly mug over the flight plan.
Thank you Volcano Gods for accepting my sacrifice.
