Improv exercises can be used to encourage spontaneity, co-creation and 'thinking on your feet'. They originate in improvised theatre, where a performance is created on the spot without a predefined script. Outside the performing arts improv can be used, for example, in team-building, development of communication skills, or therapy. In futuring processes improv can be helpful as an ice-breaker, a way to train the 'speculative mind', to help visualise a scenario, an exercise in collaborative storytelling or worldbuilding. Improv can help during phases where a process becomes overly analytical, or bogged down in rigid, overzealous worldviews. Improv can shake up the status quo and take people out of their comfort zones in a playful and usually harmless manner.
There are thousands of improv exercises possible, which can be applied in almost any setting. We will present a select few of the techniques that we use most frequently, and have found most productive in FoAM's workshops, with links to other improv resources. 'The Box' is an example of (status) transactions, 'Tableau Vivant' an example of setting the scene and collective spontaneity, and 'A word at a time' is an example of an improvised storytelling exercise.
See also improvisation as an aptitude.
An exercise for becoming aware of participants' streams of (un)consciousness and observing what emerges. The exercise involves the exchange of (imaginary) boxes in which there are gifts. The box contains something that the receiver has always wanted. The goal of the exercise is to find out, on the spot, what might be in the boxes. At the end of the exercise the group will end up with an (often surprising) collection of 'gifts'. The exercise can stop here, or the 'gifts' could be used as a basis of a speculative/visioning/storytelling experiment.
A Tableau Vivant or a 'living picture' is a still image with live actors. In improv, the participants portray a situation by standing still in a particular posture, with or without props. The benefit of a tableau vivant is that a complex story can be distilled and visualised like a photograph. It can be used as a warming-up exercise, or as part of incasting.
This exercise, based on the surrealist game cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse), helps the participants to warm up to collective storytelling and allows creative inhibitions to drop.
Step 1: Explain the process: 'This is a storytelling exercise where each person offers one word to the person next to them, who then gives another word to the next person and so on. The aim is to build sentences and a story together, one word at a time. Don't worry about saying something clever or stupid, just say the first thing that comes to mind and watch the unexpected narrative develop.'
Step 2: Begin with a word and 'offer' it to the person next to you (by turning your head or making a gesture of giving). Try an inclusive word like 'we' or 'our' to make the story inclusive of everyone present.
Step 3: Let the story develop for a few rounds and feel when it is time to stop. The participants might stop by themselves, or if you find the story is nearing its end, draw it to a conclusion yourself.
Step 4: Reflect on the experience.