College Residencies |
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© Molly Cagwin
While members of Alligator Mouth Improv are available for classroom visits, one-time workshops, and special programming, the best possible way to use us on a college campus is in a residency format.
We recommend an eight-week experience where students learn improvisational skills once a week for four hours, for four weeks, and then change to a rehearsal format for four weeks to prepare for an evening-length production. Students will perform side by side with professionals from Alligator Mouth.
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Immersive, Intensive and Incremental
Immersive, intensive, and yet incremental in nature, a residency is designed to take individuals with no experience through a learning process that will allow them to hone the skills of improvisation-risk-taking, listening, teamwork, presence, imagination, and intuition-and begin to apply them via storytelling, singing, dancing, and poetry created in the moment. See the feedback from past participants.
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This multi-disciplinary approach to improvisation is attractive to dancers who always wanted to sing, or actors who want to try dancing, or singers who have a hidden storyteller inside. Also, because no experience is required, this is an opportunity for students of every stripe to try their hand at performing. From budding poets to business majors, all students are welcome to attend the workshops and apply the skills they learn to their fields of interest.
Throughout the workshop sessions, we assess participants' skills, using the sessions as one long audition. We then choose cast members from the workshop participants. The final production can be one night, or multiple nights just like a traditional theatre production, except that every show will be different!
Flexibility for Busy Students
By spreading the workshops and rehearsals out over two months, more students are able to fit the experience into overflowing schedules which could include going to school fulltime while also holding down a job, raising a family, and/or participating in other extra-curricular activities.
Since there are no lines to memorize, rehearsals are focused on skill enhancement and trust-building among the cast members. Rehearsing once a week leverages the students' ability to integrate what they are learning over time, and gives them opportunities to apply their skills in real-life situations.
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The Value of Performing Improvisationally
Improvisation as an art form is not about showing what you can do, but rather, it's about revealing your truth in each unfolding moment. And it's a practice for life. The earth opens, governments collapse, rugs get pulled out from under our feet. Improvisation allows us to see that any moment can soften into a thousand-thousand ways to go.
An improvised performance, because of its inherent risk and deep levels of authenticity, provides an immediacy and intimacy that are extremely engaging for the performers as well as the audience.
The intention of a college residency is to inspire the performing students and those in the audience to use their imaginations to open new pathways in their thinking and behaving, and to leave with a renewed zest for "doing the impossible" in their lives and in the world.
Post-Show Talk Back Sessions Encouraged
Because this kind of improvisation is typically a new experience for the audience as well, we recommend offering a talk back session after every performance where cast and audience have an informal dialogue. This interaction allows the audience to ask questions, provide feedback, and understand on a deeper level what they have just experience. Check out these talk back sessions from "Swallowing Fire, Etc." at Corning Community College.
Contact us for more information on how Alligator Mouth Improv can enliven your theatre, dance, or other creative arts departments.