by Nathalie Van Renterghem
In May, all birds lay an egg, and I myself launched a book. That happened officially on May 2 in the Fakkeltheater in Antwerp. The book brings together the improvisational wisdom that I gathered from Inspinazie over the past thirty years, and the links we see daily in our work with the search for openness, connection and clarity between people.
With Inspinazie, we pioneered in our country this work of applied improvisation, which is undergoing a great development worldwide. For me, then, the book is in part an ode to that wonderful nest of Inspinazians, whose story you can see in brief here can read.
Improvising can be done in all kinds of activities. Yes can improvise playing, cooking, making music, decorating a room, gardening, dancing, communicating. You certainly shouldn't always improvise, preferably not even, but we allow it far too little. While it can lead us to better perception, more appropriate choices in the moment, stronger co-creations, among other things. This book is about those added values.
Our performance SWERM lets experience all of this firsthand. Theater is a wonderful medium for exposing the power of improvisation. So it was only logical that the launch was supported by an improvisational theater performance. It became one to lick your thumbs and fingers at.
"Wa- was - da - na? With open mouth I sat there in the Torch Theatre. Childlike wonder. I really enjoyed it."
"That it was super fascinating! Thank you."
"A theater family you want to stay close to. They show more than you want and even then half of it remains hidden. As befits a good family."
What typifies this performance is that after the play you get a chance to peek into the heads of the improvisers. They then take a seat in the hot seat, where you can put the fire to them. For example, you'll find out when they blocked and how they handled that with their improvisational skills. Or where they got their inspiration. How they made their head and body work together. Sometimes we replay a piece from the performance and try something different, or do an exercise with the audience.
I personally enjoyed that afternoon immensely. My book's thank you note how the content would never have come about without the years of collaboration within Inspinazie, and we could feel that once again.
Thank you frol colleagues !!! Here's to another thirty years of working together 🙂
Thank you Britt Raes for the beautiful illustrations in the book as well as the sketches you made of the event as well :-).
Thank you Pelckmans: Nancy Derboven for writing guidance from a rock in the business, Ellen Meeusen for careful editing. Katrin Goderis for launching it. And Liesbeth Janssen for catching me at all sorts of moments :-).
Got an appetite?
>>> Want to know more about the book and/or order it? You can here.
>>> Train your own improvisation skills for life and work during our Living Impro courses !
