Transcript The Anthropology of Improvised Theatre

The Anthropology
of Improvised
Theatre
‘Yes And’
Throughout Time
and Social Space
Improv does this to people
 “When it works, and you know it’s
working, There’s like an automatic pilot
thing that sets in between 2 or 3 or even
all of us at once, where you sense that
it’s writing itself, and you’re just kind of
there and along for the ride and enjoying
it.” (Erin, Personal Interview 2007)
Improv does this to people
 “This was two characters who hadn’t been
introduced yet. Both [of us] came out with
characters and a situation and a focus that was
identical. I mean the characters were not
identical, but they were complimentary. And we
just started talking, and I was like ‘Oh my god,
this is the coolest thing’. It was so cool…and
this was the first time this had happened to
me…That gave me a real sense of ‘Ok, that
can happen.’…That was a great feeling. That
was a great feeling.” (Jill, Personal Interview
2007)
Improv does this to people
 “After [the show], the next day I had to sit down
and write in my journal…I thought ‘oh my gosh,
what if I lived this way? What if I really lived this
way in the world with people?’ I was very
touched by watching [the performers] work
together. I mean, that’s no lie, and I just said,
“What if I lived that way?” And it caused me to
examine, on the lowest level, what if I said
“yes, and” to you and you and you [pointing
randomly at people].” (Laura, Personal
Interview 2007)
What’s the Story?
 What are these feelings of unity that are
commonly experienced in improv theater
among other arts?
 What is at the heart of this
connectedness?
 How is it that people are able to connect
and understand one another in the first
place?
Communitas
 Feelings of cognitive-emotional unity
amongst a group of people involved in
some form of ritual activity (Turner 1982)
 Liminal space. Betwixt and between.
 States of grace.
 Things that bar the way.
 How do we get here?
Empathy
 Requires a theory of mind.
 Orders of Intentionality: I know that you
know that I know that you know.
 Emotional contagion.
 The lessons of Autism.
 How do we connect like this?
Mirror Neurons
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Your body in my brain.
Actors as mirror neuron experts.
Networking brains.
More lessons from Autism.
The Machiavellian mind.
How did humans end up with this
awesome cognitive talent?
What’s ‘Our’ Story?
 Characters: Early Homonids between 1
million BP to Modern Humans.
 Settings: Africa, Europe, Asia
 Situation: The world effects us, and we
effect the world.
 Action: Physical, Cognitive and Cultural
adaptation over time.
Important Theories of
early Cognitive Evolution
 Change in African climate leads to bipedalism.
 Bipedalism allows for better escape and ability
to hunt.
 Domestication of fire leads early Hominids into
closer social networks 1.4 million BP.
 Meat allows for growth of brain due to higher
fat diet.
 Increase in brain size, and resulting birthing
bottleneck, drive increase in childhood.
Early Hominids
Homo Habillis
Homo Erectus
Homo Heidelbergensis
Early Technical Prowess
 Handaxe used for
1 million years
 Impose consistent
form to biface
 Many tools in one
Early Climate Changes
 Onset of ice ages transform Europe to tundra
and Africa to largely desert.
 Drives hominids (H. Heidelbergensis) to
change.
 African hominids become coast oriented
(Sapiens). Drastic increase in tool variation.
 Euro hominids become largely carnivorous
(Neanderthals). Some increase in tool
variation.
Homo Sapiens
• Show up about
200,000 BP
• Start radiating out of
Africa about 50,000BP
• Bring a suite of new
behaviors.
Hominid Predators
Saber-toothed Cats
Giant Hyenas
Other Hominids
What the Predators did?
 Minimized expansion of genus Homo out
of Africa.
 Drove an increase in body and group
size in hominids (Dunbar).
 Teamwork leads to defeating megafauna.
 How do we become team oriented?
Us and Them
 Altruism and Xenophobia emerges from in
group out group relations.
 Group cooperation selected for protection of
resources and guarding against threats.
 Empathy emerges in response to dealing with
this mixture of social pressures from increased
group size.
 Understanding your friends is as useful as
understanding your competitors.
A Mind for Socializing
 Grooming is the root of socialization for
mammals, especially primates.
 This is efficient for small groups
 Larger groups require more energy grooming
to maintain social equilibrium.
 Theory: language arises as a means to groom
many at once to reduce energy cost (Dunbar).
 This requires an adept Machiavellian mind to
be effective.
Art, Ritual and Creativity
 The ability to symbol – a revolution
 Roots of religion lead to expanding social
ties beyond blood or tribe (Hayden)
 Ecstatic experience may be at the root of
religion and ritual (Hayden)
 Dancing, dreaming and drumming
 Where have these things gone?
Transformations
 Domestication of plants and animals
leads to sedentism, which leads to
surplus, which leads to specialists
 Sedentism leads to concentrated
populations and the birth of the urban
 Change in social structures and
subsistence lead to the shift in religion
What is religion?
 A system of symbols which acts to
establish powerful, pervasive, and longlasting moods and motivations in [people]
by formulating conceptions of a general
order of existence and clothing these
conceptions with such an aura of
factuality that the moods and motivations
seem uniquely realistic (Geertz).
Two types of religion
 Book religion: major world religions that
have a scripture of some sort describing
supernatural beings and providing a
moral code
 Traditional religion: passed on from
generation to generation as oral and
experiential traditions
Urban Growth
 Necessitates new rules and new roles in
early societies.
 These reflect the lives of urbanites.
 Legends of heroes taming the wild.
 Birth of humanoid gods.
 The advent of a world that is known,
recorded and controlled.
Book Religion vs
Traditional Religion
 Worldview
 Book: Sacred is largely removed from
Material World.
 Traditional: Sacred is Material World.
 Ecstatic Experience
 Book: Individual ecstatic experience frowned
upon, discouraged, cloistered away
 Traditional: ecstatic states are the religious
experience.
Book Religion vs
Traditional Religion
 Participation
 Book: more a spectator event. As long as
correct words are said and correct things are
done, the ritual is successful.
 Traditional: open for everyone’s active
participation (food, dance, music,
preparations, etc). emotional involvement
and transformation of consciousness is
essential to ritual success.
Ritual Behavior
1. Is structured and patterned;
2. Is rhythmic and repetitive (to some degree),
tends to recur in the same or nearly the same
form with some regularity;
3. Acts to synchronize affective, perceptualcognitive, and motor processes within the
central nervous system of individuals;
4. Most particularly, synchronizes these
processes among the various individual
participants
Improvisation as Ritual
 Much closer in character to Traditional
Religions
 Yet, Not a religion at all
 Structures and activities very ritual-like
 Produces similar effects to ritual
 What are the effects of ritual?
Ritual and the Brain
 Normal cognition: brain hemispheres fire
alternately
 Ritual Communitas: hemispheres fire
simultaneously (d’Aquili & Laughlin 1979)
 Ecstatic states open the door for Right
Hemisphere to lead
 Right hemisphere includes spatial and tonal
perception, internal pattern recognition (our
thoughts and those of others), and holistic and
synthetic comprehension (Rappaport 1999)
Full Circle
 Group mind/Communitas is truly a
synchronization of minds (d’Aquili &
Laughlin 1979)
 Much of Improvised Theater has
ritualistic activities or ritual structure
 Theater exercises (improv AND scripted)
help exercise our mirror neuron systems
(the roots of our ability to empathize)
Tell the Story
 Improv has grown beyond art fancy
 All levels of education exploring improv
 Applied Improvisation spreading the word
to business and non-profit outreach
 This is grass roots social rebooting
 Reintroduces the value of collaborative
living to an increasingly disparate world.
Next Steps
 Turn this talk into a book.
 EEG research on improv performers
 Discern brain activity during
improvisational play for an empirical
comparison.
Special Thanks to:
 AIN and the Amsterdam team for hosting.
 Family, Friends and Colleagues in
Portland and abroad who provided funds
and other support to make this trip and
presentation possible.
References
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