Translator: Nathalie L'ETANG Reviewer: Cécile Affognitode
To talk about theatrical improvisation,
I have to improvise a little.
Otherwise, I wouldn't be very credible.
Theatrical improvisation has existed since the dawn of time.
Early humans were already improvising.
Greeks improvised in forums, it was called "maieutics."
Scheherazade improvised every night to save her head
and avoid being beheaded by the Sultan
and did so during a thousand and one nights.
Then, came - here is the slide with an historical scene,
how nice is this! - the Italian Comedia dell'arte,
the peak of theatrical improvisation, which Molière made use of.
Molière used theatrical improvisation to write his texts.
There was a man called Goldoni at the time.
He is still named Goldoni, but back then, he was noticed for it.
He was writing texts and selling them.
He said, "No, improvisation has to stop,
because I do not want to stop selling my texts."
So, it put theatrical improvisation on the sidelines
in favor of literature, although in theatrical improvisation,
you "read your erasure" ("Lis-tes-ratures") ...
Okay. (Laughter)
For years in Europe, literature prevailed over theatrical improvisation.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world kept doing theatrical improvisation.
In African villages, it was called "koteba."
In Senegal, in Burkina Faso, in a lot of countries,
everyone were improvising under the mango tree
in order to tell the story of the day or of the week.
They were using percussion, and it was awesome. They had fun.
Then, colonization happened and they said,
"No, no! This, is not theater. Theater is Racine."
So you children, you're going to learn Racine by heart,
and just leave your roots under the mango tree."
(Laughter)
It was like that!
Then, children started reciting painfully texts they couldn't understand.
We still find in schools, even in Guideloupe,
pupils reciting "Phedre" with no understanding to begin with.
and the audience doesn't understand.
They suffer because, on stage, they are not in line.
They are slightly unbalanced. It's a kind of "theatrical Begini."
(Laughter)
They're unbalanced, lost, and unhappy.
So others stop expressing themselves, thinking,
"It's not my language."
So the idea is to improvise and have fun at the same time.
It is true that as far as I can remember in my life,
the best nights have never been those spent in front of the TV.
True! This is important because currently in schools,
it is estimated that on average,
an European teenager spends nine hours a day in front of a screen.
Between the smartphone, the iPad and the laptop,
they spend nine hours a day in front of a screen,
as much time they spend sleeping.
Increasingly! I just heard about this last week.
So children hardly learn to communicate with each other
and to look into each other's eyes.
When they want to laugh, they mock people instead of enjoying each other.
Then, they upload those things on YouTube which is sometimes unbearable,
but that makes them laugh.
They don't laugh at themselves nor in conviviality.
Whereas it's not the case in improvisation.
Who here, has tried theatrical improvisation?
Who has already improvised? Ah, a lot less here!
Well, everyone has improvised at some point.
When you want to help your little brother to sleep
and tell him a story, you improvise.
When a policeman asks you to pull over and you are drunk,
Oops! Hop! you play a character.
"Yeah, I'm doing good! Absolutely no problem!
I am very familiar with this road, don't worry, officer."
So everyone improvises.
So we have developed a system, a method of improvisation for all,
because people scare improvisation in theater for fear of ridicule.
In fact, freedom of speech is ridicule minus shame.
You're a bit ridiculous but you don't care, no shame.
For example, you're afraid of failure.
So here I go. It flops but I don't say anything.
I suck.
But I'm not ashamed, I don't care ... That's it!
People don't dare do this, but it's very important.
As a result, they don't dare engage in improvisation
which could help them in their couple,
since a couple is two people managing to solve issues
that would not have existed if they were living alone.
So, it creates problems in your relationship.
You laugh but it's like in schools.
Nowadays, in 25% of couples,
the guy walks off after the first child
because couples do not negotiate, they do not talk.
It is about learning how to tolerate and how to discuss,
and thus, how to improvise.
To say that we're wrong when we're wrong is being normal.
To say we're wrong when we're right is being married.
(Laughter)
This is improvisation, but people don't dare.
So, we created a method in which the guy arrives in the morning at the workshop.
He has never done any improvisation in his life.
We always care with him, and that very night,
he does a show in front of an audience and he makes everyone laugh.
It works very well because we care,
because we use a sentence from Aragon that helps us:
"Criticism should only be the pedagogy of enthusiasm."
It means we never make someone uncomfortable
but let him express himself in accordance with himself
and guide him so that he starts listening to others
and starts building with the group.
I say that because as a child, I was very shy.
"Destiny is what life makes of our desires."
My story is that I was very shy. I was with the animals.
I wanted to live in the forest.
I wrote a small book of animal stories,
and a teacher took my book and tore it.
Really, I was desperate.
I didn't know what to do, I stopped writing at this point.
Maybe that's why I'm doing improv now.
Then, I had another misfortune.
My parents left. I was 16 years old.
I was in Rennes, an unknown town where I didn't know anyone, no friends.
I came back home one day and my girlfriend was with another guy.
So I ended up alone in the world.
(Laughter) No, it's not funny.
I ended up alone in the world, really,
friendless, rootless and without history.
That's why I named myself Gustave Parking.
Alone in the world and moreover, destitute.
It's not easy for a 17-years-old to live on the street without means.
Because it's not obvious when you're already out, to get out of it.
Fortunately, I had attended a few courses in self-expression,
in theater, magic tricks, and juggling.
So I went in front of a student cafeteria and started to reach out to others.
I thought, "Even if my people abandon me,
the others, all the others, can recognize me
provided I can do something that reach out to them
and know how to speak to them."
It's the basic idea of theatrical improvisation.
So I did some shows.
I became a scholar in order to have something to bring to others.
I studied linguistics in Rennes.
And it worked.
It worked so well that I played in 75 countries.
I staged 30 plays, organized six shows, it was a huge success.
This summer I had an article like this in "Charlie," I was super happy.
So I'm very proud of myself.
I arrived in Guadeloupe, the top.
Guadeloupe, a wonderful place.
(Cheers)
Guadeloupe!
The problem is that when you arrive on top,
you have to keep climbing, even if to do so,
you have to come down to get a stepladder.
Climbing, when you're on top, is to give to others, to those around you.
I discovered that in Quebec, school violence was reduced by 25%
using improvisation games in school from a very young age.
School violence was reduced by 25%.
So I asked myself
"Where in Guadeloupe are people the most violent and stuck?
The prison! The prison of Basse-Terre."
It happened that while swimming quietly at Anse Dupuy in Vieux Fort,
I met with the prison warden.
"Hi, are you the warden? I'm doing improv. - Ah, that's a good thing ..."
So we get out in our swimsuits, half-naked.
We sympathized.
Finally, we did theatrical improvisation with the inmates in the prison,
the kingpins, Caribbean monsters, pirates, guys with gold teeth.
I can assure you, it was terrible.
The idea is how to make the toughest and most stuck people,
do improvisation easily enough?
I'm going to show you. There is a method.
It's like that.
First, "mastering the body." They are not very articulate.
They speak Creole, English, Spanish, Italian,
a little French, just a few words because they use crack -
yes, they tell us about that.
First, "expressing with the body" like TiMalo did a moment ago.
You tell them, "Yes, you are in a rowboat,
then you're in a wheelchair, then you jump with a parachute."
You make them live all kind of physical adventures.
You also tell them, "You escape, he chases you,
and as you invent new stories, he must try to follow you."
"Here! I'm catching you." "Yes, I'm coming."
They were happy, they were escaping!
Anyway.
They express themselves and they breathe.
When you start expressing yourself physically,
you oxygenate your brain,
thus you have much more imagination.
Then, you work on the second part:
"the acceptance of one's own language."
It's an exercise called "logorrhea" that starts with just a few words.
Then people are asked to speak without thinking,
very quickly and without thinking.
For example, "What would you do if you won a billion euros?"
"If I won a billion euros, I would have a swimming pool,
pretty girls, helicopters ..."
So you speak without thinking.
It's very important because you become immersed in the flow of yourself.
You don't try to be creative or to look like the other,
but you're yourself, and you're creative only if you are yourself.
When you want to be the other, you fail because it's not you.
Well, this is an explanation.
So, while they are speaking without thinking,
we try to work on emotions which are expressed by postures.
A posture like this reflects strength.
It is also important to say that when you play a character,
after some time, you can become this character.
This way, you can play other characters in life,
and it helps you to be stronger in difficult situations.
So, when they are like that, doing the logorrhea,
we work on emotions, and the strongest emotion is?
Anger.
Because, indeed, you are out of control, out to lunch,
you become peerless.
(Laughter)
Thus you are spectacular.
We made them play the jail's biggest argument ever.
We warn the guards: "They're all going to yell at each other.
It's going to be terrible."
Then, the guys start: "You piss me off, I'm sick of you TiMalo!
Why did you do that? Where is your mother dirty whore?"
Here they go.
Now, you allow them to start. Why?
Because if you're not able of the worst,
you're not able of the best.
Initially, you have to let go of the worse.
Some big guys started, "I'll cut you!"
and I was stopping them, "Very well, very well!"
(Laughter)
When they were starting, it was like "Waw, okay! Okay!"
and since you made them act an artificial but real anger,
they learned how to control this violence
and how to control this anger.
Or else they let go, get mad, until they fail to understand each other.
Here, they control anger, then they can do the same thing:
"But TiMalo, it's unbelievable! Son of your mother, Nyctalope!"
These are not real insults and this way, it's more acceptable.
(Laughter)
See, you work on your stuff.
Then even better, you tell them
"Do the same but with love and the same energy."
"TIMalo, you're such a great guy! Your stuff is brilliant!
Oh, you're so good, I love you, TiMalo!"
That's the same energy. You got the idea.
Then they work together, they try to work in groups.
To work in group in theatrical improv, you learn to say?
Right, you learn to say "yes," to always say "yes."
"Yes" is peace. "No" is war.
So, they start improvising: "How are you?
Did you go to the butcher the other day?
- Yes, indeed, and I saw your wife, she was amazing.
We made love in the attic, it was great!
- You did it with my wife? What a good idea!
I went to your dog and made meat skewers out of it.
- Oh, very well! You ate my dog in skewers.
Let's have fun together."
So, you have fun and you create your own show.
In improvisation workshops, you laugh, you have fun,
you create your own show, and it goes very quickly.
Then, we do a lot of small exercises
which allow people to build stories and learn reintegration.
Outside prison for instance, we worked a lot on sale
because when you're out of jail, it's a bit hard.
There are two jobs for which you're not asked your criminal record:
it's salesman ...
Yeah ... and artist.
So we taught them how to sell -
"Buy my stuff, it's pretty good," and so on -
and we realized that the rules of sale
are exactly the same as those of theatrical improvisation.
The focus should be on the story
rather than the publicity stunt or the commercial cost.
You say "I ripped him off" but you risk loosing a client.
There was a man named Volkswagen who tried to do that a while ago
and they lost clients for life.
So ...
Here is it. Hop!
"Learning how to be serious."
So, you learn how to be serious.
You laugh and then, you learn how to play the characters.
Then comes "Developing empathy," that's what we did,
"Escaping together to get closer to others,"
"Opening up to new possibilities," you understand it -
it has become an ad.
Then, we went to schools, high schools.
There, we say "let it go,"
although in prisons, we say "let me go."
In high schools, if you tell him, he forgets,
but if he experiences it, he learns.
We worked in several high schools in Guadeloupe on sexist stereotypes.
It means you play the role of the other so that you understand him better.
So the boys played girls, and the girls played boys.
We saw in Guadeloupe's schools kids coming in skirts.
We did things like this. Boys!
Here they say, "No!"
Yes, we did, but they're characters, they're playing!
So they understand better what others feel.
It works very well for school bullying too.
So this is what we did in schools.
Here, you can see a teacher.
I put a white woman because she can better be spotted on the drawing.
In reality, there are teachers of every colors.
I'm just saying...
Here, she's on her knees before the students.
It's very important. When we do it in businesses, it's the same.
When the boss is playing a carrot
and his secretary plays the bunny and says,
"I'm going to eat my carrot" in an improvisation,
their relationship after that is completely changed,
(Laughter)
completely changed!
It's the principle of Carnival: we switch roles.
The teacher told me, "Relationships with my pupils has changed completely
since I played with them."
It's really important. "I played with them.
For the pupil, I was no longer some kind of institution to fight
but someone he can play with who, in addition, has a teacher's role."
It was very important in their relationship.
So we keep doing it.
Now I'll explain to you what I said about the history of humanity.
The first woman is Lucy.
We all owe "à-Lucy-nos-gènes," it's a well known fact.
I quite like this one ... Ah, you have to think!
(Laughter) (Applause)
At the beginning of mankind, Lucy started to talk,
and she started to create society.
The problem is that society created gods in its image
and that at some point, there's a degeneration into pig,
because with Copernic, men realized they were not the center of the universe.
Then with humanists such as Marx,
they realized that man was a wolf to himself,
that Capitalism was the exploitation of men by men,
and that Communism was the opposite.
(Laughter)
Then with Freud, they learned that they were dominated by their unconscious.
With Saussure, a linguist -
I worked with one of his disciples -
they learned that they were between signifier and signified,
such that when you mean something, people hear something else.
We are no longer ourselves.
Today, the environment shows us we are not the masters of Nature
and are going to be crushed by her.
So we are so scared that we increasingly take refuge in technology and in a dream,
a dream that has been created by others elsewhere.
Moreover, we consume.
So we are becoming online pigs.
Personally, I would like that the online pig do improv
and reach out to others -
here the man goes towards the woman, whereas in the other he goes alone -
that he become inventive since improvisation enabled us to create,
and create many things: in improvisation, you invent by mixing two extremes.
For instance, you can mix boxing with face cloths.
Both boxers are dirty and the one who ends up cleaner looses.
You can create a lot of things, you see.
Fencing with bullfight: you put an electric structure on the bull
so that when you touch it, its tail lights up.
This allows you to be inventive, and develops a creative mind.
So what I had to say to you was substantial.
I see my allotted time has ended.
As in improvisation, repartee is often when everyone has departed.
It's the same principle.
(Applause)
What I wanted to say
is that in improvisation and in theater in general,
everything you keep to yourself is lost in the heart of others,
whereas everything you give to others is forever in their heart.
Thank you and good night.
(Applause)