It may seem strange that a foreword for a book about applied improvisation should be written by theatre makers. However, to study the applications of improvisation beyond performance, perhaps the base-camp for the expedition should be the place where it all started. It was in the theatres, comedy clubs, and experimental performance spaces of the 1960s and 1970s that the story of improvisation, as we now know it, began and developed. This is where it was first applied, a new kind of theatre, pitching performers and audiences into a thrilling new relationship.
一本关于应用即兴创作的书的序言应该由戏剧制片人写，这似乎很奇怪。然而，为了研究即兴表演超越表演的应用，也许探险的大本营应该是这一切开始的地方。在20世纪60年代和70年代的剧院、喜剧俱乐部和实验表演空间，我们现在知道的即兴创作故事开始和发展。这就是它第一次应用的地方，一种新的剧院，把表演者和观众进入一种激动人心的新关系。
As young actors we fell in love with improvisation and, as often happens in a love affair, our initial infatuation was intense. It made us feel more alive.Creating in the moment, saying “yes” to other people’s ideas, sidestepping control, and connecting to our intuitive impulses in front of an audience was exhilarating. We were making people laugh, discovering success and failure onstage, creating comedy and drama from nothing but the air between us, and sometimes we told stories that moved people. But we soon discovered it wasn’t just about the shows or the product, and the learning was not limited to the onstage crucible.
作为年轻的演员，我们爱上了即兴创作，正如经常发生的爱情事件一样，我们最初的迷恋很强烈。它让我们感觉更活跃了。在当下创造，对别人的想法说“是”，回避控制，在观众面前与直觉冲动联系起来是令人兴奋的。我们让人们开怀大笑，在舞台上发现成功和失败，只用我们之间的空气来创造喜剧和戏剧，有时我们会讲一些感动人们的故事。但我们很快就发现，这不仅仅是关于演出或产品，学习也不局限于舞台上的坩埚。
As we continued to improvise, our relationship with impro matured. It became a deeper love. We found ourselves in a Dojo (a practice arena) where we had to explore our strengths and vulnerabilities and engage in dialogue with our inner critics. Something much more profound and wide reaching was happening: a relationship was being forged to the chaotic part of nature that enhanced our experience of life. We were discovering that we had to confront and include our true selves in the process if we were to grow. We were engaged in a continual practice, which nurtured a set of beliefs and principles that would run through our careers and lives. Improvisation was the underground river that flowed beneath everything we did.
随着我们继续即兴创作，我们与非专业人士的关系成熟了。它变成了一种更深层次的爱。我们发现自己在一个道场（一个练习场），我们必须探索我们的优势和弱点，并与我们内心的批评者进行对话。一些更深刻和广泛的事情正在发生：一种关系正在形成自然界混乱的部分，这增强了我们的生活体验。我们发现，如果我们要成长，我们就必须面对并在这个过程中包括我们真实的自我。我们从事一种持续的实践，培养了一套信仰和原则，贯穿我们的职业和生活。即兴创作是一条流过我们所做的一切下面的地下河流。
We have been “applying” improvisation to the making of theatre since the mid-1980s. During that time, we have made improvised shows, used impro to devise shows that end up scripted, and created shows that were hybrids of the two. When directing shows with preexisting scripts, we have used impro to ensure performances are played differently every night. We got puppeteers, opera singers, and “proper” actors in their eighties to improvise and the shows have played everywhere from comedy clubs to outdoors to the National Theatre.
自20世纪80年代中期以来，我们一直将即兴创作“应用”于戏剧创作。在此期间，我们制作了即兴表演，用即兴表演来设计了最终有脚本的节目，并创作了两者混合的节目。当导演有已有的剧本的节目时，我们使用即兴表演来确保每晚的表演有不同的播放。我们有木偶戏演员、歌剧演员和“合适”演员即兴表演，从喜剧俱乐部到户外到国家剧院，演出都在演出。
At Improbable, the work has primarily been the creation of theatre shows;however, we also had to learn how to run a company. We admit there was often a mismatch between the improvisation we practiced onstage and how we organized our business—as if the two worlds did not share the same principles.We were not applying what we did with actors and shows to the running of our own company. We were in need of some applied improvisation!
最不可能的是，该工作主要是创作戏剧表演；然而，我们也必须学习如何经营一家公司。我们承认，我们在舞台上练习的即兴创作和我们组织业务的方式之间经常存在着不匹配的情况——就好像这两个世界并没有分享相同的原则一样。我们并没有把我们对演员和表演的做法应用于经营我们自己的公司。我们需要一些应用上的即兴创作！
It was about twelve years ago that we had a breakthrough when Phelim discovered Open Space Technology (OST), which, instinctively, we understood to be one enormous, self-organizing impro game. We began running forums for the theatre community (that we titled “Devoted and Disgruntled”) to work on issues that people were frustrated about and wanted to take action on. OST quickly became an essential part of running Improbable, onstage and off.Offstage, it now informs our meetings; how we envision our future and how we make that vision happen; it supports how we deal with change; how we create fluidity around roles in the company and how we address conflicts. Onstage and in the rehearsal room, it has become an essential part of our theatre-making process and a guide for our teaching of improvisation. The boundaries between the different areas of our company have begun to blur. There’s a long way to go,but our aim is to walk improvisational methods through all aspects of our company’s life.
大约12年前，当费利姆发现开放空间技术(OST)时，我们取得了突破，我们本能地认为这是一个巨大的、自组织的独立游戏。我们开始为戏剧社区举办论坛（我们命名为“忠诚和不满”），以研究人们感到沮丧和想要采取行动的问题。OST很快成为不可能在舞台上和下车的重要组成部分。在场外，它现在通知我们的会议；我们如何设想我们的未来，以及我们如何实现这一愿景；它支持我们如何应对变革；我们如何围绕公司中的角色创造流动性，以及我们如何解决冲突。在舞台上和排练室里，它已经成为我们戏剧制作过程的重要组成部分，也是我们即兴创作教学的指导。我们公司不同领域之间的界限已经开始模糊了。还有很长的路要走，但我们的目标是通过改进的方法贯穿我们公司生活的各个方面。
This is a book about Applied Improvisation, so perhaps we should unpack what “applied” means to us. One does not “apply” improvisation in the sense of adding something to what is already there. It is not like a coat of varnish or even,14we would argue, a set of skills. It is more like a way of accessing and bringing awareness to processes that are happening anyway. Whether it is in a theatrical or in an applied context, improvisation, as a form, draws from the dreaming world and brings the imagination into embodied life. We must beware of the notion that people doing it in theatre or comedy aren’t doing something in “real life.” Dreams are its “real world” and this is one of its most valuable assets.Improvisation brings together, in a marriage, the imagistic world and consensus reality. It would be missing the point to lose (at least) half the value of impro when it becomes “Applied Improvisation.” We must be awake to the tendency for it to become too goal or product oriented, stressing the technical skills over the more artistic and dreaming aspects of improvisation. When the improvisation gets applied, is the ineffable nature of impro diminished? This question is one that the best practitioners, such as those in this book, are courageously grappling with because not all deliverables are describable.
这是一本关于应用即兴创作的书，所以也许我们应该解开“应用”对我们的含义。人们并没有“应用”即兴创作，即在已经存在的东西中添加一些东西。它不像一层清漆，甚至，我们会说，一套技能。它更像是一种访问和了解正在发生的过程的方式。无论是在戏剧中还是在应用的环境中，即兴创作，作为一种形式，都能从梦的世界中汲取灵感，并将想象力带到具体化的生活中。我们必须注意在戏剧或喜剧中做的人不是在“现实生活中做什么。梦想是“现实世界”，这是它最有价值的资产之一。就像在一段婚姻中，即兴创作汇集了意象化的世界和共识的现实。当即兴创作成为“应用即兴创作”时，它将会失去（至少）一半的价值。“我们必须意识到它过于以目标或产品为导向的倾向，强调技术技能比即兴创作更有艺术和梦想的方面。当即兴创作被运用时，即兴创作的不可形容的本质是否减弱了？这个问题是最好的问题。
Of course, improvisation does have a set of skills and games that can be stated, taught, and learnt. Within these pages are many fine and diverse examples of non-theatre contexts where impro has been used to support change and increase creativity. Each demonstrates the value of impro and its impact. However, it’s important we don’t just pay attention to the measurable technical skills. This is not the whole story.
当然，即兴创作确实有一套技能和游戏，可以陈述、教和学习。在这些页面中有许多很好的和不同的非戏剧背景的例子，其中即兴表演已经被用来支持改变和增加创造力。每一个都展示了不专业者的价值及其影响。然而，重要的是，我们不仅要注意可衡量的技术技能。这并不是整个故事。
Between these stories lies a deeper set of skills that points toward what psychologist and process-work practitioner Amy Mindell calls “metaskills.” These are the attitudes and sensitivities that inform how we use the technical skills. These metaskills would be such things as: an ability to be comfortable with uncertainty and “not knowing”; a willingness to say “Yes” not just to an offer but to the whole of reality as it truly is; a trust in the Tao and the wisdom of nature; an ability to see the bigger patterns in chaos; a desire to hold silence and sense what is beneath an atmosphere; the capacity to catch secondary signals and impulses within oneself and in the environment that are on the edge of awareness; a belief that everything happening around you is a valuable part of the process.
在这些故事之间有一组更深层次的技能，指出心理学家和过程工作医生艾米·米德尔所说的“元技能”。这些都是决定我们如何使用技术技能的态度和敏感性。这些元技能包括：适应不确定性和“不知道”；愿意说“是”，而且对整个现实；对道的信任和自然的智慧；在混乱中看到更大模式的能力；渴望保持沉默和感觉到大气下的东西；在自己内部和意识边缘的环境中捕捉二次信号和冲动的能力；相信你周围发生的一切都是这个过程中有价值的一部分。
These stories are taking place in a wider context of an attitude to life that only 15improvisation fosters. It is this context that tells us how we practice those skills. The application of impro is not just technique but an invitation to explore the deeper understandings this work can bring to us as individuals and as a community.
这些故事发生在一个更广泛的生活态度的背景下，只有15个即兴创作培养。正是这种背景告诉了我们，我们是如何练习这些技能的。即兴表演的应用不仅是技术，而且是探索这项工作作为个人和社区带来的更深层次的理解的邀请。
Notice in these chapters where improvisation has been used to create new cultures within organizations and communities. How it creates intelligent climates where individuals own their own agency while being sensitive to ensemble responsibilities. Where new models of democratic collaboration promote true listening and self-organization. These improvisational cultures support emergent solutions and foster the kind of wisdom that our world is urgently demanding of us.
请注意，在这些章节中，即兴创作已经被用于在组织和社区中创造新的文化。它是如何创造出一种明智的氛围，在这种氛围中，个人拥有自己的机构，同时又对整体责任保持敏感。民主合作的新模式促进了真正的倾听和自我组织。这些即兴创作的文化支持应急解决方案，培养我们这个世界迫切需要的智慧。
Life is full of uncertainty and each day our world gets more complicated and chaotic. The solution is not an attempt to tame the chaos. The answer is to find more robust and fluid ways of interacting with the chaos, which is merely a fact of life. The call is to become “wave riders,” as Harrison Owen, originator of OST, describes those leaders who know how to trust the flow of nature and take advantage of its emergent energies. The call is to improvise because the practice of improvisation is one of allowing.
生活充满了不确定性，我们的世界每天都变得更加复杂和混乱。解决办法并不是试图平息混乱。答案是找到更稳健和流体的方式与混乱的相互作用，这只是生活的一个事实。这个呼吁是成为“波浪骑手”，正如OST的创始人哈里森·欧文描述了那些知道如何相信自然流动并利用自然新兴能量的领导者。召唤是即兴创作，因为即兴创作的练习是允许的。
You don’t apply improvisation, it simply applies.
你不应用即兴创作，它只是适用。
Phelim McDermott and Lee Simpson met in 1986 after a Keith Johnstone workshop that Phelim had been to and Lee hadn’t. They soon discovered that they were both interested in impro that was more theatrical and theatre that was more improvised and spent the next ten years making both these things. In 1996, alongside Julian Crouch and Nick Sweeting, they founded Improbable, a company that deepened and broadened that quest, taking improvisation into uncharted waters and, along the way, creating a bewildering diversity of work (e.g. Animo, Lifegame, The Still, Theatre of Blood, Lost Without Words, etc.). Lee is also one of the Comedy Store Players, and Phelim has directed shows at the Metropolitan Opera. Their latest venture is the International Institute of Improvisation, a way to celebrate, investigate, advocate, and connect all forms of improvisation from 16within and outside the arts; a way to tell the story of how the practice and philosophy of improvisation is what the world needs. Right now.
在参加了 keith johnstone 的工作坊之后，Phelim mcdermott 和 lee simpson 相识于1986年，phelim 去过，lee 没去过。他们很快发现，他们都对即兴表演感兴趣，即兴表演更具戏剧性，即兴表演更具戏剧性，他们花了十年时间来制作这两样东西。1996年，他们与朱利安•克劳奇(julian crouch)和尼克•斯威廷(nick sweeting)共同创立了“不可思议”(improbable)公司。这家公司深化并扩大了这种探索，将即兴创作融入大航海时代系列，并一路创造出令人眼花缭乱的多样性工作(例如，阿尼莫(animo)、生活游戏(lifegame)、蒸馏器(the still)、血腥剧场(theatre of blood)、无言失落等等)。李也是喜剧商店的演员之一，菲尔姆在大都会歌剧院执导过节目。他们最近的一次冒险是国际即兴创作研究所，这是一种赞美、调查、倡导和连接艺术内外各种形式的即兴创作的方式，一种讲述即兴创作的实践和哲学是世界所需要的故事的方式。现在！
