Ready to improvise?
Quite unusually for a CERN colloquium, on 8 and 9 August the CERN Auditorium will host a presentation on comedy and communication and a workshop by Charna Halpern, the founder of "iO theaters" in Chicago and Los Angeles.
Members of Geneva’s Impro Federation (FIG) in full swing!
Charna Halpern has been teaching performers how to work together for more than 20 years. She founded the world-famous iO theaters (formerly Improv Olympic) in Chicago and Los Angeles in 1981. Today, the theatres are the meccas of training in the art of improvisation, and they act as a "recruiting" stop for television shows supplying New York and Hollywood with writers and performers.
Specializing in creating a "group mind" with hilarious end results, Charna Halpern will be sharing her secrets and skills with the CERN audience and she will make her public laugh as they learn. The following day, Saturday, she will give a workshop on how to prepare an improv group with audience participation.
Besides giving the CERN personnel the opportunity to learn improvisational skills, the organisers of the event hope that Halpern’s visit will motivate people to form an improv club. Members of the club might even give a performance at the upcoming ATLAS Start-Up Event on 4 October. For more information or suggestions, please contact bob.stanek@cern.ch.
CERN Colloquium: 8 August, 15:00, CERN Auditorium, free entrance. Workshop on how to prepare an improv group with audience participation: 9 August, 10:30, CERN Auditorium, all welcome, free entrance. For organisational purposes, it is preferable to sign up in advance on the club’s website :
What is improvisation?
Improvisation, or ‘improv’, is the practice of acting, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one’s immediate environment. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or new ways of acting. This invention cycle occurs most effectively when the practitioner has a thorough intuitive and/or technical understanding of the necessary skills and concerns within the improvised domain.
The skills of improvisation can apply to many different abilities or forms of communication and expression across all artistic, scientific, physical, academic and non-academic disciplines. For example, music, presenting a speech, personal relationships, the arts, and much more can benefit.
Corporate Improvisation Training is the practice of applying improvisational skills to help shape and build corporate competencies. Basic principles such as "Yes, and" and more complex improvisational principles relating to outward thought, listening skills and brainstorming are used to change dynamics of individuals, teams and companies.
