Jubilee Arts - Improvisation, the Magic Moment

Master improvisational artist Ruth Zaporah recounts in a chapter of Taken by Surprise how she once performed a piece of pure improvisation in which she created a story about a woman who died young. Unbeknownst to her until after the show, the story mirrored that of a dead friend who three members of the audience had gathered to remember.

Those who work regularly in improvisational performance, can vouch for the uncanniness of their performances, the way in which things sometimes happen mysteriously in synch, the way that actors and audience members find coinciding realizations through otherwise insignificant details.

Is it Magic? The movement of the Spirit? The activation of Sixth Senses? In any case, those who do trained improvisational performance, often report a kind of buzz or sensory intensity that is both euphoric and exhausting.

In performances of Playback Theatre, one story often begets another in what is called a "red thread" of conversation about deeply universal themes. When the playing ensemble is tapped into this essential core of the stories, audience and actors alike engage in a series of revelations about their deeper purpose. The community is enriched with gratitude and new self-awareness, sometimes even outright reconciliation.

Unlike in scripted performance, the ability to act on the stories that arise out of a particular moment enables a crucial kind of responsiveness that can speak to the unique needs and desires of that particular audience at a particular time. And naturally when artistry speaks to these needs, it can uniquely liberate and transform spect-actors to take the next step -- to their own empowered action.