1.
IMPROVISE

Leading change and leading others is an improvisational process, like playing jazz. It requires us to be fully present to deal with the unpredictability and the changing nature of the situation. It means being open to the possibility inherent in every moment, being prepared to let go of the plan.

Improvise comes from the Latin improvisus which means “not seen ahead of time.” Improvisers approach life with a sense of play, engaging in something because they like it, for the joy of it. They are open and receptive to the offer. As Alex Sangster, an actor with the Playback Theatre Company in Melbourne, explains: “If someone throws a ball at you and you catch it, that’s when the game starts. The game is on and something magic can happen...If you are not fully present, you are not fully open to the offer. The possibility is not there and able to be realized. To sit in Not Knowing is unbelievably liberating and exciting.”

Alex often comes across a common misconception about improvisation that it means to make things up on the spot. In fact, improvising starts with knowing the structure. Just like a great jazz musician, we first need to know the patterns and rituals within the process to be able to let go of them and improvise.

The structure helps set the boundaries and creates the space for experimentation and the creative process to take place. Once we know the rules, we are then able to throw away the plan and work away from the score, “to let the river move where it’s supposed to move,” as jazz pianist Keith Jarrett says.

For filmmaker Anna Beckmann it is the technical combined with the mysterious that makes great films. “The Not Knowing aspect of the filmmaking process is one of the most exciting and potentially fruitful elements of the process,” she says.

She gives the example of Ingmar Bergman, a prolific Swedish filmmaker for whom writing and directing were primarily uncertain and unconscious processes. He is known to have admitted that most of his conscious efforts had ended in embarrassing failure. Other filmmakers see the uncertain and mysterious element as a way of connecting the heart and the mind, a process which Anna believes is essential to almost every artistic process. “It is this tension between heart and mind and the paradox of mystery and familiarity which I think drives most good films. We are intrigued by unknown situations, characters and locations, but something culturally or universally relevant keeps us relating as we are taken on the finely crafted cinematic journey.”

Anna describes the process Ingmar Bergman went through when he made his films, working very delicately at the edge between the structure of certainty and the creative elements of chaos and uncertainty. “He began his script-writing process by grappling with some uncertain or unknown aspect within himself, which he would then try to resolve or explore through characterization and narrative.”

Ingmar Bergman described the script-making process as a collaboration between intuition and intellect: “I throw a spear into the darkness. That is intuition. Then I must send an army into the darkness to find the spear. That is intellect.”

Bergman used the final, “watertight” script and the technical element of the production as a foundation for improvisation. He was both in control of what could be controlled and open and ready to enter into uncertain territory with his actors, allowing for unpredictable spontaneous elements to arise, helping create what Anna calls “the ineffable magic that pulses through his work.”

Taking the improvisational process further, contemporary director and writer Mike Leigh fully embraces uncertainty in his filmmaking process. When watching Leigh’s films it is often clear that he and his actors go into the process without a definite idea about what will be created. This contributes to the deeply realistic feel of his films, which reflect the uncertain quality of our real everyday lives. “He begins with the kernel of an idea which he then, using improvisational process, begins to work with over with his actors for months and months, fleshing out the story and subtleties of the characters until the film, a genuine act of exploration for its creator, its actors, and its viewers, is finally made,” says Anna.

Multi-disciplinary artist, facilitator and theatre-maker Raisa Breslava took an intuitive leap into Not Knowing when she embarked on a journey of directing a theatre production, which came to be known as “WIMP.” It was a one-man show performed by Vincent Manna in London, September 2013. Never having directed a play for theatre or worked with an actor before, it was an intimate experience of improvisation for Raisa. She had not received any training in theatre directing, nor had she worked with actors before. Without further training she decided to learn about the discipline through direct practice.

“I dived into the void. I found a performer who was interested in collaborating with me and so we began. There is no universally accepted manual on how to work with an actor, nor is there a manual on how to make art, you just start and find out by doing it, so I did. It was terrifying and exciting – what do I do? How do I do it? I was no director, I was just a woman in a room with a man. A woman who wanted to passionately create through the medium of theatre.”

Raisa knew one thing for certain – that she was creating work that was based on the performer himself. The artist was the content of the work. His ability to be vulnerable and connect with the audience through that vulnerability became the anchor that enabled Raisa to trust the unknown. Rather than panic, she would work in rehearsals with whatever was happening that day. “If the actor was feeling quite rigid, agitated and stuck, I looked for ways to include that stuckness, not push it away, not create techniques that would dissolve it, or push the actor beyond it. I used the stuckness as the art material itself.”

She would sometimes arrive at the sessions and have nothing prepared, no plan. “I would walk into the space, the actor would arrive. These first moments before a rehearsal begins are filled with the unknown. Any part of me that feared this void would hate to be here. I wanted to escape, not trust, and any self-hating/ self-limiting beliefs would be evident in this short time-scale of the unknown.”

What guided Raisa was her deep faith and trust in the process. She kept going with what felt organic and let the process evolve naturally, without prescribing a limited, controlled vision of an end-product.

Raisa was also guided by the way in which she took up her role of director. She didn’t adopt preconceived, presupposed, expected ways of playing this role out. She wanted to tease the role out through getting to know herself and through the co-creation with the actor. “I wanted the process to show me what worked and what didn’t. So as far as the roles went, I saw my main job as guiding, holding and being a container for the process, and leading the actor into deeper, more authentic, and powerful depths.”

For Raisa, when we approach each moment as new, without the nonchalance that can come from perceived familiarity, a new relationship opens up to the present, one of unmediated experience and intimacy.

We can find new ways of taking up our roles and working with others in ways that bring out our creativity and spontaneity. We can tap into the potential of Not Knowing by throwing a spear into the darkness as an advance exploration party, then follow the process by deploying the technical skill and expertise required to refine, tighten and bring to life the intuitive leap.