#107 Contemporary laconic
Mushrooms. Balance. Swayze. Super-computers.
Issue #107 Contemporary laconic
27th March 2024
Hello.
It's Wednesday. And that means another condensed slice of improv and pop culture from me, your host, Chris Mead.
I had a lovely trip to visit the improv community in and around Woodbridge last weekend. On top of leading a two day workshop - I tooled around a former US airbase in an EV, drank non-alcoholic beers on a spit of land extending out into the sea (at the wonderfully-named Shingle Street) and tried a variety of functional mushroom teas.
My favourite was Lion's Mane.
Thanks to Alex from Here & Now for all the opportunities.
Rule of three
[Dance] Kidd Pivot, Assembly Hall
On the recommendation of the brilliant Dom Czapski, we went to see the new show by Kidd Pivot at Sadler's Wells. It's a dance/ theatre hybrid piece where much of the time the performers are moving to a soundtrack of pre-recorded dialogue rather than music. It's very rare that I see something totally new in theatre but this blew me away. I really don't have the words to describe it - if you only click on one link in this email, make it this one, so you can see a few highlights from the show. Such magic, rage, balance, power...
[Film] Road House
I like to think I appreciate the finer things in life. But every now and then, I just want to watch a film where everyone gets beaten up in inventive ways. To this end, may a recommend Road House? It comes in two flavours:
Patrick Swayze 80s, mullet, philosophy, everyone is topless
Jake Gyllenhaal Contemporary, laconic, OTT, death by crocodile
Both are available on [EVIL COMPANY'S STREAMING SERVICE] if you're interested in that kind of thing.
[Games] NPC improv
Enjoyed this article on how developers used improv to generate some of the Non-Player Character dialogue in Spider-man 2. I found it whilst reading another article discussing the rise of AI NPCs and how they're currently just a super-computer doing bad improv. Thanks to Wei Joo Ooi for pointing out this particular rabbit hole filled with things I love.
Spotlight
Last year, Emily Kerr and I had a great time presenting our Goosehead show at the Sofia International Improv Festival. It's an exceptionally well-run good time with a vibrant and charming local improv community.
Teacher and performer applications are now open for the 7th edition of the festival. It runs from 25th-29th September 2024 in Sofia, Bulgaria and I can't recommend it enough.
This year's theme is DEEP DIVE. You can check out all the details and apply to be a part of it at www.shizi.bg/soimprovfest
Longform thoughts
Real talk, everyone. I'm struggling to find an improv hook to hang my musings on this week. So I thought I'd make the bug into a feature and ask you, dear readers, to suggest themes you might like me to ruminate on. Please put your ideas in the comments of this very newsletter or reply to the email directly. I'll pick a few I like and dedicate all of April to answering your burning improv wonderings.
Radio contact
Radio has stopped itching all the hair off his nose, finally.
Not sure if you have any insights in this, but every new improv group has a certain phase where the honeymoon is over and some mild irritations do start to arise. I was wondering if you have any thoughts on how to tackle these before the group breaks apart. So maybe not completely pure improv but related for sure.
For long form I do enjoy considering podcast improv, such as Midst, available on YouTube and Spotify etc. As well as streaming structured table top improv such as critical role. Which I think has lovely examples of long form improv exploring emotions and humour etc