A Leap of Faith: The Magic of Improv
By: Jeffrey Schwab
Tags: Taipei, Improv, Taoism, Magic, Yes

I remember during my time living in Beijing, I had the honour of working for a company focusing on cultural exchange and experiential education called The Hutong. During this time I designed multiple walking tours of the nearby hutong alleyways that had their roots dating back as far as the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) when the Mongolians firmly established their rule over China and all of its mouth-watering cultural treasures. When designing walking tours, I would often focus on channeling the spirit of a particular individual from China’s past to create theatrical walking routes, and sometimes even portray these characters during the walking tour itself. One such character I chose to play was one of the eight immortals from Taoist folklore, Zhang Guolao 張國佬. All 8 of these Taoist Immortals were based on historical figures whose legends had grown to give them hyperbolic, and somewhat loopy mythological powers. There are many stories about the hedonistic Taoist Immortals, and many of the tales involve raucous drunken soirees.

Regarding Zhang Guolao, besides his many specific and strange powers (invisibility, the ability to drink water from poisonous flower petals, and making birds fall from the sky simply by pointing at them), one of the things that he was most renowned for was the donkey that he rode upon, often backwards. He could ride this donkey over great distances, and by spitting upon the donkey, he could fold it up and put it in his pocket, only to be taken out later to serve as his favourite mode of transportation. By riding the donkey backwards, Zhang Guolao showed his deep trust in his four-legged companion, so much so that his eyes only focused on the path where he had come from. The journey and direction that he was going was given up to chance, gut intuition, and a coexistence with his scenic travel partner, the magical donkey.

The Unwritten Path

One of the most beautiful aspects of improv is this inherit trust that improvisers have in their stage partners. In the basic setup for an improv scene, the improvisers have no idea where the scene is going. All preconceived notions or ideas need to be tossed out, and there is a strong element of mutual discovery that the characters find together. All they know is the suggestion that the audience has provided, as well as what has already been established during the scene itself. In essence, the improvisers in the scene are sitting on the top of Zhang Guolao’s donkey walking backwards. All they can see clearly is where they’ve been, but they have no idea where it is they are going. They simply trust in the “donkey” to take them where they need to go. Wherever it is the donkey takes them is where the scene is naturally headed. The outcome itself is not the goal, the players simply need to be in the moment and enjoy the ride together.

Yes And…

One of the first rules of improv is that there are no rules. With that in mind, improv is a performance art form that relies upon inherent cooperation amongst the scene partners. The basic premise of trusting cooperation, collaboration, and scene building depends on a very specific but simple concept called “yes, and” that is the basic heartbeat of each and every improviser’s scene foundation. “Yes, and,” simply means accepting others’ ideas and building upon them. For instance, if someone were to enter a scene and declare himself Zhang Guolao, the other player would welcome Zhang Guolao and then tell that character something that relates to or builds upon the story. Character #2 could be Zhang’s donkey, a king seeking advice from the great sage, a peasant asking Zhang for assistance. Any choice is correct so long as they build upon the established detail that character #1 is Zhang Guolou.

The two characters would ideally have a shared history together and they would work with each other to build a common narrative together. Without this concept of “yes, and” there is a danger of improvisers rejecting each other’s ideas, making it all the more difficult to build a cohesive story together. By accepting one another’s ideas, doors remain open and the potential to innovative interesting narrative is limitless. When we reject or block others’ ideas with “no but….,” we close doors to all the beautiful possibilities that are waiting to be opened by the “yes, ands” that we are too afraid to access.

Some of the basic core elements of improv, broken down in a structured way.

Process-Oriented

Besides being in love with the unpredictable, as well as wholly giving oneself over to the concept of “yes, and,” one of the most attractive and risky aspects of improv is the fact that it is process-oriented, as opposed to being outcome-oriented. All improv scenes have an ending, and yet, the goal of the scene is not to find the ending, but rather to work with individuals within the scene to create a story built upon collaboration, discovery, and experimentation. Once again, it’s all about letting go of our plans so that we can just enjoy the moment, even though the process can seem messy at times. One of the biggest challenges in an improv scene is yelling the words, “and scene,” in order to finish a scene. One of the biggest joys about creating an improv scene is just that — the process of creation and trust with the other scene partners. When improvisers are working with their scene partners to create and build upon each other’s ideas, the outcome of the scene itself is an after thought of the beauty of pure process in real-time. True improvisers who are in the moment don’t worry about the destination…they see where they have been, and they trust the magical improv donkey to take them where they need to go. Perhaps we all need to sit upon the donkey’s back and enjoy the ride.