From Imagination to Poetry

As improvisers our main tool is our body. Are we aware of all the things our body says with a little movement, with a little tension, with a breath?  

Are we aware of how music changes our emotional state? Through this workshop you can develop different ways of connecting with your partners, with sound and music — and most importantly — with the audience.

Develop your deep listening, open your senses, explore the space, and connect!

 

Direction:

Felipe Ortiz (Bogota)

 

It is a two-day workshop:

Saturday: 10 am – 5 pm
Sunday: 9 am – 4 pm

Price: 165 Euro (tax included)

 

To register, contact:
workshops@improfestival-hamburg.de

 

About the workshop leader:
Felipe Ortiz is a performer, director and teacher interested in exchange, interaction, play and shared experience with different artists* worldwide. He is passionate about the body in movement and its possibilities, which he explores through acrobatics, improvisation, clowning, physical theater and object manipulation to create new expressions in the performing arts. Since 2003, he has toured the world with various projects in festivals, companies and artist collaborations. He is known in the international scene as an improvisation, physical theater and clown teacher.

10th TÖRN Cup – Der Hamburger Maestro™

In the TÖRN Cup, your favorite players from Hamburg as well as improv newcomers and guests from all over Germany will compete in a hot, emotionally charged competition. There they will be randomly thrown together in different combinations and have to prove themselves in a gripping thriller, a love ballad or an improvised horror film. Will the players of the evening play their hearts out or play their hearts out?

It is up to the audience to decide who has done the best. And this decision is not always the easiest, because only one*r can qualify at the end of the evening for the championship title and take home fame and honor, but especially the coveted 5-euro bill.

The special: Immediately before the show, there will be a free impro workshop, for which you can register in advance. With a bit of luck, participants will have the chance to try out what they have learned on stage directly afterwards and perform at the TÖRN Cup. It doesn’t matter how experienced you are, everyone is welcome! Since the number of participants is limited, it is advisable to register in advance at maestro@improfestival-hamburg.de! The workshop will take place from 5-7pm at the Motte.

Starting in September 2022, the TÖRN Cup will be held monthly on the first Thursday of every month. Save the date!

Where?
Motte
Rothestrasse 48, 22765 Hamburg

When?
Friday, 07.07.2023
Start: 20.00

Normal price: 10 Euro

Cultural support: 12 Euro

Maestro Impro was created by Keith Johnstone, TM & Copyright 1970-2022
All Rights Reserved
Exclusively licensed by International Theatresports Institute

9th TÖRN Cup – Der Hamburger Maestro™

In the TÖRN Cup, your favorite players from Hamburg as well as improv newcomers and guests from all over Germany will compete in a hot, emotionally charged competition. There they will be randomly thrown together in different combinations and have to prove themselves in a gripping thriller, a love ballad or an improvised horror film. Will the players of the evening play their hearts out or play their hearts out?

It is up to the audience to decide who has done the best. And this decision is not always the easiest, because only one*r can qualify at the end of the evening for the championship title and take home fame and honor, but especially the coveted 5-euro bill.

The special: Immediately before the show, there will be a free impro workshop, for which you can register in advance. With a bit of luck, participants will have the chance to try out what they have learned on stage directly afterwards and perform at the TÖRN Cup. It doesn’t matter how experienced you are, everyone is welcome! Since the number of participants is limited, it is advisable to register in advance at maestro@improfestival-hamburg.de! The workshop will take place from 5-7pm at the Motte.

Starting in September 2022, the TÖRN Cup will be held monthly on the first Thursday of every month. Save the date!

Where?
Motte
Rothestrasse 48, 22765 Hamburg

When?
Friday, 02.06.2023
Start: 20.00

Normal price: 10 Euro

Cultural support: 12 Euro

Maestro Impro was created by Keith Johnstone, TM & Copyright 1970-2022
All Rights Reserved
Exclusively licensed by International Theatresports Institute

8th TÖRN Cup – Der Hamburger Maestro™

In the TÖRN Cup, your favorite players from Hamburg as well as improv newcomers and guests from all over Germany will compete in a hot, emotionally charged competition. There they will be randomly thrown together in different combinations and have to prove themselves in a gripping thriller, a love ballad or an improvised horror film. Will the players of the evening play their hearts out or play their hearts out?

It is up to the audience to decide who has done the best. And this decision is not always the easiest, because only one*r can qualify at the end of the evening for the championship title and take home fame and honor, but especially the coveted 5-euro bill.

The special: Immediately before the show, there will be a free impro workshop, for which you can register in advance. With a bit of luck, participants will have the chance to try out what they have learned on stage directly afterwards and perform at the TÖRN Cup. It doesn’t matter how experienced you are, everyone is welcome! Since the number of participants is limited, it is advisable to register in advance at maestro@improfestival-hamburg.de! The workshop will take place from 5-7pm at the Motte.

Starting in September 2022, the TÖRN Cup will be held monthly on the first Thursday of every month. Save the date!

Where?
Motte
Rothestrasse 48, 22765 Hamburg

When?
Friday, 05.05.2023
Start: 20.00

Normal price: 10 Euro

Cultural support: 13 Euro

Maestro Impro was created by Keith Johnstone, TM & Copyright 1970-2022
All Rights Reserved
Exclusively licensed by International Theatresports Institute

7th TÖRN Cup – Der Hamburger Maestro™

In the TÖRN Cup, your favorite players from Hamburg as well as improv newcomers and guests from all over Germany will compete in a hot, emotionally charged competition. There they will be randomly thrown together in different combinations and have to prove themselves in a gripping thriller, a love ballad or an improvised horror film. Will the players of the evening play their hearts out or play their hearts out?

It is up to the audience to decide who has done the best. And this decision is not always the easiest, because only one*r can qualify at the end of the evening for the championship title and take home fame and honor, but especially the coveted 5-euro bill.

The special: Immediately before the show, there will be a free impro workshop, for which you can register in advance. With a bit of luck, participants will have the chance to try out what they have learned on stage directly afterwards and perform at the TÖRN Cup. It doesn’t matter how experienced you are, everyone is welcome! Since the number of participants is limited, it is advisable to register in advance at maestro@improfestival-hamburg.de! The workshop will take place from 5-7pm at the Motte.

Starting in March 2023, the TÖRN Cup will be held monthly on the first Friday of every month. Save the date!

Where?
Motte
Rothestrasse 48, 22765 Hamburg

When?
Thursday, 06.04.2023
Start: 20.00

Normal price: 10 Euro

Cultural support: 12 Euro

Maestro Impro was created by Keith Johnstone, TM & Copyright 1970-2022
All Rights Reserved
Exclusively licensed by International Theatresports Institute

Motte

Rothestraße 48

22765 Hamburg

www.diemotte.de

Why should I start an improvised scene positively?

Reason 1: Retraining impulses
From my experience, most people tend to react defensively or pejoratively under stress in order to protect themselves. As a result, 90 percent of all scenes begin negatively with impro newcomers (and not just with those). In part, the negativity is hidden, it’s little things that are wrong, that you or my partner are not doing right. “You are late.” is a much more common phrase than “Great, you’re here at just the right time.”

So when we start improvisational theatre, there are impulses that we have to “retrain”. To have a plan and not to let yourself be distracted from it can be very helpful in everyday life. For improvisation on stage it is rather uninteresting. To ask questions to people can signal great interest in my fellow human beings outside the stage, but on stage it very often shows insecurity. Because: We tend to ask for information in order to hand over responsibility to the other person. A similar impulse is the initial negativity. To protect ourselves, quite useful in everyday life, but problematic for the stage. Why?


Reason 2: The creative process

When we create a scene/story/situation together, we make ourselves vulnerable. I give an idea and with it a piece of me, and when my partner goes into it, we are in the middle of being creative together. If I now – subliminally or openly – always (re-)act negatively and critically, my counterpart gets the feeling that his/her ideas are not good enough. And automatically the other person suddenly feels uncreative. (An experiment, which by the way can be done quite easily).

Therefore: Being positive relieves my fellow players and helps the creative engine to get going.


Reason 3: Raising the stakes

Saturday night. At the club. All evening long I’ve been watching an attractive man with a stunning smile at the other end of the room.

Scenario 1: I dare to approach him and tell him that I can’t take my eyes off him and that I find him incredibly attractive. – He beams at me, answers me: “Wow, that’s great that you’re talking to me. Can I buy you a beer?” We were both positive.
The beginning of a story about you and me.

Scenario 2: I dare to approach him and tell him that I can’t take my eyes off him and that I find him incredibly attractive. – He laughs out loud and answers, that he doesn’t need to hear this from someone like me, then turns to his buddies to tell them how pityful I am to talk to him so clumsily. I was positive. He was negative.
The beginning of my story.

Scenario 3: I dare to approach him. I get cold feet on the way there, so when I get there I just say: “Hey you, I just wanted to tell you that your shirt is not buttoned up properly. – He replies, “Why don’t you mind your own business?” We were both negative.
End of story.

As soon as (at least) one character on stage behaves positively, he or she raises the stakes. If you make yourself vulnerable then there is something important to you. On the one hand, this makes you sympathetic and thus suitable for the audience to identify with, on the other hand it becomes easier to let something happen to your character and thus tell a story.

(But aren’t there also improv schools where people are taught to start in the middle of a conflict? Is that “wrong” then? – No. But that would go beyond the scope here…)

Nadine Antler