Vitamin S Improvisation Workshop - 1/8/11

Vitamin S Workshop - 1/8/11

I focused this workshop on the ONE TWO piece as taught by John Stevens in his book Search and Reflect. i thoroughly recommend you check this book out. Here's my understanding of how the piece works...

The group is seated in a circle.
A person starts the piece by saying "One".
The person to their left waits a period and says "Two".
If the person who says "Two" waits a short period, the tempo will be quicker.
If they wait a longer period the tempo will be slower.
So, the 2nd person, on beat Two, sets the tempo.
The third person in the circle will be on beat One with the first person.
The fourth person in he circle will be on beat 2 with the second person, etc…
Everyone joins in either on beat one or beat two, until everybody is counting.
The tempo should remain constant (try not to speed up or slow down).
The improvisation begins when the whole circle is counting. At that point, anyone may change the beat they are counting, jumping from the One to the Two or from the Two to the One, at any time.
There are some simple rules to follow.
You must not skip your beat before moving to the next count.
If you jump to the other count, you must remain there for at least one beat before you jump back again eg counting "One, two, one, two..." is forbidden.
Participants must stop if they lose their place or become confused or accidentally skip a beat, if they hear anyone else do the same, of if they become aware that someone else has stopped.
Once silence is achieved, a person starts the piece again with the count of "One".
The person to their left brings in the count of "Two", setting the tempo, and each person in the circle gradually joins in… once everybody has reestablish the count, half the circle on "One" and half the circle on "Two", then the improvising begins again. The piece comes to a natural end one everybody hits the same count - it could be a One or a Two, with the following count being in silence.

Good lord is that at all clear to you??

Anyway, the interesting thing with this piece is listening for the break-downs into silence. It creates a lovely ebb and flow. Its a challenge to get participants accepting this process and honoring the silence - not breaking the silence with utterances that articulate frustration at making a 'mistake'… It was well worth persevering with. We got there eventually!