This week’s class expanded on our brief introduction to declarations that we had last week. After warmups, we went back to that big long line we’d been in the previous week and went through each person twice, declaring sentences using “I want,” “I feel,” “I need” or “I am.” It was a little bit less serious/therapy-session-y than the last time, but it’s still definitely a place where you learn a lot about the other people in the class. All of this week’s activities layered onto this first one.
Layer 2: We formed two lines, side by side. One by one, the person from Line A had to make a declaration of any kind, using one of the four starter phrases, and the person from Line B had to say “Yes!” Nothing else, just “yes.” I think the idea behind this was to get us warmed up and used to saying “yes” to our partners in each scene, no matter what they said, without any pressure to continue things (yet).
Layer 3: Same as Layer 2, but with the person in Line B making a “yes, and” statement that built upon the first statement. Nothing fancy, just getting into the groove of responding on the fly.
Layer 4: Same as Layer 3, but after the “yes, and” statement, the first person had to make yet another statement, following up on that “yes, and” statement. Bit by bit, we were building a scene with the person across from us!
Layer 5: This time, Line B’s person was instructed to do some kind of physical action, either a simple movement or miming something. Line A’s person then had the job of taking that action and making a statement inspired by it. Not simply “It looks like you’re hopping on one foot.” More like “Boy, you really have to go to the bathroom!” Get it? The key was specificity, because the more specific you are, the more helpful it’ll be for everyone in the improv scene.
Our final exercise of the night took things in a different direction. A pair of students stood up in front of the class and each made a declaration like we’d been doing. Then, these two had to do an entire scene (aka until Corey told them to stop) saying ONLY that declaration and nothing else. They could change the inflection and volume, but that was the only change that could happen. The phrases were crazily different sometimes (like “I want a pizza!” paired with “I need to stop embarrassing myself in public”) but some pairs still managed to make compelling dramatic scenes.
So that was Declarations Week. Our assignment for the next week is to use declarations more in our everyday lives. In passive-aggressive Minnesota, this could really shake things up! Imagine, instead of saying “Do you think, if you have time, you could respond to my dozen emails asking you the same question?” you could say “I feel like you’re ignoring me when you don’t answer the question I’ve asked you a dozen times. I want you to write back to me by the end of today.”
Whoah. Game changer.
I remembered suddenly that I had gone through similar training when I was in 7th grade, where, in home room, we had to practice “I messages,” describing our feelings with the exact declaration sentences we were using in class! It looks like Agassiz Middle School in Fargo, ND, was WAY ahead of its time.