Adam Blatner

The Applied Improvisation Network is meeting in Berlin soon. The schedule of events suggests some of the meaty things they’re talking about. Note that the concepts of enactment, improvisation, and creative collaboration are being carried on with vigorously by thousands of professionals internationally. Most are theatre comedy improvisers seeking other sources of income and draw on the work of Viola Spolin in the 1940s through the 1980s; Keith Johnstone in the 1970s; and others who have built on their work and related approaches. Alas, only about  About 5% of them know about J. L. Moreno’s pioneering work in improvisational theatre in the 1920s and 1930s! 

Practitioners of applied improvisation on the whole tend to be good at getting the energy going, working the groups, promoting the warm-up process. They don’t seem to know much about ways to deepen insight—that’s more Moreno’s work, doubling and role reversal. But it’s clear to me that there’s much the two fields, AIN and international psycho-drama, have a good deal to offer each other.

I hope the various fields that relate to “action explorations” can share their commonalities and build bridges among themselves, AIN, psychodrama, drama in education (DIE), drama therapy, bibliodrama, and so forth.