Hamburg, Hochsch. für Musik und Theater, Diss., 2002.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Melbourne, 1996. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 256-264).

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Thesis advisor: Rena A. Syska Lamparska / This dissertation presents a new analysis of theatrical improvisation, not as a theatrical practice but as a condition of the creative process; the focus is on the processes of the actor as signifier and site (producer) of a complex system of exchange. It explores the actor as creator of a macro-text that consists of the fixed element of the script and its variable interactions with the other actors and the audience. I demonstrate that improvisation is the condition that allows the actor to establish non-linear relationships between the text and the spectators through parallel subtexts that he creates ex novo. Such relationships happen in virtue of a ‘complexisation’ of the text that enriches its literal meaning. I observed the Spanish director José S. Sinisterra’s work in which he trained his actors to develop parallel subtexts in order to improve their ability to make a text complex. He argued that the actor’s expression of the text needed to provoke the spectator, through chaos and order. I then, studied the creativity process from a scientific point of view in order to understand in which way chaos and order work inside the mechanisms of performance. Thanks to the application of the chaos and complexity theory to the theatrical processes, attempted here for the first time, I consider the actor and the performance as ‘complex dynamic systems’ like a cell, a human being or life itself, in which, paradoxically, order and chaos coexist and maintain the system in balance; the continuous passages from chaos to order and vice versa, create the necessary tension and energy that put the spectator in the condition of building his own meanings. This study intends to define the fields of action of order and chaos, in both actuation and reception of text, as well as to identify fixed and variable determinant factors which could alter the components of the actor and the whole play’s system, to the and of increasing the necessary tension for complexity. Important theories on semiotic aspects of theatre and reception processes are taken in consideration like those by Iser, Eco, Ubersfeld and De Marinis as well as those by the mayor theatre directors of the Twentieth century, from Stanislavski to Mejerch’old, Kantor, Grotowski. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Romance Languages and Literatures.

Master of Philosophy / This single case study examines the way that Johnstone’s (1981) Impro ‘Poetics’ are being used in the contemporary practice of Open Scene Additive Improvisation (OSAI). Johnstone’s Poetics have become a ubiquitous part of contemporary drama improvisation parlance, yet they have never themselves been the subject of any academic examination. This study attempts to fill that void by looking at their use in Open Scene Impro, the purest form of theatre improvisation (since OSAI relies on no structures other than the audience suggestion around which to improvise a ‘Scene’.) To do this, the research analysed seven OSAI Scenes performed by 3 undergraduate student improvisers at the University of Sydney in July 2003, and looked at the ways in which the actions that Johnstone’s Poetics describe are actually being used. Looking closely at Scene segments, the study identifies a number of features: the ways that Offers are used to initiate, re-initiate, confirm or redirect meaning across five identified fields; the ways that Accepts temper these meanings; the productive use of Blocking in a Scene; and many other functions. It was also found that in-Scene negotiations about definition of situation became a subtextually enmeshed part of the Scene’s meaning (often in Phases of improvisers’ conflicting Endowments), while the predictive and framing control of narrative-indexing Offers ensured that character roles became defined early on in all Scenes. Overall, the study’s analysis dissects each of the Poetics to show that improvisers use them for a number of major purposes crucial for the reality, forward-movement and coherence of a Scene to obtain. The study concludes by elucidating how the nine main Poetics (Offer, Endow, Justify, Advance, Extend, Reincorporate, Accept, Block and Yield) serve these purposes. These purposes are then abstracted into the TOE Model, which in turn forms the basis of a proposed dynamic and holistic model for understanding OSAI at each moment of its (re-)creation. The ultimate aim, beyond the reach of the present study, is to be able to understand an Open Scene’s every moment, and each moment’s reference historically backwards, and, to some degree, predictively forwards in time. To this end, the fundamental dynamic of contextualised giving and receiving in OSAI is morphed into a Taoist energetic model, a “Tao of Impro”, along with the notion, derived from Mandelbrot, of ‘cybernetic semantic iteration’, by which information seems to get processed in Open Scenes. The educational implications of these models are then sketched, and future directions for research in OSAI pointed to.

<p>Examensarbete 15 hp. Lärarexamen</p>

<p>Bilaga: 1 CD</p>

<p>Bilaga: 1 CD</p>

Examensarbete (10 p.)

Examensarbete (10 p.)