Applied Improvisation Network (AIN): Proud Sponsor of Heroic Improvisation in the Philippines!

Our effort in the Philippines has been partially supported by the Applied Improvisation Network.
http://www.appliedimprov.com/ or on https://www.facebook.com/groups/appliedimprov/

AIN is a professional group of improvisors looking to apply improvisation process to a variety of social issues and trainers looking to enliven their training process.  I debuted the Heroic Improvisation process in a speech at the AIN 2012 conference in San Francisco.  Check out the link to that speech on my web page:  Heroic Improv in Practice.

Here is the update my Filapino collaborator  -  Gabe Mercado -- gave to our AIN colleagues on Facebook recently:


And over on this side of the globe, I welcomed AIN member Mary Tyszkiewicz to the Philippines on Friday morning.

Since then we have led two very successful Heroic Improvisation pilot programs to a mix of experienced improvisers, organizational development consultants, friends and regular citizens. The runs were successful beyond our imagination, we received precious and actionable feedback and have rapidly begun to make connections to more and more people who have expressed interest in our applied improvisation based disaster management program.

In the next few days we will be rolling out the program to firemen and policemen, a tribe in the rainforest, an airline crew, local government officials, teachers and finally to a community in Typhoon Haiyan hit Leyte.

Just wanted to share the excitement of what we are discovering as we improvise our way through this program.

Thank you to AIN for making this wonderful collaboration possible!

Bridging the Attitude Gap in Disater Preparedness Training!

Gabe created another opportunity to pilot the workshop for a second day in a row.  This was a group of 6 : 3 improvisors and 3 non-improvisors.  We also had 3 experienced trainers in the room.  One trainer returned for our second session to observe.

My big discovery over these two days is this workshop meets a gap in disaster training:  How to enable useful attitudes of calm, clear thinking and effective action?  Regular disaster training focuses on knowledge and skills and misses attitudes in a crisis.  This is the gap we fill.  Enabling better attitudes will help disaster knowledge and skills stick better!

This group enabled committed participation and valuable adult training feedback.  I am also noticing some differences between American and Filapino groups when we run the same exercises.   It seems like Americans focus on the individual and control, while Filapinos focus on the group and connecting together.  This sets up different behaviors in the common improvisation exercises we use.  Fascinating!

I am also learning about Filapino culture and regional differences.  A boon for me and this work is the Filapino love of word play.  Because they are multi-lingual, they are facile with puns, acroynms and humor with words.  This is helping Heroic Improvisation because we need to come up with simple and clear language to all to understand quickly.  We are getting good suggestions about how to tune up communication of the concepts.

We are finding the balance between traditional training and throwing people into a chaotic situation.

Hooray for us!

First Heroic Improvisation Workshop in the Philippines!

The Philippines is an amazing dynamic place.  My collaborator -- Gabe Mercado -- tells me that the Philippines is used as a marketing test-bed for new consumer products.  I think Philippines is the perfect place to test out new responses to disaster also.  Philippines regularly has floods, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and typhoon.  We can use this disaster-prone region and make it into a strength for disaster preparedness!

More about Gabe and his theater improvisation troupe at www.spitmanila.com or Facebook at SPIT.

We did our first Heroic Improvisation workshop with 13 participants.  They were improvisors from SPIT, professional trainers and young female business entrepreneurs.

The Heroic Improvisation model - Alert, Ready, Connect, Focus, Move - was valiadated.  And we got some great feedback from the professional trainers.

The first level workshop focuses on changing attitudes of how citizens can participate in disaster response.  Our professional trainer participants helped us clarify this.  We really don't teach knowledge and skills about disaster response.  We teach how to work together to come up with innovative responses.

Because we use theater games, the workshop is very interactive and fun.

We found a few cultural differences between doing the workshop in the US versus Philippines:

1. Philippines more readily trust the group and don't mind falling back and being caught by the group.  That same exercise felt high-stakes in the US.
2. We had a warm-up game called Eagle and Bear.  Because bears are not native to the Philippines, there was some static in the channel while doing this game.

This is a dream come true and could not have gone better!

Heroic Improv on national TV in the Philippines

Countdown to the Philippines!  Will be in the sky this time next week.

Here is a link to a national TV show in the Philippines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB9x0tO84Ac&list=UUQ2DYES_LvG6QO0O1BOH-XA&feature=share&index=1

My collaborator -- Gabe Mercado -- and his colleagues were interviewed about improv and heroic improv (at minute 25).

I recommend the entire 52 minutes!

More about Gabe's Silly People's Improv Theater in Manila on Facebook or here:
http://spitmanila.com/

Citizen Workshop in Cabin John, MD

On December 10, 2013, a group of Cabin John residents helped me to pilot a new approach to disaster exercises called Heroic Improvisation. The foundation of Heroic Improvisation is theater improvisation games applied to disasters. Improvisation skills for groups track with actions needed for innovative disaster response. I developed this process in collaboration with DC theater improvisation actor, Topher Bellavia.

In the 2.5 hour workshop at the Cabin John Gardens Community House, the participants experienced improvisation skills of: listening (STEP 1: ALERT), awareness of resources (STEP 2: READY), forming a team (STEP 3: CONNECT), focusing attention, (STEP 4: FOCUS), moving quickly into action together (STEP 5: MOVE). The final workshop activity integrated all the skills and added fun. Each participant paired with Topher Bellavia to create a theater scene with no preparation. Through this activity, participants used their improvisation skills to “make it up as we go along,” despite confusion and chaos. All participants reported this exercise helped to integrate the improvisation skills and it was fun! This pilot workshop helped me prepare for my upcoming trip to the Philippines in February 2013. I have been invited to the Philippines to bring the Heroic Improvisation process to Filipino citizens affected by the earthquake and Typhoon Haiyan in fall 2013. I will collaborate with Gabe Mercado of Silly People's Improv Theater (SPIT) in Manila, Philippines. I will travel for 30 days to different disaster regions to adapt the Heroic Improvisation process with the local Red Cross and Filipino artists (dancers, visual artists, theater artists). The practice of improvisation allows us to prepare for situations we cannot anticipate and explore the ways groups can successfully work together. The creative community of Cabin John is the perfect place to demonstrate for new ways to prepare for disaster.