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Hi folks. I teach adventures in Improv theatre to the performer/wannabe performer out there. That is, we explore ideas and train in performance skills that will make you a great improviser.

We play around with things I've learnt from some of the great teachers & schools in Australia & overseas, but my agenda is always focused on better listening, connecting, being present to what's happening now, playfulness and discovery; anything that gets you the improviser, out of your head and into your body & heart. Have a lookie below at the classes and hop on board!


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The Circle of Sound & Story (NZIF 2016)

'Complicity in the desire to risk increases complexity'


New Zealand Improv Festival 2016
THE CIRCLE OF SOUND AND STORY
Directed by Linda Calgaro

at BATS Theatre, 1 Kent Tce, Wellington
8 Oct 2016

Reviewed by Patrick Davies, 9 Oct 2016
Each night of the Improv Fest a director from NZ or overseas showcases a format after working with participants in a workshop during the day. This not only allows all the players to learn new skills and formats but to also then have a group from which the show can be cast. Thus the audience comes into contact with a new improv format with players who very much rely on their basic skills to form a coherent company.

If you've read my other reviews you know I'm very enamoured of the group of improvisers this festival has brought together, and this show is no different. Well, actually it is. Only in that it is a new format.

The Circle of Sound and Story is Sydney/Nelsons' Linda Calgaro's showcase and she has gathered eight other participants from around the globe to join her onstage. Some are regular faces and there are some I've haven't seen in other shows. It's great to know the wealth is being shared around. That's not to say it's charity; each of tonight's players have clearly earned their place.

The format is deceptively simple: the group improvises a (usually) wordless piece of music, picking up musical phrases, motifs and rhythmic offers, joining in with them and then beginning to play around with them and around them adding counter melodies and rhythms; a kind of modern wordless madrigal. The first and each of the following soundings (I'm not sure if that's the term, but it will do here) highlight listening, as players pick up an offer and support it, and complementarity, whereby players vary pitch, tone, and other melodies that are different to the first offer thereby adding complexity and modulating the whole song.

Sounds tough? It is. The light heartedness with which this group accepts each others' offers is intoxicating. Even when two players find themselves at interesting odds over a musical development and an eyeballing quickly becomes a duel, escalating to humorously vicious gestures that require other players to part them, all the while the group continues its sounding; all the while the audience is in hysterics.

Once Calgaro conducts this to a close the players randomly walk around the stage until one or more players meet and start a scene. So, scene, sounding, scene, sounding, etc. until Darryn, tonight's op, brings the lights to blackout meaning the show's time is up, much to the surprise of the participants and near capacity audience alike.

The initiating offer for the evening is from the audience – the joy of being with a dog today – and from there we leap into our first sounding. Each of the scenes is handled with the aplomb and ease these players have shown over many nights. Early on the stakes are set high with a really delightful scene between Isaac Thomas and Sydney's Cale Bain. Two seats become a taxi. Two people turn out not to know each other. Two seats are revealed as three really, but Bain's character has decided to sit close to a stranger. Bain's ease is complemented beautifully by Thomas's dis-ease; the two players developing the narrative to its conclusion like a tennis match played between masters.

Later in the night three players start a scene naming each other (a basic skill/ tool/ expectation) but suddenly there's an unspoken group connection/ decision (Calgaro, Clare Kerrison, Jaklene Vukasinovic) that only those names will be the dialogue and the subtext/ narrative will arise from the way the names are spoken. And so a simple skill becomes a risk, and as the audience clicks, becomes a dare and a delight. So then, off course, another player walks in to up the ante.

Sweden's Peter Norstrand's offer (based on a great lighting state offer), of “You will never see outside this room again”, is delivered to his son with such simplicity that it gets a sharp intake of breath (and also of delight) and at the end of the scene the son (Thomas again) quite naturally ends up making a snow angel – but in this case with blood not snow. This may sound off the wall but each scene created in the moment follows the clear logic of good storytelling so that the ends almost seem inevitable.

I think that the level of complicity and desire to risk that is enabled in the soundings follows through to the acceptance and development of the stories. These scenes are some of the best, most coherent and artfully delivered of the Festival. Mind you most of these players have had four or five days to work together, and there's nothing like the last night of the Festival to let go and risk it all.
To quote Calgaro: “An unexpected delight.” And from me: “More please.”

- Theatrereview

 http://theatreview.org.nz/reviews/review.php?id=9658

The Circle of Sound and Story (Nelson Fringe Festival 2016)
A nice review of The Circle of Sound and Story, a new improv show I developed for the Nelson Fringe Festival 2016.
The performance incorporates improvised vocal music, story and movement. Eight improvising actors and singers use their voices to create music to inform improvised scene work. Stories flow out of music, which flows into story, which flows into music, to create an improvised performance of poetry, magic, fun and emotion.
Much thanks to the Nelson Fringe Festival and to everyone involved.

X, Linda

 'Beautiful evolution of Improvised humour and music'

Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Refinery ArtSpace
2016 Nelson Fringe Festival
Linda Calgaro (Sydney) - Cast: Dan Allan, Doug Brooks, Laura Irish, Linda Calgaro, Lisa Allan, Isaac Thomas, Jennifer Arai, Jason Geary

Reviewed by Charles Anderson

From the start of this improvisational extravaganza MC Linda Calgaro tells the audience that everything creating tonight will be unique, made up on the spot and something to share.

The offer feels intimate and sets the tone for the evening. Seven players come to stage - six Nelson improvisers and one mystery guest.

Calgaro wants a simple suggestion from the audience: How was their day? An audience member offers not anything specific, but a feeling. The show then pivots on this feeling, of sharing and relationships.

Almost all the players were very experienced improvisers and it showed. It was clear that they were wonderfully comfortable with each other and trusted in the story and the scene. There was no rush, no panic, no crowding the stage and no cheap laughs. This was about relationship and story which organically led the scenes to some beautifully diverse, sometimes bizarre and hilarious but always wonderful and surprising conclusions.

Whether it was the break up of a long-standing building and colour consultant duo, a dysfunctional family reunion in a dysfunctional courtroom or simply a man sawing a piece of wood only to be interrupted by a flying ninja fight, there was an infectious calm that permeated every scene.

Each scene was punctuated by a musical acapella interlude with the whole company. Calgaro became the group's vocal band leader. This seemed to be a chance for each player to recalibrate and reconnect with one another ready for another scene plucked from the ether. The musical improvisation became as much a part of the show as the acting scenes - generating their own rounds of applause as songs ebbed and flowed with the subtle changes of each player's sound.

It was a pleasure to watch the evening unfold. It was an open book with no contrived theme to set the players to. The show was an evolution to anywhere. I wanted it to keep on going.

- Stuff



New Zealand Improv Festival 2013

Impro Australia shows
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