Browsing by Author "Skordis, Ranza (Ranza Nora-J)"
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- ItemImprovisation and playmaking : a look at some improvisation techniques and their applications during the directing process(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2003-12) Skordis, Ranza (Ranza Nora-J); Hauptfleisch, Temple; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Drama.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this thesis the author investigates aspects of the use of improvisation and improvisational methods, techniques and exercises by modem practitioners. The study commences with a look at the beginnings of modem improvisation in the nineteenth century, when improvisation was used only tentatively by performers as a preproduction aid to the exploration of character and personal response. In more recent times the process has become one of collaboration and research; as a means of selfdiscovery, as a means of text creation and as a vehicle for finding a 'voice' for the silent majority within a particular community or society. This study also traces the use of improvisation in South Africa where the improvisational process has been incorporated into democratic and collaborative forms like workshop theatre and workers' theatre, and serves as a useful method of political investigation and conscientisation. The study will also briefly touch what on is now termed 'theatre-fordevelopment', since its practitioners make extensive use of improvisational techniques, and its techniques are allied to those of workers' and workshop theatre. The final chapter provides an application of the theories discussed in the bulk of the study in a brief discussion of the author's own attempts at utilising improvisation as a directing and scriptwriting tool in a student production.