An Interdisciplinary Conducting Curriculum: Selected Theater Games From Viola Spolin’s “Improvisation for the Theaterâ€

Devin Otto

SAGE Open, 2020, vol. 10, issue 4, 2158244020954927

Abstract: This article presents a series of theater games with clear connections to conducting and rehearsing music ensembles, explaining both how to play them and how young conductors will benefit from the experience. These games are published in Viola Spolin’s seminal text Improvisation for the Theater, which presents a series of exercises that foster communication, creativity, immediacy, and spontaneity. Many games also focus on creating and communicating character through physical movement and posture, awareness of the body in space, and manipulation of “space objects,†which are imaginary props made real in the mind of the observer through understanding of shared human experiences. Theater games are effectively experienced in short periods of time, intended for players of all ability and experience levels, and encourage immediate emotive communication, making them highly effective for young conductors and easily incorporated into undergraduate and graduate conducting classes.

Keywords: theater games; band; wind ensemble; music; music education; conducting; acting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244020954927 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:10:y:2020:i:4:p:2158244020954927

DOI: 10.1177/2158244020954927

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in SAGE Open
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().