A couple of brief responses
by some LC regulars

There are always parameters...
In performance improvisation, we train and rehearse our ability to 'let anything happen'. Yet how 'free' are our improvisations really? Like a colouring book, there are still usually lines on our page to guide us; we can choose whatever colours we want to use, but we often still have the lines to guide us towards our overall structure. (Even with a blank page to draw on, you are bounded by the page edges. maybe?)Timeframes are usually the most obvious of these improvisation colouring-lines. We might say at The Little Con, for example, 'the evening will go for about an hour' or 'each performance piece has 10-12 mins'. Yet, times occur when you start colouring outside the lines or off the page entirely, either by chance/accident or by realising you have no other options; or maybe more commonly a combo of these - a chance occurrence that then requires you to stay beyond the edges.

This happened at the last little con. We had decided to bookend the evening, as there were only three acts with five performers, with two whole group pieces. But the final group bookend start to get aspirations of actually being a novel. I don't remember specifically how it began, but once some colouring outside the lines had occurred, it had to continue and the piece couldn't yet be over. As a performer, it certainly becomes thrilling. It can feel as though the colouring page is taking control of the interaction with its artist. And as an improviser, this is truly when all your training / rehearsing / skills / practice comes to the fore to help you navigate and play within the 'truly' unknown - beyond the lines.

Joey Lehrer

It was the month of October, I don't know what happened to the month of September and everything in me was rushing toward November... but not before one minute of dancing, which came after Joeys minute, then another minute after another minute, and another three following three other minutes - was that an end or another beginning?

There was a new kid, struggling to find so he could fill his skin, beautiful in the confidence and certainty of his over eagerness to find without a search. The lap top twins, crossing itunes and cyber wires with limbs and gestures, tentative tentacles teasing out into a group shherwammy - misplayed games, composition, no mans land.. toilet flushing text and coherence down the gurgler. Put a bag on your head its all over, go in there and get him off... oh but use the laptop cords for the sake of coherence - and do it quickly, in less than a minute, it's the month of November already.

Paul Romano