The Applied Improvisation Mindset: Tools for Transforming Organizations and Communities

Description

How can the practice of improvisation become the lens through which we view the world? The Applied Improvisation Mindset takes readers deep into the maturing field of Applied Improvisation (AI), with stories of 18 practitioners from five countries who embrace an improvisation mindset to create a more collaborative, equitable, sustainable, and joyous world. Myriad organizations have discovered how the mindset and skills applied by great improvisers onstage can reveal emergent, generative ways of interacting with others offstage. With case studies on developing presentation skills, reducing anxiety in teens, or preparing climate risk managers across the globe for the challenges ahead, this second volume serves as a valuable resource for both experienced and new AI facilitators. It is a primer for higher education and K-12 faculty combatting traditional teaching limitations and a practical “how to” for theatre practitioners, artists, educators, or anyone seeking to transform their organizations and communities. Cover Contents List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgments Introduction Theresa Robbins Dudeck and Caitlin McClure PART ONE Developing the Leaders We Need 1 Improv Is the Gym: Presentation Skills and Beyondat H4B’s Catapult College Kat Koppett 2 The Business School Collaboration Lab: TurningLeader Development into a Rigorous Experiment inCreative Collaboration Pamela Burke 3 Developing Strategic, Action-Oriented, and MindfulLeaders Petro Janse van Vuuren PART TWO Developing the Youth We Need 4 The Improv Project’s Detroit Yes, And Peter Felsman and Tiger Veenstra 5 Spontaneity in Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy:Valuing the “In-between” and “After” of AppliedImprovisation Moriah Flagler 6 “Of Course We Improvise!” What the BestTeachers Do (and How They Do It) Nick Sorensen PART THREE Developing the Communities We Need 7 Trips to No-Mistakes-Land: Improvisation as aMeta-Skill for Doctoral Students Gunter Lösel 8 Transforming the Culture of Communications inSystems Biology at Harvard Medical School Raquell Holmes and Mia Anderson 9 Playing Around with Changing the World Carrie Lobman and Marian Rich 10 The Joy of Dementi 11 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Disaster:Reimagining Learning for the Humanitarian Sector Barbara Tint and Bettina Koelle Appendix A: Key Improvisation Tenets and Terms Appendix B: About the Workbook and List of Exercises About the Editors Bibliography Index