Good improvisers seem telepathic; everything looks pre-arranged, This is because they accept all offers made—which is something no ‘normal’ person would do.
Interpretation
Good improvisers create seamless performances by fully embracing every idea presented to them.
In this quote, Keith Johnstone highlights the extraordinary ability of skilled improvisers to make their performances appear effortless and cohesive. This phenomenon occurs because they remain open to every idea and suggestion, allowing for spontaneous creativity and collaboration that surpasses typical interactions, which often involve resistance to new ideas.
In practice
A theater workshop on the importance of acceptance in improvisation.
At school any spontaneous act was likely to get me into trouble. I learned never to act on impulse, and that whatever came into my mind first should be rejected in favour of better ideas. I learned that my imagination Wasn’t ‘good’ enough. I learned that the first idea was unsatisfactory because it was (1) psychotic; (2) obscene; (3) unoriginal. The truth is that the best ideas are often psychotic, obscene and unoriginal.
It is not the right angle that attracts me, nor the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. What attracts me is the free and sensual curve - the curve that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuous course of its rivers, in the body of the beloved woman.
You photograph with all your ideology.
I love this quote uttered by the character Widget in The Night Circus. He credits it to Herr Thiessen but knows it is a literary quote by the another author. "Wine is bottled poetry
We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.
Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it.
I do not write experimental music. My experimenting is done before I make the music. Afterwards it is the listener who must experiment.
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