Where did improvisation come from, and who are the main and most influential practitioners today?即兴创作是从哪里来的？当今主要和最有影响力的从业者是谁？
ANTIQUITY:古代
Almost any book on improvisation will tell you that improvised theatre began with the Commedia Dell’Arte—and for once, “any book” is right,although possibly not for the reasons supposed.A moment’s thought about how theatre came to be will reveal that the notion of re-enacting events for an audience almost certainly came before the notion of writing a script to be memorized, but it is fair enough to not describe this kind of prototheatre as “improvised,” despite the fact that it was necessarily re-created fresh at each performance.
几乎所有关于即兴创作的书都会告诉您，即兴戏剧是从Commedia Dell'Arte开始的；而且，“任何一本书”都是对的，尽管可能并非出于假定的原因。为观众重新表演事件的观念几乎肯定早于编写要记忆的剧本的观念，但公平的是不将这种原型剧场描述为“即兴的”，尽管事实是每次表演都重新制作。
As the writer, very swiftly, assumed dominance of the theatre, the script became of paramount importance. The reason for this is also clear to see, and applies not just to theatre, but to all “temporal” art forms.Mozart was thought to be an astonishing improviser, but it is only his “premeditated” music which remains, since—by defifi nition—his improvisations were not recorded for posterity (although they may have inspired music which he later recorded). Scripts, books and music manuscripts can travel and endure in the way that a brief moment of inspiration cannot.
随着作家迅速地占据了剧院的主导地位，剧本变得极为重要。原因很明显，不仅适用于剧院，而且适用于所有“时间”艺术形式。莫扎特被认为是令人惊讶的即兴创作者，但仅保留了他的“有预谋”音乐，因为定义-他的即兴演奏没有为后代录制（尽管它们可能启发了他后来录制的音乐）。脚本，书籍和音乐手稿可以短暂的灵感瞬间传播和忍受。
The Commedia Dell’Arte arose in Italy in the fifteenth century and specialized in bawdy comedies built around stock situations and populated by stock characters, often played by actors who had played them for many years, or even decades. In contrast to almost all the theatre which preceded it—at least from the ancient Greeks on—there was no definite script. Instead, Commedia Dell’Arte performers were free to improvise around the familiar situations, creating extemporized comic set-pieces,dialogue exchanges and even plot details as the fancy took them. No doubt this was a highly successful methodology, as it endured well into the eighteenth century and its influence is still felt today. It surely can be described as the first improvised theatre, since the term is meaningless unless there is scripted theatre to compare it to!
Commedia Dell'Arte诞生于十五世纪的意大利，专门研究根据喜剧情节制作的滑稽喜剧，喜剧喜剧演员经常扮演角色扮演了很多年，甚至数十年。与之前的几乎所有剧院相反（至少从古希腊人起），没有明确的剧本。取而代之的是，Commedia Dell'Arte的表演者可以随意在熟悉的情况下即兴创作，创作临时化的漫画作品，进行对话交流，甚至在幻想中绘制细节。毫无疑问，这是一种非常成功的方法，因为它一直持续到18世纪，并且在今天仍然可以感受到它的影响。它肯定可以说是第一个即兴剧院，因为除非有脚本剧场可以与之比拟，否则该词就毫无意义！
VIOLA SPOLIN
The next major innovation in improvisation had to wait almost five hundred years. Viola Spolin began her theatre work in the late 1930s.Like Augusto Boal after her, she was working in community theatre,and in trying to stimulate the children she was working with and make the process of theatre easy for them to grasp, she invented dozens of what now seem like fundamental improvisation games and exercises.
即兴创作的下一个重大创新要等待近五百年。维奥拉·斯波林（Viola Spolin）于1930年代后期开始戏剧工作。像奥古斯托·鲍尔（Augusto Boal）一样，她在社区剧院工作，并试图激发与之一起工作的孩子并使他们易于掌握戏剧过程，她发明了数十种现在看来基本的即兴游戏和练习。
Despite—like Stanislavski and later Lee Strasberg—viewing improvisation as essentially a rehearsal tool, rather than a performance piece, in one public demonstration of her methods, she asked for a suggestion from her audience, and a brand new technique was born. To many, the process of getting audience suggestions is the bedrock of improvisation,and many groups use a description of that process to encapsulate their whole show (“All based on your suggestions”). It is, however, easy to overuse and easy to abuse.
尽管像斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基（Stanislavski）和后来的李斯特拉斯堡（Lee Strasberg）一样，在即席表演的公开演示中，她认为即兴演奏实际上是一种排练工具，而不是表演作品，但她向听众提出了建议，并且诞生了一种全新的技术。对许多人来说，获得观众建议的过程是即兴创作的基础，许多团体使用对该过程的描述来封装整个节目（“全部基于您的建议”）。但是，它容易过度使用和容易滥用。
In the 1950s, Spolin’s son Paul Sills fell in with an exciting young group of actors in Chicago, headed by David Shepherd, which became the Compass Players. Sills and Spolin taught the Spolin games to this daring ensemble, and Shepherd hit upon the idea of creating a loose structure for a play, the dialogue of which could be improvised each night—essentially re-creating the modus of the Commedia Dell’Arte. Quickly, however, they discovered that the form of improvisation was better suited to comedy in a cabaret setting, using the audience suggestion method to create jumping off points for a series of impromptu comedy sketches.
在1950年代，斯波林的儿子保罗·西尔斯（Paul Sills）与一群令人振奋的年轻演员一起在芝加哥以大卫·谢泼德（David Shepherd）为首，后来成为罗盘演奏者。Sills和Spolin在这个大胆的合奏中教授了Spolin游戏，而Shepherd想到了为戏剧创建一个松散结构的想法，这种对话可以在每个晚上进行即兴创作-本质上是重新创造了Commedia Dell'Arte的方法。但是很快，他们发现即兴表演的形式更适合于歌舞表演中的喜剧，它使用观众建议方法为一系列即兴喜剧草图创建跳点。
A schism develops right here, which we will return to again and again in this book, between content and process. The problem which this creates is sometimes known as the skateboarding duck. For the Commedia Dell’Arte players, extemporization was simply the most effective method of channeling their inspiration, of creating the kind of comic energy which their scenarios demanded. Likewise, Shepherd and the Compass Players were initially seeking a fresher, more truthful acting style within a predetermined plot structure. As soon as the audience is made aware of the process, however, then a second point of interest emerges.
分裂在这里发展，在内容和过程之间，我们将在本书中一次又一次地返回。由此产生的问题有时被称为滑板鸭。对于Commedia Dell'Arte播放器来说，即兴创作是传达灵感，创造情景所要求的喜剧能量的最有效方法。同样，Shepherd和Compass Player最初是在预定的剧情结构中寻求更新鲜，更真实的表演风格。但是，一旦让观众意识到了这一过程，就会出现第二个兴趣点。
There is something daring about beginning with a random suggestion from the audience, which makes much of public improvisation about taking a risk. The potential problem with this approach is that the audience may be encouraged to admire the process rather than being engaged in the story. Like a duck riding a skateboard, they are astonished that such a thing is possible, and are thus distracted from whether or not it is done well. Taken too far, this is a recipe for both mediocrity and a thirst for novelty—problems which often bedevil the form to this day.
从听众的随机建议开始就有些大胆的事情，这使得公众在冒险方面即兴创作。这种方法的潜在问题在于，可能会鼓励观众欣赏过程而不是参与故事。就像鸭子骑在滑板上一样，他们惊讶于这种事情是可能的，因此从做得好不好转移了注意力。太过分了，这既是平庸又是对新奇的渴望的秘诀，这些问题通常使今天的形式不受欢迎。
That isn’t to say that process should be ignored, or even de-emphasized.We don’t regard an acknowledgement of process as evil—in fact, we regard it as essential—but we want to be aware of the dangers and drawbacks as well as the advantages.The Compass ran from 1955 to 1958 and counted among its alumni Alan Alda, Jerry Stiller, Mike Nicholls, Elaine May, and—of course—Del Close. In 1959, some of its members founded Second City, about which more in a moment.
但这并不是说应该忽略或什至不强调流程。我们不认为承认流程是邪恶的，实际上，我们认为流程是必不可少的，但我们要意识到危险和弊端.指南针运行于1955年至1958年，其校友Alan Alda，Jerry Stiller，Mike Nicholls，Elaine May和-当然是Del Close。1959年，它的一些成员创立了Second City，此后不久，便有了更多机会。
KEITH JOHNSTONE
At around the same time, in London, Keith Johnstone, a one-time high school teacher now working at the Royal Court Theatre in London, was beginning to direct plays for the fifi rst time. Despairing of the “theatre of taxidermy” which he saw in the West End and remembering how his own teachers had (seemingly) done their best to stiflfl e his creativity and selfexpression, he pinned up a list of things his teachers had told him not to do and used it as a syllabus. Not having had any drama training himself,he found himself constantly questioning his actors’ preconceptions and the prevailing wisdom of the day—notably Stanislavski.
大约在同一时间，在伦敦的基思·约翰斯通（Keith Johnstone）曾经是一名高中教师，现在在伦敦皇家法院剧院（Royal Court Theatre）工作，这是他第一次开始导演戏剧。他对在西区看到的“动物标本剧院”感到绝望，并回想起自己的老师（貌似）如何尽力激发自己的创造力和自我表达，他列出了老师告诉他不要做的事情并用作课程提纲。没有接受任何戏剧训练，他发现自己一直在质疑演员的成见和当今流行的智慧，尤其是斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基。
As he developed more and more exercises intended to keep his actors in the “present” and aware of each other, and to wreck their concentration,he found that he and the rest of the group were laughing prodigiously.Their improvised performances seemed much more alive, fresh, real and inspired than the play they were supposed to be rehearsing. Was this some vast untapped reservoir of comic inspiration, or were they fooling themselves with colossal self-indulgence? The only way to fifi nd out was to go public, and pretty soon, Keith’s “Theatre Machine” was touring all around Europe, with Keith himself acting as a sort of ringmaster, setting tasks for the actors and trying to keep order (ideally without quite succeeding).Keith, too, used audience suggestions, although sparingly.
随着他进行越来越多的演习，目的是使演员们保持在“现场”并相互了解，并破坏他们的注意力，他发现他和团队中的其他成员都在大笑。他们的即兴表演似乎更加生动活泼。 ，新鲜，真实和鼓舞人心的效果。这是未开发的大量漫画灵感来源，还是他们以巨大的自我放纵来欺骗自己？唯一的出路是公开发行，不久，基思的“剧院机器”就在欧洲各地巡回演出，基思本人是一名表演指导，为演员们设定任务并设法保持秩序（理想情况下，凯斯（Keith）也很少听取观众的建议。
In the 1970s, Keith moved to Calgary and developed Theatresports, one of the most popular ways of “packaging” improvisation for public performance yet devised. He founded the Loose Moose Theatre, which was an ideal home for the energetic young Canadian improvisers he was teaching, and although Keith has now stepped down from the Moose it still presents his formats and runs an annual summer school which attracts improvisation practitioners from all over the world.
1970年代，基思（Keith）搬到卡尔加里（Calgary）并开发了剧院剧院（Theatresports），这是迄今为止为公众表演而设计的“打包”即兴演奏的最流行方式之一。他成立了Loose Moose剧院，这是他所教的充满活力的年轻加拿大即兴演奏家的理想住所，尽管Keith现在已从Moose辞职，但他仍然展示自己的形式，并开设了一个年度暑期学校，吸引了来自世界各地的即兴创作者。
Keith published the book Impro in 1979, a collection of his thoughts and ideas about improvisation. Continuously in print ever since, it is now regarded as a classic. This was followed by Impro for Storytellers in 1999.
基思（Keith）在1979年出版了《 Impro》一书，收集了他关于即兴创作的思想和观念。此后一直印刷，现在被视为经典。随后是1999年的Impro for Storytellers。
IMPROVOLYMPIC
At Second City, the schism previously mentioned was dividing the company. Some practitioners held that using improvisation to develop terrific cabaret was certainly possible, provided it was understood that improvisation, whether in public or in private, was fundamentally a writing tool: excellent at developing inspiration and finding new ideas,lousy at delivering those ideas with economy and focus. Others, including Del Close, held that improvisation was a uniquely exciting process which thrilled audiences.
在第二城市，先前提到的分裂正在分裂公司。一些从业者认为，使用即兴创作特制的歌舞表演肯定是可能的，前提是应理解，即兴创作无论是在公开场合还是私下都是从根本上来说都是一种书写工具：擅长发掘灵感和发现新想法，但乐于传达这些想法经济和重点。包括Del Close在内的其他人则认为，即兴演奏是一个令人兴奋的独特过程，它使观众感到激动。
In the 1980s, Del and his partner Charna Halpern left Second City to found ImprovOlympic, now generally known simply as IO. Today, IO is a major force in improvisation, especially in Chicago, whereas almost all of Second City’s performances are of scripted sketch material. Both institutions teach improvisation, and each has become a training ground for many familiar faces from American TV and movies, including Bill Murray, Chris Farley, John Belushi and countless others. Today, Chicago is home to dozens of improvisation companies and annually hosts the Chicago Improv Festival, probably the largest improv festival in the world. The Spontaneity Shop was very happy to be invited to take part in 2005, and artistic director Jonathan Pitts was a most generous and engaging host.
在1980年代，Del和他的搭档Charna Halpern离开Second City成立了ImprovOlympic，现在通常简称为IO。如今，IO已成为即兴创作的主要力量，尤其是在芝加哥，而Second City的几乎所有表演都是使用脚本草拟的材料。两家机构都教授即兴演奏，并且已经成为美国电视和电影中许多熟悉的面孔的训练场，其中包括比尔·默里，克里斯·法利，约翰·贝鲁什和无数其他人。如今，芝加哥拥有数十家即兴创作公司，每年都会举办芝加哥即兴音乐节，这可能是世界上最大的即兴音乐节。自发商店很高兴被邀请参加2005年，艺术总监乔纳森·皮茨（Jonathan Pitts）是最慷慨和最吸引人的主持人。
TODAY当今
Because neither Spolin nor Boal endorsed improvisation as anything more than a process, and because although Second City does perform improvisation, they do not charge for these performances which are tacked on to the end of their (usually excellent) satirical revue shows, we are left with just two leaders in the fifi eld of performance improvisation: Del and Keith. The tension between their points of view, and the reasons for our broad allegiance to Keith Johnstone, are threads which have been woven throughout this book.
因为Spolin和Boal都没有将即兴创作视为一个过程，而且虽然Second City确实进行了即兴创作，但他们不为这些（通常是非常出色的）讽刺剧集演出结束后的演出收取任何费用，绩效即兴表演领域只有两名领导人：Del和Keith。他们观点之间的张力以及我们广泛拥护基思·约翰斯通的原因，都是贯穿本书的主题。
关于基思·约翰斯通
1956年，基思·约翰斯通（Keith Johnstone）作为一名新手剧作家进入皇家宫廷剧院，十年后，他成为一名开创性的导演和即兴创作教师。他的决定性著作《即兴表演》（Impro）描述了约翰斯通独特的训练体系：利用演员的直觉和想象力，将理论和技术结合在一起，鼓励自发的、协作的创作。约翰斯通从此成为世界知名的、鼓舞人心的戏剧大师；他的作品继续影响着传统戏剧内外的实践。
“基思·约翰斯通比我所遇到的任何人都更能发掘出人类创造力的潜力。他的思想对什么是教和学提出了挑战。因此，终于有了一本书来阐述基思的观点，并将其置于他的生活和时代背景中，这是很好的。这本书对艺术家、教师或任何想要更充分地活着的人来说，都是必不可少的读物。”
----马克哈文黑尔（Mark Ravenhill），剧作家
“基思·约翰斯通的原创和创意都很另类，难以表达。他教给我的更多的是关于秘密的人类行为、地位交易以及如何在我的工作中更好地应用它们，其结果令人吃惊.....”
----彼得•科约特（Peter Coyote），演员/作家
