Improvisation Quotes - Page 7

• Sometimes some of the best moments are contributed by the actors being creative, with their own improvisations.

  Woody Allen

  Creative, Actors, Sometimes

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• When I began doing theatre in high school I saw that I could get laughs from people but I didn't really connect that to going on and becoming a comedian. I was interested in acting and while I was at Boston College I was part of an improv group, Mother's Fleabag, which had a long history and has been known as one of the best college improvisation groups in the U.S.

  Amy Poehler

  Mother, School, College

  Source: egomagazine.ae

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• For me, improvisation is about working with a partner. That is much easier to do in the interview, because you have a sounding board.

  Stephen Colbert

  Boards, Interviews, Easier

  Slate's Working Podcast with David Plotz, October 17, 2014.

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• Improvisation was the blood and bone of jazz, and in the classic, New Orleans jazz it was collective improvisation in which each performer, seemingly going his own melodic way, played in harmony, dissonance, or counterpoint with the improvisations of his colleagues. Quite unlike ragtime, which was written down in many cases by its composers and could be repeated note for note (if not expression for expression) by others, jazz was a performer's not a composer's art.

  Russell Lynes

  Art, New Orleans, Expression

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• He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life,where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one's waking life was spent watching one's feet.

  William Golding

  Life, Memorable, Feet

  William Golding (1954). “Lord of the Flies”, p.101, Penguin

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• I allow a lot of room for improvisation and funny stuff. I always feel planned.

  Michael Bay

  Stuff, Rooms, Feels

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• The only band I was really over-into was Cream. And the only thing I really liked about them was their live stuff 'cause they played two verses, then go off and jam for 20 minutes, come back and do a chorus and end. And I love the live jam stuff, the improvisation.

  Eddie Van Halen

  Two, Jam, Band

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• Undeniably, the audience for improvisation, good or bad, active or passive, sympathetic or hostile, has a power that no other audience has. It can affect the creation of that which is being witnessed. And perhaps because of that possibility the audience for improvisation has a degree of intimacy with the music that is not achieved in any other situation.

  Derek Bailey

  Music, Degrees, Intimacy

  Derek Bailey (1992). “Improvisation: its nature and practice in music”

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• Hendrix was back there with a few of the others who were like my training wheels ... hearing him as a teenager taught me to look at the guitar in a different way - and how to tap into that thing inside of me that was already leaning toward improvisation. You learn other players' licks at first; then you take off the training wheels and start using the licks as building blocks to make your own thing. That's how influences work. somewhere in whatever I do, there's a little bit of Hendrix - plus about a hundred others

  Junior Brown

  Music, Block, Teenager

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• Cynics who say power is all that counts in politics forget that power without ideas is just improvisation.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Ideas, Forget

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• Certain kinds of speed, flow, intensity, density of attacks, density of interaction... Music that concentrates on those qualities is, I think, easier achieved by free improvisation between people sharing a common attitude, a common language.

  Evan Parker

  Attitude, Thinking, People

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• With Material for the Spine, I am interested in alloying a technical approach to the processes of improvisation. It is a system for exploring interior and exterior muscles of the back. It aims to bring consciousness to the dark side of the body, that is, the ‘other’ side, or the inside, those sides not much self-seen, and to submit sensations from them to the mind for consideration.

  Steve Paxton

  Dark, Self, Mind

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• A strict form such as mine cannot be achieved through improvisation.

  Michael Haneke

  Form, Strict, Mines

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• In discussing the process with the actors, I made it clear to them that they could improvise but that the sum total of their improvisation needed to impart certain plot points, and schematic material.

  Mike Figgis

  Plot, Actors, Made

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• In a society like ours, politics is improvisation. To the artful dodger rather than the true believer goes the prize.

  Gore Vidal

  Politician, Believer, Prize

  Gore Vidal (1968). “Sex, Death, and Money”

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• Peace demands more, not less, from a people. Peace lacks the clarity of purpose and the cadence of war. War is scripted: peace is improvisation.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Peace, War, Clarity Of Purpose

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• Much of what happens in Love Always is really from overheard conversations in the Russian Tea Room. It's an improvisation of the way certain Hollywood agents think and talk to each other.

  Ann Beattie

  Thinking, Tea, Hollywood

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• [on his use of tracking shots throughout his 50-year career] There's always a certain amount of camera improvisation.

  Allan Dwan

  Cameras, Certain, Amount

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• I like the idea that within the structure of the song, some kind of built-in improvisation keeps them fragile and in their moment, so that I'm not projecting so much, so that my perception of the song doesn't interfere with what its real body is. Sometimes it's like telling a story that I heard in passing, and I don't want it to become completely mine.

  Ryan Adams

  Song, Real, Ideas

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

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• Civilization has gotten further and further from the so-called 'natural' man, who uses all his faculties: perception, invention, improvisation.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Men, Civilization, Perception

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• In improvisation, there is only one time. This is what computer people call real time. The time of inspiration, the time of technically structuring and realizing... the time of playing it, and the time of communicating with the audience, are all one.

  Stephen Nachmanovitch

  Real, Inspiration, People

  Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.18, Penguin

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• Working within the limits of the medium forces us to change our own limits. Improvisation is not breaking with forms and limitations just to be 'free,' but using them as the very means of transcending ourselves.

  Stephen Nachmanovitch

  Mean, Limits, Form

  Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.84, Penguin

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• In a one-woman show, there must be compelling material that you adore. In both of these there are conversations with you and another character. My Second City (improvisation) background comes in very handy for accent and body posture.

  Valerie Harper

  Character, Cities, Body

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• I believe that improvisation is really just a directorial tool. It's a writing tool.

  Ivan Reitman

  Believe, Writing, Tools

  Source: collider.com

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• Everyone can act. Everyone can improvise. Anyone who wishes to can play in the theatre.

  Viola Spolin

  Play, Wish, Theatre

  Viola Spolin (1999). “Improvisation for the Theater: A Handbook of Teaching and Directing Techniques”, p.50, Northwestern University Press

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