Vic High Improv

We were met at the guest house by one of festival volunteers, Hendrik (on the right) who guided us to the workshop. Our first workshop with Simone focused on getting us to work with what's in front of us.  She started with a number of trust and team-building type exercises, a few which we had not seen before.  In the picture below, we are playing the "Zombie Game" which had the person in the middle of the circle being the Zombie.  As they approach their "victim", that person makes eye contact with someone else in the circle. That person would then call out the name of someone else in the circle who would become the Zombie's next victim.  If the Zombie touched their victim without being redirected, that persons became the new Zombie and the old Zombie returns to the circle and the cycle continued. We moved into exercises where the students explored the space, giving focus to different body parts.  They then moved onto naming objects in the sp

It's our first "official" day of the trip.  Everyone has rested up and is starting to get over jet lag.  Most of us were up at 2am local time and had to force ourselves to go back to sleep. Our guest house is very European in that it's closer to an actual living space than what we might think of when we think about the hotels we are used to seeing.  This is actually nice as it feels a little more "homey".  In the above picture, you are seeing the inner courtyard and the entrance way pictured takes you to the apartment where our female students are staying and the other 2 rooms where the make students are staying. Our chaperones have the apartment which overlooks this courtyard so nobody can leave the compound without being seen :-) Today we spend a short time exploring the local neighbourhood and learned that on a Sunday, most shops are closed which Harkness back to the times in BC and other provinces where Sunday shopping wasn't avai

It's 6am and most of our Travelers are already at the ferry terminal milling around. Most of them have figured out the technique of packing to miniseries the size of their bags... Well, almost all of them!  They might have second thoughts about their packing habits once we get to the airport in Berlin and have to drag our bags on a 45 minute journey to the guesthouse where we are staying. A few of us were still trying to catch up on their sleep... If you are tired enough, even stretching out on a bench is worth it. Next stop... The airport where we hang out until 5pm PST until we board our plane....

During our stay in Berlin, we'll be attending four days of workshops delivered by two different workshop leaders.  Let's meet them... Simone Schwegler Simone Schwegler , well known for her physicality and playfulness on stage, is the artistic director and member of Harri Olli and theater anundpfirsich, two of the biggest and most succesfull improvtheatre companies in Switzerland. Simone’s main interest and artistic focus lies on longform and theatrical improv performances which results in Harri Olli’s unique style: theatrical, charming, physical and emotional improvisational theatre. Beside touring and teaching a lot at festivals and with many groups in Europe and America within the last years, Simone has been performing as a resident at Keith Johnstones Loose Moose Theatre in Calgary/Canada. Simone is an experienced and passionate improv and acting coach, amongst others at an acting school in Zurich. She teaches improv, physical theatre, acting skills, storytelling, wo