 |
| Clubs Day - Beginning of the School Year |
The 2015-16 school year was an epic one for the improv club! We kicked off the year with Lily, Zoe, Emily, Jacob and Serenity plugging the improv club at the club days event (happens at the start of every school year).
We started with quite a large team - in the neighbourhood of 25 people. In fact, we even had enough to form a "recruits" (or junior team)! With the help and dedication of Vic High alumni, Joe Traill, we started up the year with a bang!
 |
| Coach Joe! |
After consulting with the students, we opted not to participate in the
Canadian Improv Games for this year - the students were looking to expand their long form improv skills, plus we already had a busy time ahead fund-raising for our second trip to the
Berlin Improv Festival!
Initially, we held practices together as one big group... but shortly thereafter split up into two groups (making sure 25 people get some stage time is tough - easier to split into the two groups).
 |
| Improv Practice |
Workshops were held both in the drama room and on-stage. Very quickly Jonathan and Mr. Penty got the "veteran" students in the habit of running the warm-up portion of the workshops. This gave our improvisers a chance to expand their leadership skills using baby steps.
 |
| Anika, Nick S., Emily, Jacob - Improv Practice |
Our first performance of the year was in November - we presented "Vic-GORE-ia" - an improvised murder mystery (thanks to the
Upfront Theatre for letting us remount this format of which they were the creators). This has become a favourite of the students as it allows them to focus on developing their character which appears throughout the piece.
December 10th was the annual
Fine Arts Night which features the fine arts, drama, dance and music programs. It's a fun-filled evening at the school which typically packs the school's auditorium.
 |
| Group Shot - Fine Arts Night - December 2015 |
Mr. Penty organized the traditional Secret Santa party - the students draw their secret Santa from a hat and the only rule is that they cannot spend more than $5 on the gift and it has to be totally useless!
 |
| Improv Secret Santa Christmas - December 2015 |
This is a really fun event and it was cool to see how the imaginations were let loose - one student, Cole, even received a doll replica of himself!
 |
| Improv Secret Santa Christmas - December 2015 |
Right after the winter break, many of our students got busy with the musical - Cabaret - which went up in April.
For the improv club, things slowed down a little but we still kept our fundraising goal in mind!
 |
| Joe Traill - filming for Berlin 2016 Trip Fundraiser |
We held two "Berlin or Bust" fundraiser shows - one on February 12th which an Impromaniacs' alumni,
Justin Martyn, kindly filmed and edited the footage into a promo
video we could use for the March 4 installment of the "Berlin or Bust" fundraiser show.
On March 11, 2016, 9 adventurers and three chaperones (Alan Penty, Grace Leach, Jonathan Argue) boarded a plane at the Victoria Airport and some 14 or so hours later landed in Berlin Germany!
 |
| Marcel and Breyn at the Flea Market - Berlin 2016 |
This was our most anticipated event of the year - for a number of students, this was the first time they left the country and touched down in Germany. For three of our adventurers, this was a return trip!
 |
| Street Art - Berlin 2016 |
Our home base was the Three Little Pigs hostel located in
Kreutzberg - the location was perfect! It was within walking distance from where the workshops were held and local subway stations.
 |
Group Dinner (by Matt) at the hostel - Berlin 2016
|
The hostel featured a large hall / common area, complete with pool tables and Foosball tables - a great place to hang out when we were not out and about.
Breakfast was served every morning and featured a pretty typical German breakfast - deli meats, eggs, break, some fruit, salad (!), tea, coffee, yogurt and oatmeal.
This time around the students going on the trip took part of figuring out what to see and do while we were there. We had lots of free time for students to go exploring, plus we had a group trip to the Berlin Zoo, Sachsenhausen Memorial (a concentration camp) and Dresden (a two hour bus trip outside of Berlin).
We managed to take in seven festival shows plus we had our own performance which opened for the "Spranguage" festival show. We found the German audience to be very supportive of our students! It was truly a special evening!
 |
| Performance at Berlin Improv Festival - Berlin 2016 |
While in Dresden, after finishing the guided portion of the tour, we had two hours to walk around on our own - there was an art installation (below) which featured a number of wolves on the return (an analogy for the rise of right-wing attitudes returning to the world).
 |
| Art Installation - Dresden, Germany, March 2016 |
While in Berlin, we met a number of the professional improvisers from all parts of the world. One of them, Tess Degenstein, a Canadian improv/acting professional based on Toronto was going to be in Victoria in May - so we arranged for her to come by the school and give a workshop!
Finally, we ended the year with a year-end show at the Victoria Event Centre which was a blast! Lots of friends, family and students attended - pretty much packed the venue.
 |
| Year-End Party! |
We wrapped up with a BBQ/party at Jonathan's parents' place in Cadboro Bay.
But wait, there's more!
We kicked our leadership program into full gear by arranging to drop by the Central Middle School once a week starting the end of March.
 |
| Central Students improvising under the watchful eyes of Nick and Emily |
 |
| Zoe working with her group |
The program started initially with Jonathan Argue and Emily Fraser meeting the students and running a 40 minute workshop.
Soon after we were joined by Zoe Schmit and Nick Harrison - welcome additions to the team!
The program ran until early May with us spending between 45 to 60 minutes with the students once-a-week. Nick, Zoe and Emily each took a group of students and put them through their paces.
For the last session we were joined by Mr. Penty and fun times were had by all!
 |
| Group Shot - Nick Harrison, Emily Fraser, Zoe Schmit, Alan Penty and Jonathan Argue with the Central Middle School Strudents |
This year we siad goodbye to improv club members Emily Fraser, Marcel Joseph, Nick Harrison, Cole Duthler and Jacob Flower.
 |
| Emily waiting outside the hall |
It's hard to see students you've known for the past four years move on, but heh! You have to move on sometime!
We are often lucky to have alumni returning to help run the club - it's a great opportunity for grads to develop their leadership and sometimes crowd management skills!
 |
Jacob Flower and Gemma Tarling delivering a one-of-a-kind Valedictorian Speech!
|
 |
| Marcel Joseph |
 |
| Nick Harrison |
 |
| Cole Duthler |
And so, that's a wrap for the 2015-16 year!
Comments
Post a Comment