“The key to improvisation is motion – you keep
moving forward,
fearful or not, living from moment to moment.
That’s how life is...”
- Bobby McFerrin, American Musician
This blog
post is the first of two where I’ll be looking at the concept of performance
art and improvisation, with accompanying photographs.
Today’s
post features images from Fan Expo Canada 2018 – “...the largest Comics, Sci-Fi,
Horror, Anime, and Gaming event in Canada and the third largest Pop Culture
event in North America...” – which is being held this weekend at the Metro
Toronto Convention Centre. My camera and I spent several happy hours at Fan
Expo on Friday, breathing in the energy, passion, and weirdness of this annual
event. I was surrounded by thousands of fans, many of whom were dressed in the
costumes and paraphernalia of their favourite fantasy characters. And such
wondrous costumes they were! The hairdos and makeup alone were worth the price
of admission. And all these folks seemed to be having a great time. And, of
course, it was a feast for the camera.
I had never
been at a mass ‘Cosplay’ event before. According to the online Oxford English
Dictionary, Cosplay is a term first used in Japan in 2008. It refers to “dressing
up in costume as a character from anime or manga; now extended to characters
from video games.”
It took a
few minutes on Friday for the penny to drop about what was happening: there was
a giant role-playing improvisation exercise going on, without any script. These
people were joyously winging it!
I am no
stranger to improvisation and role-playing, having used them for many years when
teaching drama. The willingness to immerse oneself in another person’s life is central
to all forms of developmental drama. As an approach to shedding inhibitions and
learning about oneself and others, it is without parallel. The very act of
willingly ceding control of a situation to the group while simultaneously
developing one’s own self-confidence is an invaluable experience. It doesn’t
matter that most drama students never become professional actors – the skills
they learn, from poise under pressure to trusting one’s informed instincts,
serve them well wherever their lives take them.
And that’s the joy of what I witnessed on Friday: hundreds of people immersing
themselves in a giant improvisation. They were escaping into new realities. And
learning about so-called ‘real life’ at the same time.
Good on
them, say I!
I intend to return to this theme next week with a set of very different
images.
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