Improvisation

Improvisation refers to the act of spontaneously performing without preparation. For clowns and other performers, improvising means inventing dialogue, physical gags, or comedic bits at the moment during a live act without scripts or planning instead of following rehearsed routines.

Origins

Impromptu storytelling traces back to oral traditions and folklore, sharing legends, myths and history through narrative sung songs passed across generations without being written down. The commedia dell’arte genre popular in Italy during the 16th century featured basic frameworks where groups of theatrical players improvised key details performance to performance, setting heights for cleverness and absurdity.

Violin virtuosos would engage in uptempo witty exchanges trading improvised phrases as tests of imagination and skill, dazzling aristocrat patrons during the Baroque period across Europe. Through the 19th and 20th centuries, vaudeville variety shows encouraged audacious improvisation, wowing rowdy crowds.

Eventually, improv comedy as a distinct art form emerged out of theater games teaching sketch writing and acting skills. Viola Spolin’s teaching workshop students in the 1960s included her son Paul Sills who cofounded the famous Second City improv troupe in Chicago which spawned the television show SCTV and alumni like Bill Murray, John Candy, Catherine O’Hara and many more stars known for wildly inventive comedy.

Types of Comedic Improvisation

Popular improv comedy formats performers develop unique shows around include:

Short Form Improv

Rapid fire short scenes, songs and one-liner gags elicited from audience suggestions flexing spontaneous wit and stage chemistry between players. Perfected by Second City, and Whose Line is it Anyway?

Long Form Improv

Extended scene lengths explored based on a single audience prompt, enabling greater character and plot development for more involved stories. Allows more risky, nuanced humor. Favored by Upright Citizens Brigade members.

Theatresports Improv

Competitive teams challenge each other in impromptu bouts assigning different performance constraints, pitting quick thinking reflexes head to head for laughs and points from the crowd.

Musical Improv

Songs invented from audience title suggestions on the spot put musical wit and rhyming dictionary-like lyrical dexterity front and center alongside the challenge of making up a cohesive melody, song structure harmonizing with other vocalists spontaneously.

Improvising in Clowning

While many clown acts feature polished routines practiced over years, incorporating improvised moments allows customs tailoring shows for specific audiences and occasions, making each experience delightfully unique. Ways clowns interject improv include:

• Audience Participation  - Eliciting volunteers mid-act for gag interviews or physical demonstrations relies on nimble back and forth exchanges, playing up unexpected reactions.

• Custom References  - Topical jokes about current events or local color woven into act narratives personalize shows to that time and place. Risk going off format for special resonance.

• Playing Off Hecklers  - Embracing sudden heckles or disruptions as improv fuel for additional verbal sparring, physical gags or gang ups towns the crowd on the clowns’ side with admiration for their smooth unplanned transitions and comebacks.

• Faking Flubs  - Clowns intentionally simulate spontaneous technical difficulties, pratfalls or forgetting act elements for improved improvised recovery efforts, delighting crowds with their quick problem-solving inventions.

• Improv Games  - Clown variety shows may incorporate competitive improv game brackets inviting select audience members on stage for equal opportunity public embarrassment humor where everyone wins enjoying the contagious silliness.

Ultimately for clowns like all live performers, prepared material provides dependable structure but invigorating shows happen riding the chaotic edge of improvised moments discovered uniquely that night with those people. Audiences crave those fleeting connections and spontaneous reactions confirming that they didn’t just passively observe programmed content but rather collectively created a temporary inextricable fusion of time, place and presence through laughter.