Workshops

Małgorzata (Gosia) Różalska

WORKSHOPS FOR IMPROVISERS

Małgorzata Różalska (Gosia/Róża) – improviser and teacher from the north of Poland. Doing improv since 2004, as one of the first in Poland. Besides living improv life, she graduated Film Directing in Gdynia Film School, Photography at Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, and Cultural Studies at University of Gdańsk – and she loves mixing all her arts with improv. She owns a company called Rozaart with her sister, she records Kreatura Podcast, she writes rozalska.com blog about improv, and she’s a Polish improv-Mama.

She’s in an international Ohana group, and she’s conquering the world, starting with Improvention in Canberra, Seattle International Festival of Improv, IMPRO Amsterdam, IMPRO Berlin, Sacrebleu! in Strasbourg, Mt. Olymprov in Athens, Big IF in Barcelona, TILT Festival in Tallinn, Improvember in Munich, IMPROSALENTO, Sofia International Improv Fest, WIP Workimprogress (Italy), Improfestival Mainz, Improfest in Cracov, Improdrom in Bydgoszcz, JO in Toruń. She’s been teaching and/or performing, among others, in Australia, USA, Spain, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Slovenia, England, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia and Poland. She’s a big nerd, and she’s been working with teachers from all over the world and she’ll never stop.

In improv she seeks for freedom, adventure, and she always wants more. She believes the best way to grow is to learn from as many people as you can, but filter that through yourself, and use your own brain and trust your guts. Because if you wanna be an artist, you can’t be a copy of someone else.

She loves to teach. She believes, also based on herself, that improv can make you better. She treats improv as art, but it can also be a tool of self-developent.

She teaches all the levels, from people who never walked on stage, to professional actors, improv groups and business . On daily basis she teaches improv at University of Gdańsk.

When you want to hire her, the best for you would be to think, what exactly you’d like to work on, so she can offer you personalized workshop. You can also choose one of those workshops.

Series FROM MOVIES TO IMPROV

FORMATS:

SPECIFIC THEMES:

INTRODUCTION TO IMPROV:

FROM MOVIES TO IMPROV SERIES: 

As improvisers, we are actors, directors, and screenwriters at the same time. But we are not fully aware, what kind of tools could make us better directors and scenewriters. During my directing studies in Film School I spent many hours thinking, how to translate those film tools to improv.

In this workshop you will find, what connects good improv with good directing… and what connects bad improv to bad directing. The hardest job is to communicate your own ideas to actor, which make it easier when you are in both roles. Good directing is good communiction. Director is responsible for his art. He must know, what he wants, what he wants to tell, what is important to him. At the same time he must be aware, that it’s a process that may lead him in surprising directions, and must be ready to drop the images from his head. Are you ready to take the steer?

“You are confusing the sky with the stars which are reflected in the pond at night.” /A. Sapkowski, „The Witcher”

Batman and Joker. Simba and Scar. Good character. Bad character. We are judging so easily, aren’t we? But can we be 100% sure? Geralt of Rivia. Tyler Durden. Robin Hood. What makes someone good? Bad? What is the worst thing you did in life? And best? Why did do you it? Nobody is just good or bad. Let’s not take the easy way, don’t make our characters shallow. This workshop is for you to take your roles for serious, and make tchem full of truth, istead of stereotypes. So the audience could feel the flaws of heroes and reasons of villains. So we could leave the audience with questions, that they have to answer to themselves, and so they have something to talk about on their way home.

„The consciousness is the foundation of choice” – said Liz Peters in her workshop. I cannot agree more. Let this sentence be a motto of this workshop. As improvisers, we are actors, directors, and screenwriters at the same time. But we are not fully aware, what kind of tools could make us better directors and scenewriters. During my directing studies in Film School I spent many hours thinking, how to translate those film tools to improv.

In this workshop we will get to know some of the screenwriter’s rules that we can use for ourselves, walking on stage. We will see the canvas of all the stories from the beginning of humanity. We’ll be finding dozens of paths that our story can go. And when we are conscious of them, we can find the one – ours. How to create your character with few questions? How to point the protagonist? What’s the corelation between protagonist and antagonist? How to be sure, that the scene needs us? How to help the scene, and not harm? How to end the story? How to make it more dynamic? What the character needs to make the audience keep their fingers crossed for him?

We will play. And we will write.

FORMATS:

You and your partner. In crime. In story. In improv. No matter how many people play in a show, the base is the two person scene. That’s perfect to tell all the stories in the world, with different dynamics between two characters. Through love. Hate. Secrets. Duties. Shrek and Donkey. Arya and the Hound. Jules and Vincent. Claire and Frank Underwood. Rick and Morty. Let’s explore the most popular dynamics between two characters. Workshop based on film directing and screenwriting.

Multilingual show, which had a premiere at JO! Festival in Toruń, Poland, with an international cast. Is mutual language necessary for communication? How far are we defined by the culture, we live in? This format is a great chance to show, how diverse we are with our cultures and ways to express ourselves, and at the same time, how similar we on human level. And as we saw in Toruń, no matter where, we all heard from our parents when we were kids „if your friends jump out of the window, would you do the same?” – just changing, if it was window, fire or off the cliff. During this workshop we’ll work on scenes in foreign languages, the ones we understand, and the ones we don’t, playing each in native languages, where there is an international cast. We’ll train asking the right questions, to cherish the diversity, and not divide, and playing scenes which will make the audience members talk after, not only about improv, but also cultures. Is it already obvious, I have a degree in cultural studies?…

Multilingual show, which had a premiere at JO! Festival in Toruń, Poland, with an international cast. Is mutual language necessary for communication? How far are we defined by the culture, we live in? This format is a great chance to show, how diverse we are with our cultures and ways to express ourselves, and at the same time, how similar we on human level. And as we saw in Toruń, no matter where, we all heard from our parents when we were kids „if your friends jump out of the window, would you do the same?” – just changing, if it was window, fire or off the cliff. During this workshop we’ll work on scenes in foreign languages, the ones we understand, and the ones we don’t, playing each in native languages, where there is an international cast. We’ll train asking the right questions, to cherish the diversity, and not divide, and playing scenes which will make the audience members talk after, not only about improv, but also cultures. Is it already obvious, I have a degree in cultural studies?…

SPECIFIC THEMES:

Bill Hicks said in his stand up something that many screenwriters agree on – that all we do is driven by two forces – love and fear. Because of love and fear we can cross our boundries. In this workshop we will focus on Normal People. Using the reality. Love, lack of love, bitterness, dreams, fears. On what hides inside of us and others, what drives us, and what can we do to get what we desire. And how to express your feelings on stage, so they won’t end at „Hi Honey”, five meters from each other. Why? Beacuse the audience want to engage, feel something, and not only laugh. And they feel, when we touch the Truth. Because simple love story has bigger power than the battle of wizards at the top of Mount Everest.

Is improv theatre, or cabaret, i sit art, or entertainment, or everything combined, it’s improviser’s choice and everyone can answer differently. But what we can all agree on, is that improv is a muscle. And muscle needs to be trained, to be strong and flexible.  This workshop is a training. And I will make you sweat. Impossible warm-ups, disconnecting body and mind, burning the brain, and switching it off and on, combo-exercises. No discussion. No storytelling. Improv gym. Improv crossfit.

This workshop is an advanced improviser’s playground. At the beginning of the improv adventure, you learn how to make the scene work. Then you learn different ways to do it. Now it’s time to do it your OWN way. During this workshop we’ll gather all the tools that we’ve experienced so far, and we’ll use them in different combinations to experience, that a good „Freeform” in not a lucky guess, but a result of spontanious, but conscious decisions along the way. If improv is freedom, this is as close we can get to reach it.

Workshop focused on truthful female characters, inspired by the book with the same title by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, combined with screenwriters’ ways to build strong female protagonists for films. The Wild Woman is a part of each and every one of us. You can find her in stories, myths, and fairy tales. That’s the spirit full of power, creativity, joy and instincts. Let’s focus on how we bahave on stage, whatare our strenghts and what we fear, and let’s not be afraid of power, love, anger, revenge, compassion, and other energies, that we hold back too often.

As we usually play on the empty stage and in the land of imagination, we stop paying attention to the reality that surrounds us – literally, physically. Sometimes we regret that we have no scenography on stage, at the same time not seeing that, as soon as we look outside the stage void, the stage design is all around. During this workshop, we will put fictional characters in the physically existing scenery and feel how it affects the quality of experience and styles of playing – because as we have seen at the summer ImproKamp, different sides of one shed can give us the style of Smarzowski, Tarantino and Czech comedy. There is no easier way to feel like in a movie than to treat your surroundings as a movie set.

To often I see improvisers going on stage, and after five seconds looking around nervously, waiting to be „saved” by others. Or going on stage and on the way pointing others, to enter the void, I mean the stage, so they can SAY to them their idea, standing there. I know being alone in the spotlight can be scary. But it may be a wonderful opportunity for our character to show, who we really are, when noone’s watching. It may be a gift of trust from other players, who are not jumping there to „save” you. It can ba a moment of honesty and intimacy between you and the audience. So why are we scared? In this workshop we will take our time. And take the stage. Share ouselves with monologues. Build the reality of the scene, that will be an invitation for improvisers to join. We’ll discover our character’s secrets. And we will bravely look into the audience eyes. Alone. And then we’ll doscover, that we are never all by ourselves on stage.

“Nature gave us one tongue and two ears so we could hear twice as much as we speak” – said Epictetus, and that became a motto of my first improv group and stayied in my head. Are you searching for a magical way to make every format and every ensembe work? Well, you got it. Under your nose. Or next to it. Listen. And react. How exactly use in practice the popular saying “Let your partner shine”? How not to be afraid of playing with a stranger-improviser? How to play a format, that you’ve never heard of? How to offer yoursef, but not to jump on your partner? How to not let others to cross your boundaries, when the situation gets out of control? In this workshop you will jump on the sledge of the scene with your partner and slide, without stopping on the way. And when you’re done, you’ll hi5, even if you’ve never seen each other before.

Improv can be art. It depands on the performers, if it is. But besides your goals, you can use art. Oh God, how often you can start the show with a single word, or location, or relation from the audience? The word brings a word. In the worst case scenario you will get “talking heads”, in the best, intelectual and brilliant scene. But what if you take as an inspiration the painting? Poetry? Architecture? Origami? What if we look at improv as an art – what if every style needs to be broken, to let the art evolve? How to compose a baroque scene? How to use renaissance perspective? Are you aware, how light can build the drama, how to appear from the darkness as in chiaroscuro, or use the light as Kate Moss? How to make revolutions in art, and be Marcel Duchamp of improv? How not to be an ignorant and break the rules with consciousness, like Picasso, instead of ignoring them, not being aware of them and being proud of that? This is the workshop with the absolwent of Academy of Fine Arts. But don’t bring crayons.

INTRODUCTION TO IMPROV:

If you’re just starting your improv adventure, this is the workshop for you. If you gathered a group of friends and you want to spend time not only in a pub, but creative and fun, this workshop is for you. Short forms are games, very joyful and dynamic. Maybe you know the “Whose Line is it Anyway” show, or you’ve seen some improv live. But it takes more than watch football, to know how to play football. In this workshop you will learn some games, you will laugh at yourself, you will work on your confidence, cooperation, storytelling, taking actions in your own hands, and you will drop the shame and fear of being judged. And that will let us play as kids, and discover, what’s over horizon.

If you’re just starting your improv adventure, but you’d like to try something different than short forms, this workshop is for you. Using improvisational theatre, and movie directing, we’ll work on building logical narration, and believable characters. We’ll touch the energy that is calmer and more demanding than games. We’ll discover our scenewriting skills, and or duties to the audience. We’ll try different longforms, concrete already existing formats, and way of thinking, that lets us create our own.