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How do you get the audience’s WOW! ?

Yes, you need a good story.
Yes, you need a good script.
Yes, you need good actors.

But there is more important thing.

Even when you have a great story, great script, if the actor or the speaker do not understad the secret of moving audience’s emotion, there would be no result.

What is the secret?
In Zen, it is to wait.

Wait just a slight breath of time, the suspension does a trick.
So, don’t rush.

Don’t go for the result quickly.
Wait.
Just a moment of breath.

Well, the timing is the most difficult one, though.
So practice!

{Zen Acting}
A moment of breath.

Last week, I held, for the first time, the IMPRO workshop, using Keith Johnstone’s Great book “impro”.

I met this book in 1989 in London while I was writing my MA thesis.

I was so impressed by the content and always wanted to introduce them to Japanese people.

Luckily my publisher liked this book so much and let me translate the book and safely published in 2012.

I could have started impro workshop since then, but that time was when I started to build my reputation as a Shakespearean director and actor, and I rather focused on that theme.

But during this coronavirus time goes on, I have more time to do more things rather than focusing on just one thing.
That’s how I decided to do this IMPRO workshop online.

What I wanted to do was not just enjoying exercises, but also to appreciate the foundation Keith had when he started IMPRO.

As a translator of his book I feel that his main ideas were in this Impro book when he first wrote. Of course people grow, the ideas grow, and the exercises grow wider and deeper. But still, it’s good to know what was the main fundamental idea when one started anything. That’s why I really wanted Japanese readers to appreciate the book itself rather than just the exercises of IMPRO.

Fortunately, the participants were all some kind of teachers, coaches, leaders in some teams, and they really enjoyed the deep reading of the book.

In this first time workshop I covered generally the whole book. But the main focus was on the first chapter how Anthony Sterling taught Keith Johnston about not to teach to grow creativity. When you fully understand not to teach and erase the fear of being criticized and that will make one to be really creative and imaginative, you will understand the book and appreciate the content much much fuller and easier.

I’m going to put on the next workshop in July (in Japanese)!

[ZEN ACTING]
Focus on the foundation, of the idea and of your body.

It has been an energetic September.

I met many people online internationally.  
It was almost impossible before, and I am very glad, even though the situation prevents me from actively working on stage as a theatrist.

I met a group of international people who are interested in and in need of developing artistic impression levels of Japanese performing artists.

I attended the International Theatre Institute Asia-Pasific Regional Meeting, and met lovely theatrists from many countries I have never been.

These new contacts, I feel, are the beginning of my new phase.

Today’s Zen

Keep working,
keep helping,
keep inspiring and
being inspired.