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TechNews | Tuesday, August30th, 201 6

    

High expectations for ZSense Improv

Reno Waswil
DISTROBUTION MANAGER

In the Netflix series “Garfunkel and
Oats," which presents a fictionalized account of
the career of the popular comedic songwriting
duo composed of Riki Lindhome and Kate
Micucci, Micucci tries to convince someone
that although he claims to likes Jazz, he doesn’t
really She argues that the only enjoyment from
Jazz comes from the idea of playing it, and to
everyone that is not or does not play it, there is
absolutely no appeal. As someone that would
claim to appreciating Jazz, I would say that it,
like most negative critiques of entire music
genres, is an incorrect oversimplification. I
do admit, however, that in as far as Jazz is an
experience to listen to, the listening experience
is greatly amplified by a certain vicarious
appreciation of the people playing it, and
furthermore, truly cannot compare to the joy
and power of playing it in a way that I don’t
think is nearly as potent in any other musical
genre.

The reason for this is the natural
reliance of Jazz, as a musical art form, as a
medium for syncopated, often teamecentered
improvisation; working off of and with
others and within certain intuitive confines
to do whatever you feel like. The use of
improvisation does not, however, limit itself
to music. Improv Comedy, or simply Improv,
is a popular method of using improvisation in
a performance art setting, typically in groups
of two or more people, to elucidate humorous
ideas and relationships, and surprise: it is really
fun; It’s fun to watch, especially live, and it is
fun to do. All it really requires from a basic
level is confidence and creativity, and there are
all different methods of doing it.

I love Improv, and am the Chair of
33rd Street Productions Improv team 2sense
Improv. In it’s current form, we focus on long,
form, storytelling sceneebased Improv with

shorteform, or the “Who’s Line is it Anyways"
style slightly less focused on. Because Improv
in these terms is still so broad, what you see
is crafted a lot by what tricks and tools are
used in building a scene or conducting a game,
along with the practice and wherewithal to use
them. Unsurprisingly, an Improv show is even
more so shaped by how an actor learned it and
who they are improvising with (troupes being
so great because they know each other so well),
and that is where 2sense Improv comes in.

It is at our weekly meetings that we
practice and personalize our technique with
casual but still structured and productive
Improv Perhaps you’d like to give it a try but
might want to know what to expect. I will thus
give a breakdown of how I plan to conduct
these meetings in hopes that it seems less
weird or alienating.

Each will begin with a warmeup
game. If you are unaware of what these are,
warmeup games often take the form of ice,
breakers you may see which are designed to
“bring you out of your shell." Even from an
Improv point of View, I despise these sorts of
games with a passion. In practice they tend to
focus a great deal on training action/reaction
skills and are often needlessly embarrassing.
Although you need to have confidence in both
acting and improvising, it doesn’t need to be
embarrassing if you don’t make it so. Improv
may be a little embarrassing at certain points,
but I think those can be dealt with in a manner
that doesn’t take it out of the context of what
we are doing, which is building a good scene.

I will try to make these games,
therefore, practical, fun, and not alienating,
while heavily encourage creativity The primary
reason for this last part is that what these games
will do, in addition to “warmng up," is provide
some creative fodder to be used in generating
the bread and butter of our style of Improv:
the longeform scene. Games, suggestions, and
real life stories are some of the more popular

method of inspiring scenes, and I’ve decided to
work this fundamentally into the procedure of
the practice. The structured nature of the game
offers a prime opportunity to experiment with
humorous ideas and situations, from which
the actors are free to, when compelled and
feel justly prepared, break out of the game to
initiate the scene.

The meeting will follow this
consistent pattern of games followed by
scenes inspired by those games. The games
will change form as the night progresses and
a number of scenes may be drawn from any
given game, or even from previous scenes
themselves. My only unique responsibility as
the Chair will be in choosing the games. We
all will share the responsibilities in drawing
ideas from games, initiating and contributing
to scene, and critiquing each other’s work.
The first game will always be something akin
to a warmeup game as I have described, and
following games will be more of the shorteform
kind, or possibly scenes with more simplified
narrative forms. As per tradition, we will end
each meeting with the game “World’s Worst."

Our ultimate goal in all of this,
besides of course doing it to strengthen our
acting, confidence, creativity, and just for the
immense fun of it, is putting on at least one
larger show in the Spring, and possibly some
smaller live shows if we get around to it. It
is not a requirement of being part of 2sense
Improv to take part in any of the live shows,
or even every aspect of our meetings for that
matter But if you are interested at all~if you
like acting but don’t like memorizing lines, like
role playing but aren’t too particularly fond of
commitment to characters, or just like comedy
and friendshime suggest you take part. Email
us at 33rd.iit@gmail.com or stay alert to our
meeting advertisements. You can come to
our meetings to watch, help, play, or all of the
above.

Change is in the air: What's new at Illinois Tech this Fall?

Soren Spicknall
COPY EDITO R

Anybody who’s visited a place after
leaving for a long while knows the feeling of
discovery that comes with finding something
new there. For students who’ve been away
from Illinois Tech for the summer, that feeling
is bound to pop up at least once or twice in
these first few weeks of classes. Here are a few
things around campus that you might notice as
you settle into this new academic year:

Somebody, somewhere, is attempting
to popularize the abbreviation JTREC
(pronounced “JAYetre ") for the recently
renamed John T Rettaliata Engineering Center,
previously officially known as Engineering
1. Like many faculty and staff members have
had trouble mentally switching away from
the convenient nickname “The Hub" for
Hermann Hall, which was historically named
the Hermann Union Building, it’s plausible
that the popular acronym “E1" will remain in
popular speech for some time as the preferred
nomenclature for the renovated center of
engineering courses on campus.

Illinois Tech Dining Services
have switched from blue corporate Sodexo
uniforms to a red motif, part of an overall
pivot toward integrating themselves more
effectively into the mental fabric of the
university as a part of the community, rather
than a separate entity existing within it. This
uniform switch has been accompanied by the
annual reshuffling of Dining Services staff
across different dining locations, in addition
to some big changes to dining options in the

Adverfise In

Commons like the addition of a new entree for
each meal period at the building’s northwest
edge and the introduction of a grabeandego
“express meal" program within the Commons
itself Previously express meals were available
in Pritzker Club and The Bog for those who
missed dinnertime (used mostly by athletes),
but this new program is quite different than
that prior offering.

On the day of firsteyear student
moveein, the ground floor of Lewis Hall
flooded. This is in stark contrast to last Fall,
when on the day of firsteyear student moveein,
the second floor of Lewis Hall flooded.

There is now an ofiicial public notice
of renovation plans posted on the northern
door of Main Building, kicking off a preseason
of sorts for building as the building’s private
developers enter the permitegathering and
planedrawing phase of their work. As opposed
to the beginning of last year, when WIIT and
ITMR still held facilities in the building and
were permitted occasional access, no students
are allowed in the buildng any longer

In other construction news, the new
Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation
and Tech Entrepreneurship has undergone
groundbreaking and is slated to begin rising
soon from Morton Park. If you are unaware
of the project at this point, it’s possible that
you are living in an alternate universe. There’s
no word yet on the fate of the cool wooden
amplifier that was built in the park last year as
a public performance space by an IPRO team.

Former SGA VP of Communications
Subarno Saha has graduated, despite his best
efforts to appear to the contrary

The general atmosphere of student
organizations at the beginning of this semester
seems to be very positive, as the determined
structural improvements made by many last
year have turned into marked progress toward
recruitment and retention. Unfortunately,
everyone seems to have caught onto the
convenience of a lunchtime meeting during
a weekday, thereby making it inconvenient
because everybody has scheduled their
meetings during the same five hours of the
week

A new Jamaican Jerk Chicken place
has opened at the corner of 35th and Indiana,
bringing the total number of chickenebased
restaurants on 35th between Michigan and
King to six (exceeding an average one per
block). Despite this, those who claim there
are “too many’ ' chicken stops on 35th are still
wrong, and always will be.

Hopeless cynics and hopeless
apologists continue to battle it out on ITSC.
But hey, some of the faces are new

Shirner College is winding down
their presence on campus as they prepare
to be integrated into North Central College
in Naperville, leaving us without anybody
to make Teshirts that say “illIITerate” and
leaving IPRO4977312 (Shimer + Illinois Tech
+ Community Forum) in a very awkward spot.

For some reason, the faculty, staff,
and students of a tech school still continue to
read a physical newspaper each week to find
out what’s going on around them.

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