I was reading a section of Keith Johnstone’s book ‘Impro’. He points out that ‘high status players (like high status seagulls) will allow their space to flow into other people. Low status players will avoid letting their space flow into other people’ (Johnstone, 1981,pp59). Our group met up the other day to start experimenting with apples which ranged from smashing an apple on my head to dropping an apple on concrete floor to see how many attempts it would take for an apple to completely break, which is a slight reference to Newton’s gravity theory.
After our group meeting, I had a theory that we was giving the apple its own space and status as a ‘performer’. In part, the apple is the ‘star of the show’ and we are the sole people to’direct’ the apple. The apple wants to tell us that it wants to audience to embrace its presence and tell us a story.
I took this picture of an apple to sum up what I wanted to understand about the apple and space. It’s like when an ordinary person looks in the mirror, they are looking at their own space and looking into themselves. In this case, its an apple instead of a human, looking deep into themselves and holding their own ‘space’.
Johnstone, K. (1981) Impro: Improvisation and the theatre. London: Methuen drama