Our Freedom Lies In How We Take Care Of Each Other — and other gifts of improv training for teens

There is an improvisation exercise called Emotional Squares, used to explore the range of feelings a person can have about the same situation. Four distinct emotional states — happy, sad, fearful, angry — are written on pieces of paper and placed in a square on the floor. A player is given a situation that involves a turning point in life, e.g. graduation, starting a new job, moving to a bigger place. The player’s partner chooses one of the emotions as a starting point, and the player improvises a monologue about the situation from that emotional perspective until the partner calls “change” at which point the player moves clock-wise to the next emotion. The monologue shifts to this new emotional state — keeping the same flow of ideas going — until the partner calls “change” again. After making the rounds to each emotional state in clock-wise fashion, the partner begins to call out “change” to specific emotions- e.g. “change, fear” followed by “change, happy” — in a collaborative way that expands the flow of ideas even more.

Martha Kahan, a social worker specializing in Social-Emotional Learning with teens for over 25 years found this exercise “an opportunity to ‘try on’ a variety of feelings using different perspectives.” The exercise is highly interactive, and depends upon players being committed to each others’ emotional safety. “Getting feedback from peers makes it a rich and meaningful experience that expands students emotional literacy. And my students always say that even when exploring difficult topics, they always have fun.”

The freedom to feel and express a range of thoughts arising from different emotional perspectives in a group turns on a person’s ability to trust the other people involved. Improviser and educator Elana Fishbein — who performs and teaches at The Magnet Theater in NYC and will offer an improv intensive for teens in July 2019, describes “the outward-facing responsibility to create freedom” that is woven into the principles of improvisation. “We define freedom as ‘the ability for someone to feel respected and safe, so that they can be themselves.’ If I am most concerned with your freedom — if everyone takes that responsibility to create freedom together — we are going to be ok. The best way for me to ensure…