You might think the following exercise would work well with music or with a sound effects CD.

I'd propose it works best without either. Create a comfortable space for some contact work. A group forms in the space and begins in stillness. The facilitator speaks the following words: "Light, gentle rain, hardly noticeable, a little pitter patter" The improvisation begins, inspired by a shared sense of being light, gentle rain drops touching the ground, touching trees, people can become the rain, the air, the ground, a tree branch, contacting, reacting, joining, separating, fusing, synergising etc.

This continues for some minutes with the facilitator (or can also be anyone in the group), repeating "light rain" from time to time. After some time, we create an escalation to the words "the rain grows in strength, larger, heavier drops" Then: "heavy rain" Then: "The rain begins to really pour" Until: "We are now a flood" The contact becomes more profound, the movement a dynamic of touch and flow, connection and a sense of intensity, growth in power, contact that flows, contact that harmonises, contact that overwhelms. The group can even evolve into a "Maelstrom" and A "whirlpool" We can then gradually reduce the rain back to light rain and stillness This contact exercise doesn't just explore contact but also "communion" as the group fuses together, combines - it explores "individual", "group" and "community". It can be done with music as well. It makes use of a primeval process and allows people to connect physically via a natural phenomenon. Your feedback on trying it is welcome. Variations on this exercise: - wind - snow

- sunshine/heat - earthquake

http://rationalmadness.wordpress.com/home-gateway/cats3000-applied-improvisation-page/
An Activity Exploring Attention Through Breathing This is a very simple exercise that enables and experience of bare attention, observation, multi-tasking, and the beginnings of play. The group sits in a reasonable close circle and silence. The facilitator invites everyone to become aware of their own breathing - breathe naturally but bring attention onto that activity. If the mind wanders, allow it to come gently back to the focus on breathing. Then allow attention to expand outwards to become aware of the breathing of others - hearing and sensing it. Allow this to run for as long as seems comfortable (5-10 minutes). Be aware of changes in breathing and also when we forget we are doing it and when we are focused on it. Allow attention to take in sounds in the room and outside - after a while we will forget our focus on breathing - then bring the attention back to our breathing. Now a bit of play: Try to focus attention on both our breathing, the breathing of others AND other sounds in and outside of the room

Can we do both? How does attention alternate? How finds this multi-tasking easy? Who has difficulty with it? How can we "play" with our focus of attention? How do we lose focus and control of attention? Who was nervous? Who was relaxed? How did this change over time? You can also introduce some music to this activity - a recorded song. There are a number of fundamentals at work in this activity that lend itself particularly to applied improvisation and may come out in discussion:

- the simplicity of the exercise (I'm finding the simpler the better these days, not over-engineered or facilitated!) - the use of a circle (circle exercises, particularly sitting down, allow for a sense of ease out of which challenge and profound experience come come, especially in organisational settings) - the theme of "attention", when related to something us primal as breathing, allows for some rich reflection and discussion without too much task and content getting in the way - the "management" of attention, of multi-tasking, is a key theme in pressurised working environments - seeing one's breathing as a kind of peaceful harbour to which one can return at critical times is a revelation for many managers and employees Get everyone in a circle. Each person in it, will in turn tell about something which has had an emotional impact on him/her in the last week in some way. The impact can be both positive or negative. It's up to the person to chose a moment, and in a way to chose how much of a personal story he or she wants to disclose. Now, in turn, each person will tell about this moment in a few sentences (or a few more). As long as it is a personal and heart-felt story, it's fine. And that's just about it, really. After a person has told about his moment, the group can show appreciation for this in any way everyone finds fitting (e.g. humming a bit, or saying some words of 'thanks', or perhaps just saying that they've had such a moment too). What I was most surprised about, was the kind of stories that were told when we did this exercise. It was with an improv group of which I am a member as well. They were really personal, really heartfelt, and some of them were of a much more personal nature than I'd expected. It really bonded the group together immensely, and the fact that everyone was willing to show their vulnerable side, was really moving. It set the perfect mood for the rest of the evening, of which this exercise was the first one! group counting game, and variations of that (measuring how long it takes to get to 20) Drawing a Castle.

1. All participants are in groups of about 4, each with a marker, and a flipchart page for each group. 2. Instructions to tell: You will have a task, to be done in two steps, with the eventual goal of drawing a castle. In Step 1, you are to discuss the design and the process and everything else. You are allowed to talk, but not to draw anything on the

flipchart. You will have about 7 minutes for this step. In Step 2, you are drawing and are not allowed to talk. The moment you start drawing, everybody has to keep their eyes closed for the whole time - until everybody is done, and I tell you all to open your eyes. 3. Run the activity. 4. The debrief is rich and can address many different areas, like collaboration, explicit and implicit leadership roles, creativity and design, etc. Triangles Objective: networking exercise, warming up Summary: form an equilateral triangle in groups of three people Duration: 3 minutes plus time for debrief Number of participants: unlimited (with a minimum of 7) Description of the exercise: Ask the participants to stand in an open space and they have to select two other people. Dont point or say who those people are that you have in your mind but try to make an equilateral triangle with those people. Give a time limit of three minutes. It is mathematically possible to reach a figure where everybody stands still. Whether people found the figure or not, stop after a maximum of three minutes. You will notice that everybody will be moving in the beginning but after a while the whole groups starts to move slower (unless one person moves fast) and can even come to standstill. Tips and directions: In the debriefing, you can focus on the constant movement in the exercised. How did this make people feel? Some people will even try to influence other people to move according to their wishes. This behavior often mirrors the behavior in normal work processes. When debriefing on leadership, emphasize the circle of influence people have. This exercise works best when focusing on your own influence by keeping in motion, instead of trying to influence others. The exercise works best when you allow people to talk, this way, social processes can be observed better. Form 2 or 3 circles, one less chair than there are participants and have someone standing in the middle and he defines criteria that if fullfilled, people switch chairs, something like: "Everyone who's been to Amsterdam, switch places." Have people change circles.

"basic 8 count game" have the students begin in a pose of their choice. Let them know that Lindsey goes first, Kaylie second, Susan third, and so on. They can free dance for 8

counts and then they must freeze in a pose of tehir choice while the next person free dances for 8 counts. I sometimes clap the 8 or count it or just do the 'one' and 'five' depending on their level of experience. Some twists on the 8 count game: For each pose, they must take up the negative space of another dancer. For each pose they must mirror another dancer. For each pose they must have physical contact with another dancer. To work on counting music, they must hold their pose with their eyes closed and only open them and begin dancing when they think it's their turn--lots of cheating on this one "negative space" ONe person poses at the center; person 2 poses in their negative space, person 3 poses in the negative space of person 1 and 2, etc. a twist: Have them do it without stopping, with a modern or lyrical song. This looks really cool. Warm-up lines - like follow the leader, the leader is in charge of warming up their "line" (35 students in each line). They can move around the room or stand/sit while stretching or warming up their body parts and the line follows them. Then I shout "rotate" and the next person in line is the new leader. Sometimes I will shout out what part then should be stretching to keep them on track. > Warm-up Improv - similar to above, just everyone improvs their own warm-up based on body parts the instructor says. Tell your dancers they should start each part with small movements and gradually get larger. > Energy Ball - In a circle, an "energy ball" (invisible) is passed from student to student. The ball can change size, weight so that each person passes it in a different way. Encourage students to pass it with something other than their hand. Try choosing a moving piece of music and asking them to dance the lyrics, or call out a color and they have to perform a movement that they associate with that color, this exercise also works with other words-call out a word (like ice cream!) and they have to interpret the word through dance. Let them walk around in the room. They should respond to the others. When someone starts to walk slowly, everyone needs to follow, etc. Write down words on cards. Create groups. Each group gets a card and needs to make a small choreo inspired by those words. No music. Words like hard, soft, strong, fast, one spot, flow, opposite, isolation, etc. Half of the class in standing, the other half is observing. Then you give the assignment: "Go to the floor, as slowly as you can, but in a steady tempo. Do not speed or slow down anywhere." This could take about 5 minutes. After that you ask the observers what they saw, discuss how they could see where the hard parts were. You change groups, and surprise the new standing group with the assignment: "Lay down, and get up as slowly....." They didn't expect that! They already thought about how they would go down.

I like to do this with my advanced kids every once in a while. I give them all a different pattern of movement. Like, one can only move on a diagonal. One can only move in circles. One has to zig-zag. One has to stay on the floor, etc. It's always a challenge for them, but they come up with such creative movement! -one dancer begins to improv in the middle, then another dancer, when something catches their eye, goes in the middle and uses pieces of #1's improv to improv herself, and so on we'd usually go to about 4 people and then start over - it should begin to look like a thread of theme