Philosophy
“Everyone can act. Everyone can improvise. Anyone can learn to become stageworthy.” — Viola Spolin
Improvisation is by nature collaborative, in supporting each other and creating things together, spontaneously. Anyone can learn to improvise, in life and in countless artistic domains.
Improvisation can and should be initially taught as a general life and arts skill, with foundations in presence and empowerment, regardless whether the goal is on stage improv comedy or just better social skills. Only then should the “rules” of various methods of comedic improv be introduced.
Theatrical improvisation — impro or improv comedy — is the use of improvisation to create engaging and emotional spontaneous theatre that’s funny, and often with poignant social commentary, and functions as ongoing maintenance for your creative and present mind. Improv is not about being smart, clever or witty — comedy comes from acting out grounded truthful moments from life and theatre, and is the antithesis of stand–up comedy and yet funnier and more skilful.
Everyone can improvise, and everyone can learn improv comedy for the stage. We believe everyone should be given the opportunity to both learn and perform, regardless of skill, ability or experience level, in a fun and supportive environment, with highly knowledgable and experienced teachers.
Ethics and responsibility
- People aren’t products. We do not advertise our classes or products on services or social media platforms which are designed to make money from selling users and/or user information to third parties.
- Students aren’t advertising targets. We only send information regarding our core business of teaching improv. We do not advertise or promote third party products or services to our students or newsletter subscribers, and we do not cross promote other services or products not related directly to improv.
- Privacy is everything. We do not disclose information on our students and newsletter subscribers to any person or organisation outside of AOI staff, except where required by law. We only keep your contact information on hand so we can engage with you regarding our classes and in relation to any previous contact we’ve had with you.
- All of our staff are improvisors and are passionate about making the world a better place through the power of improv.
Values
- inclusivity — improvisation thrives on diversity, and as an organisation we value and encourage inclusivity and diversity within our students and staff, including diversities such as culture and race, particularly First Nations Australians, religion, age, disability, gender identity and sexual preference etc.
- equitability — all students are given equal attention in achieving the goals of our curriculum and classes
- contribution and access — all students are encouraged to contribute to our curricula and other programmes, giving them a sense of independence, a feeling of their own worth as human beings, and confidence in their ability to contribute in social, political and moral ways to the health and stability of our students and staff
- adaptivity — we are at the forefront of improvisation research, and regularly adapt our curricula and other programmes to improve student access to knowledge, skills and attitudes needed in our modern and complex world
- interaction — we interact with local schools and organisations, to contribute to the health and stability of people within our community, our students and staff