2nd
Guest Writer: Jeroen Van Dyck (Antwerp)
Jeroen Van Dyck has been the coordinator for the Belgian Improv League (www.bil.be) since 2007.
Hate to break the news to you guys, but I am not an improviser. I have never been on stage and do not plan to ever get on there. I work for BIL (Belgian Improv League) and my job description is basically to do everything but be on stage. So, writing for this blog was a bit daunting as I do not have real insights to share in how to play improv, how to grow as an improviser, and so on… So what the hell am I going to talk about?
Maybe how it all began? I started out with BIL just over 4 years ago. They needed a coordinator and I needed a different job. At that time I was sales representative for a company that sold photo frames and designer furniture. About 7 years before that, me and some friends in Antwerp started organizing all kinds of events: music, theatre, literature, but also a lot of stand-up comedy. I wrote my thesis in university about stand-up, so I was into that a lot at that time (and I still am, I confess). BIL was the headliner at our first big event (900-seat venue in Antwerp). 7 years later, I sit down for the interview for the job. It was supposed to last about 30 minutes, but I ended up spending nearly two hours with the two guys I have since come to know a lot better. They had questions for me that I couldn’t have prepared for in a million years. So I improvised.
Improv was, at that moment, a pretty blank page for me. I had seen BIL twice. There used to be a TV show here with improv in the 90’s and I had seen some bits of shows like Whose Line is it Anyway, etc. But I had never seen an impro-match. That’s the format our company plays in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), by the way. Our opening match that season was in Antwerp, in a venue that holds about 500 seats, and it’s mostly sold out. I can tell you, If you have never seen an improv match like that and have to organize the whole shebang, it is slightly scary. By now, it’s close to routine, but back then… The ice-hockey setting, the outfits, the technical part of the show, the line-up with almost 15 improvisers, staff, musician… You can plan all you want, but stuff is always bound to go wrong in such a complex set-up. Bookings lost, broken microphones, a weird smell just under the main seating area, a lost child wandering around in that same seating area during the show… All true examples, by the way. So you improvise.
Next to shows in the match-format, all our other activities are set up to pay for the touring of these shows. For example, we run our own three-year Academy and do open workshops for beginners. We also work for the corporate world quite often, playing shows at personnel parties, giving workshops or trainings to managers, hosting as special characters at fairs, seminars… I handle all bookings for these things and do all the preliminary work so our actors/improvisers just need to be creative. Now, you may not realize this about yourselves, my dear improvisers, but you are not the easiest lot to work with. And, as you will acknowledge for sure: neither is the corporate world, but in a different way. Getting those two worlds to match is one of my main daily occupations. Things go wrong all the time: people get ill, companies change their ideas about something at the last moment, wrong briefings are given because some intern messed up and now your actors are one hour away from where they should be 15 minutes before the start of something… Funny stuff in hindsight, but at the time… However, you always need a solution to an uncommon problem. And so you improvise.
You can probably see the theme there. I am not an improviser, but I improvise all the time. I find solutions backstage, like you guys find solutions on stage. I try to make the setting predictable and comfortable, so you can find a way to do something unexpected. Improvisation to me is more than a theatrical form; it is a set of skills, attitudes and ways of thinking that is useful in any situation. It is a way of life: keeping cool, trusting your gut feeling (and knowing when you can and when you can’t), thinking creatively about whatever problem you encounter and most of all, not being afraid of making a mistake. In the end, there are no real mistakes to make unless you’re a surgeon or something like that. So, in everyday life, don’t be afraid to improvise!
It’s a funny business I rolled into. The hours, the pay, the job security,… none of them are great. But I love my job. Because I get to work with people with a passion. Because I get to look for solutions and there is never a clear-cut right answer, but always many possible ways to approach a problem. Because I never know what the next day is going to have in store for me. Because I’m never 100% sure that everything will be going right. But then, I can always improvise. Just, never on stage…
Previous guests: Remy Bertrand, Caspar Shjelbred, Sean Michaels, Kareem Badr, RobYn Slade, Ian Parizot, Rachel Klein, Dave Morris, Alex Wlasenko, From the old blog
