Hello!
Perhaps you’ve come across this post because of our podcast Liminal Passengers, which explores a surreal, improvisational, audio world. Aside from it being an audio art gallery, it has quite a few writing, performance, and improv techniques to try, one of them being Ekphrasis. Listen to Maggie introduce our pieces of Ekphrasia.
Ekphrasis means “Description” in Greek. An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art (PoetryFoundation.org). Here we improvise over, or about, paintings, pictures, sculptures, music, and even other poems.
Here are some exercises to pair with an artistic experience to help your storytelling abilities blossom. Do it with friends! Museums will never be the same again.
First, warm up all your senses with a sensory spiral.
Images/Paintings/Sculpture:
- Try our Weed set (Scene to Subject) with a painting. Paint the broad landscape, zoom in to a subject, and give them some thoughts or dialogue. Take it beyond the painting. Who is viewing it? What meaning does it all have?
- Monologue over it. Try first person, then second, then third. Or past, present, future. Or distinct styles (fast, slow, nervous, elated).
- Juxtapose: if the painting is “dark,” find the humor.
- Find “beats”: if the painting is very busy, explore a small area for a moment, then move on. Perhaps find a common theme throughout each area to return to.
- Have two people flow and stay in similar description, and every once in awhile, a third person inserts a new offer to for them to explore
- Abstracts: in a group of 4, in order and cycling through
- 1) person one makes sound of what they see (“splop splopppp”)
- 2) person two audio-describes a small aspect or layer (“little red globules dance across the canvas”)
- 3) person three adds meaning (“a quick energy makes this feel like fire”)
- 4) person 4 creates a line of narrative related to the offers (“the coal walker does a fine dance”)
- repeat until there is little left to describe and the story has been told
Music:
Warm up your A to C thinking so you are not trying to reenact the literal picture the music might create. Instead:
- let musical tone inspire your emotion for a scene to the music
- let the rhythm affect your phrasing
- Follow the “Abstract” method above, except for
- 1) person one compliments what they hear by singing with/to it, adding a musical layer
- 2) person two audio describes what they hear (“trumpets rage in loud crescendo!”)
- 3 & 4 remain same
- Read a piece of poetry to the music. Or better yet, something absurd, like the weather report, or your medication refill reminder. Perform the bejeezus out of it.