Get to know Cindy 2

Cindy Pittens: Improv isn’t for everybody, but actually it is

Cindy Pittens, a Dutch improviser who graced us with her presence and deeply transforming improv workshops here at Improteca, says improv is for everybody who wants to have fun with others, but it is also for those willing to go beyond their fears. Read on for the second instalment of an in-depth interview about her trajectory and about what may determine someone to start doing improv and let go of control.

Daniela Stoican: Cindy, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you first got into improvisation?
Cindy Pittens: I was a social worker, I did the education bachelor for social work and immediately after that I did two and a half years of theater school -  and it was mostly comedy - in between 24 and 26 years old and there we had improv class. Not short form, but theater improvisation and about how to use improvisation as a tool to make theater or to create characters rather than as a form of its own on stage.

DS: And have you been doing improv ever since?
Cindy: No, when I finished  theater school, I thought I would never ever ever do anything with theater again.
DS: Can I ask why?
Cindy: “I wasn’t ready for theater school to start with. The students were encouraged to really make theater from their core, from the pain that we have as human beings feel and it was too vulnerable for me. So I stopped doing theater from when I was 26 until I was about 30.
I was in an improv group and that scared the hell out of me for a year and a half, then I was in a Chekhov play, but left because it wasn’t me. Then I went back to another improv group, which is where I found my  freedom again, being the extrovert that I am with all the expression and intensity in and it was allowed.
When I was 35 I started teaching improv, first a beginner class for high schoolers. When they first asked me for an invoice, I realized I had to start a company.”

Cindy says she built her company in an improv way “ After step one there is step one.”
“Then I asked myself <<What is the obvious next step for me?>> And then I started building.”
She went to the Conference for Applied Improvisation in Paris and realized how huge improv can be, how many applications it can have.
Then she started teaching, using it in team building activities and connecting personal development with improvisation, which she says she loves to do.
“And now we are 8 years further since I started and it is my full-time job - I make a sustainable income from it.”
Cindy says corporate is the biggest segment of her business, but she also teaches theater improvisers. “From the art itself there is not really an income to be made.”

DS: What is the difference between how people respond in corporate team buildings and how they respond in leisure improv classes?
Cindy: “There’s a big difference - corporate people don’t normally ask for it and are more anxious and of course improv is not for everybody.”
However, most of the people [who do improv in corporate settings] end up really enjoying it - there is so much fun and lightheartedness, and people connecting, Cindy says.
“Improvisation has a 100% failure guarantee - you cannot do it without failing, which is in a way a freeing thing.
You get rid of the anxiety of the <<Oh, my God, I don’t know how to do it!>> and you are actually enjoying what you are doing in the moment.”

DS: And people don’t know that ahead of time, right?
Cindy:“No, they just experience it during the workshop. They start understanding it while they are doing it. And of course for everybody there are different boundaries.
But the exercises make it funny and you see people lose their masks, their hesitance, they trust their impulses more and in this way the team get to know each other much better because you just show yourself. You don’t have the time to do it correctly.”

DS: You said improv is not for everybody. Who is it for?
Cindy:

• First of all it’s for people who wanna have fun
• people who want to find a way to express themselves
• people who have theatrical ambitions
• people who want to collaborate better

“If you improvise together, you have to trust the other person. You also have to trust yourself. You have to be able to follow the other person in their impulses, their knowledge and their skills, so you need to be able to let go of control a little bit, but on the other hand the other person also trusts you in your skills, which makes you in a way responsible for your part so it asks of you to dare to make an impact.
You need to sometimes be bold or courageous in your moves, although          maybe you’re a little bit insecure, so it’s also for people who want to learn how to keep moving, how to interact with a difficult task or with other people, although they feel nervous or insecure - this is the perfect practice to explore that.”
Improv is the perfect tool to trigger the real you, Cindy says.

DS: How about people who are afraid of showing themselves?
Cindy: “That could be helpful. It can also be the people who don’t like it because it is too confrontational for them.
My experience is that if they are in a group that is slightly safe, a facilitator is able to adjust the exercises in a way that the group is safe enough, so that they can have the same experience in opening up. So I think it is in fact for everyone, but then you adjust the exercises.”

DS: How about a work environment where you don’t have good relationships between co-workers or with your boss?
Cindy: “I think there are many exercises that can open up the conversation, open people up to show a little bit more of themselves. If you don’t trust people, you would retract, right? You would stay away from them. Improv kinda forces you to trust people because you have to work together in improv. But it forces you with a big heart and a smile, right?” Cindy says and then goes on to explain:
“The good thing if you first don’t trust, but  then start doing stuff anyway, without trust, is you build trust and in improv you do it in a light-hearted way.”

Cindy has been part of a two-month cultural residency at Improteca theater in Bucharest, Romania, where she created several shows together with fellow residents Michalis Panagiotakis (Greece) and Matilda Lindström (Finland), as well as with top Romanian improvisers. The improv show that represented the culmination of her residency was called Mad World and was wildly successful. She plans to revive another show she performed at Improteca with Andrei Bratu and Michalis Panagiotakis, The Jukebox, and apply to international festivals with it.

Read the Romanian version right here!