Improv
Unscripted performance of any sort, including music, theatre, dance, and other categories of art.
Theatre Improv
Oberlin is home or has been home to several improv troupes, including Primitive Streak (longform improv theater), the Sunshine Scouts (longform improv theater), Three Man (three-person longform improv) and the semi-improvised dramas Real World: Oberlin, Holy Virgin High, Standing in Stillwater, Last Exit in New Jersey, Boredom, and Day of the Night.
Contrast with sketch comedy, theatre.
Music Improv
Oberlin's Jazz Department is an obvious place to start, as jazz music is based upon improvisation. Also of note are various "free improv" communities that have sprung up at Oberlin over the years. Lengendarily simmering and ready to explode at any moment, those remembered by 2004 graduates were dangerous places to be, alienating to some, and not as "free" as they purported to be. A current improv community has a similar rap.
Music/Dance Improv
It is also worth mentioning combined music and dance improv projects that have happened at Oberlin. Ensemble 46, organized by Tatyana Tenenbaum '07, coached by Ross Feller and Nusha Martynuk, originally included Tenenbaum '07, Hannah Verrill Lucinda Segar, Sarah Hymanson, and Alesandra Sziba dancing, and Johnny Butler '06, Matt Nelson '06, Jake Wise '07, Andrei Pohorelski, and Josh Morris '07 playing music. The group lost Hymanson, Sziba, Butler, and Nelson in Fall 2006, and added Jordan Goldstein on saxophone.
Chris Aiken and Andre Gribou, distinguished dance and music improvisors, respectively, were brought to Oberlin over Winter Term 2007 and gave a Dance/Music Improvisation workshop. They were to be part of a larger improvisation symposium organized by Nusha Martynuk and Brian Alegant that never panned out.
Contact Improv
Dance form/process invented at Oberlin in the 1970's. It now has communities and is taught all around the country.
