Looking for an emotional matching warm-up?  Try Carpool!

If we agree, we can just be; we don’t have to explain or defend.  Have fun just being emotional together, trusting that your commitment to the same emotion is all the context for your relationship that’s needed.

Performers are: David Adams, Guy Chapman, Patrice Deveaux, Micah Head, Alan Hopkinson, Nick Lawton, Megan Lemay, Jillian MacDougall, Tim Magier, Curtis Nunnally

CARPOOL (formerly Hitchhiker, but game is smoother when players assume characters know each other) – One player starts, driving a car, expressing a self-contained emotional perspective (“I love the South”).  A second player enters the scene, entering with their own emotional perspective (“The South scares me”).  The driver immediately embraces the new player’s perspective, and the two come into agreement, heightening the perspective they now share with additional details supporting that perspective (“Oh, my god, look at all the Confederate flags”).  A third player enters, entering the car with a new emotional perspective (“I think Mississippi’s beautiful”).  The driver and the second player immediately accept and embrace this new perspective.  Repeat with new players continuing to add in.

NOTE: It’s infinitely more fun when we assume we know each other than when we waste time getting to know one another. That said, we KNOW each other by our patterns of emotional reactions, so we can quickly elevate a scene where characters don’t know each other by boldly sharing our feelings.

Variations:

• Let the driver leave and have the car rotate around as more passengers are added.
• BUS STOP: Players mimic and heighten each other as they add themselves to a Bus Stop environment. Players can leave by way of a bus.
• ANY LOCATION: When each student enters that location, all the students already in that location adopt the emotional perspective of the joiner.
• CAR JACKER: For big groups, split in two. Have the groups replace each other en masse. See Pijor’s 101 Showcase for clarity:

Lessons:

• BEING AFFECTED IS AWESOME – allow yourself to change with another’s perspective. The bigger the emotion and the quicker the agreement the better.
• If we agree, we can just be; we don’t have to explain or defend.
• Trust that your commitment to the same emotion is all the context for your relationship that’s needed.