{"id":76575,"date":"2025-12-02T10:56:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T17:56:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=76575"},"modified":"2025-12-02T10:56:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T17:56:52","slug":"hon-improv-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/hon-improv-class\/","title":{"rendered":"Say \u2018yes, and\u2019 to all of life\u2019s little challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Going onstage and giving an improvised performance might sound scary, but NAU associate teaching professor <\/span><b><span data-contrast=\"none\">Rob Wallace<\/span><\/b><span data-contrast=\"none\"> thinks you should do it anyway\u2014whether you\u2019re an artist, an aspiring engineer or a future nurse. That\u2019s why he dreamed up the Honors College elective Performance in Practice: Improvisation, Music, Performance Art, and Beyond (HON 240), offered every spring semester.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cIn job interviews, they ask you all these weird questions because they want to see how you think in the moment,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cIf you can improvise\u2014take the skills and knowledge you already have and put those together to make something new\u2014that will help you regardless of what you do in life.\u201d<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">First conceived in 2020, Performance in Practice delves into the rich history of improv in the arts, politics, law, science, philosophy and religion through reading and discussion. Outside the seminar room, students create individual improv projects in the realms of speaking, poetry, music, theater and visual art, then they team up with one another to prepare for a semester-ending class performance. (The video above shows a few Spring 2025 students preparing for a performance that married improvised sound with a set of computer-generated visuals for an unpredictable multisensory experience.) Along the way, they receive sage advice from guest artists that change every year\u2014last spring, the guests were saxophonist Catherine Sikora and vocalist Eric Mingus.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"NAU Class Highlight: Improv\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_d8FdjtFISg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Wallace stressed that the course isn\u2019t just open to students majoring in music, theater and art. It\u2019s for anyone who wants to exercise their creative muscles, whether for the first time in years or the first time ever.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cLots of my students say stuff like, \u2018Oh, I used to write poetry, or I used to play guitar, but now that I\u2019m in college, I don\u2019t do that anymore,\u2019\u201d Wallace said. \u201cBut then they come into this class and realize, \u2018Wow, I can do that thing I thought I had to quit, plus just about anything else that\u2019s creative I can think of.\u2019\u201d<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">The main takeaway of the course\u2014that honing improvisational skills can improve anyone\u2019s life\u2014isn\u2019t just Wallace\u2019s opinion. It\u2019s scientific fact. Multiple studies show that trying improv can reduce social anxiety, increase creativity, improve well-being and expand our ability to tolerate uncertainty.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cIn Western culture, we feel like we\u2019ve failed if we go in not having prepared and having to improvise,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cBut I can guarantee you are going to have to improvise in a lot of moments when life throws surprises at you. If you can\u2019t figure out how to switch on a dime, you\u2019re not going to be successful.\u201d<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-56007\" src=\"http:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wordpresst\/uploads\/sites\/153\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/NAU_primary-281_3514.png\" alt=\"Northern Arizona University Logo\" width=\"134\" height=\"95\" srcset=\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/402\/2019\/06\/NAU_primary-281_3514.png 905w, https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/402\/2019\/06\/NAU_primary-281_3514-300x213.png 300w, https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/402\/2019\/06\/NAU_primary-281_3514-768x546.png 768w, https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/402\/2019\/06\/NAU_primary-281_3514-600x426.png 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 134px) 100vw, 134px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\"><br \/>\nJill Kimball | NAU Communications<br \/>\n(928) 523-2282 | <a href=\"mailto:jill.kimball@nau.edu\">jill.kimball@nau.edu<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"search-results-excerpt-link\" href=\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/hon-improv-class\/\">Going onstage and giving an improvised performance might sound scary, but NAU associate teaching professor Rob Wallace thinks you should do it anyway\u2014whether you\u2019re an artist, an aspiring engineer or a future nurse. That\u2019s why he dreamed up the Honors College elective Performance in Practice: Improvisation, Music, Performance Art, and Beyond (HON 240), offered every&hellip;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":76580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1829],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-edition"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}