Anti-Erasure
Erasure is the process of making individuals and communities invisible. Erasure is a process fueled by genocide, revisionist history, and indoctrination into supremacist cultures. Anti-Erasure actively opposes marginalization by recentering communities that have been oppressed, illuminating new ways of being, and normalizing conversations around money, race, sex, religion, and power.

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Flexible Pricing

All Bird City Improv classes are flex-priced, including scholarships and pay-what-you-can options. We believe in decreasing classist barriers to entry in the arts. No one should be denied the opportunity to create and commune because they don't have the cash. We don't believe students should compete for scholarships or resources. We believe in open access. 

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Resource Sharing
Bird City openly shares resources. We believe freely sharing knowledge, skills, and insight is necessary to create a thriving arts community.   

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Honoring Boundaries

Bird City believes that improvisers should play above their worry, but beneath their panic. Artmaking can be inspired and cathartic, but should not be triggering or traumatic. All students have a right to disengage from any activity, regardless of their reason. Students never need to explain a boundary and all boundaries will be honored.

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Spiritual Wellness
Bird City prioritizes mental and spiritual wellness. We welcome people as their whole selves. We believe that improvisers are not limited nor defined by mental illness. We also eschew the fetishization of the "tortured artist" and "mad genius" archetypes. We do not believe individuals need to suffer for their art. We believe art making should be tied to joy and healing. We openly discuss the importance of mental health and self care, holding space for individuals to process their experiences without  judgment, and providing resources for students who may be struggling. 

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TLGBQ+ Spaces
We welcome all gender expressions and orientations. We give students the opportunity to share their pronouns, if they wish. We eschew sexist and gendered stereotypes that exploit pain and struggle for laughter. 

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Accessibility

We welcome students who have disabilities, who are neurodivergent, or have other specific needs. We avoid ableist language and characterizations on and off stage. When needed, we adapt classes and activities to meet the needs of ours students and maximize participation. If you have a question about accessibility email birdcityimprov@gmail.com or call +1 (443) 379-4198. 

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Creative Aging

We welcome students of all ages, including older adult students. We believe that older adults make exceptional improvisers because they have a lifetime of experiences to draw upon. We believe younger students are just as capable and innovative as their elders, and that multigenerational improv is simply better improv.

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Multicultural Perspectives

In theatre and comedy, many narratives reinforce white normativity, a depiction of the world that normalizes white culture and upholds white supremacy, while alienating, exotifying, fetishizing, or exploiting BIPOC cultures. We are committed to creating spaces where a spectrum of narratives may be explored onstage and in our learning. We make sure to provide a diverse range of learning resources for students, while guiding them away from comedy that is racist, xenophobic, and bigoted. 

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Native Land Recognition

Every class begins with Native Land recognition, where we pay respect to the Indigenous Peoples who lived in the areas we now call home before settler colonialism and American genocide. Bird City Improv is based in Baltimore, which is the land of the Susquehannock, Piscataway, and Nentego tribes. We call these tribes by their names because we recognize that Indigenous People are not a monolith as our cultural mythology suggests. In fact, there are 573 tribal nations recognized by the United States government. To learn more about the history of the Native Land you live on click here.  

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Anti-Racist Affirmation
We acknowledge that the enslavement of African people and the continued oppression of their descendants has shaped the land on which we live. The history of slavery in America continues to harm our collective humanity, the Earth, and its biodiversity. We recognize that the US government, institutional greed, and individual biases informed by white supremacist ideologies are responsible for these continued acts of cruelty and self-annihilation.

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Environmental Justice

Bird City Improv is committed to raising awareness about and around climate change, crumbling bio-diversity, and humanitarian crises. Bird City Improv is an eco-friendly art practice with minimal environmental impact. Improv produces little to no waste because it only requires two chairs and an empty space. 

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Mindful Practices
Bird City Improv classes begin with mindfulness exercises, priming us to check in with ourselves, advocate for our needs, and listen our collaborators. We pay homage to the cultures and spiritual traditions that introduced mindful-based practices to us, primarily Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist cultures, from which many of our westernized practices are derived. 

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Applied Improvisation

Bird City Improv makes every attempt to highlight improv's applications to the real world. We believe improv can teach people to be better listeners and communicators, navigate conflict, facilitate deeper conversation, increase cultural competency, and self confidence. All of our classes feature elements of Applied Improvisation. 

Inclusive Language
We are committed to eliminating gendered language from our pedagogy, as well as language that reinforces problematic ways of thinking about mental health, coloniality, race, class, ability, and age. We are conscientious of how language reinforces systems of oppression and strive to create or adopt terminology that is progressive, honest, and true.

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Non-Hierarchical Collaboration
Bird City Improv divests from the notion that theatre must be created in a hierarchy,  where the director or teacher has final say in the creative process. Rather, Bird City Improv believes in non-hierarchical collaboration, where art is created democratically and by committee, where the ensemble has group ownership over what is created and authority is decentered. We facilitate this collaboration using peer-to-peer critical response processes, non-violent communication, and a mindset of affirmation and possibility. 

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Liberation Focused Improv

When performances address social justice themes, we take care to prioritize empathy and compassion. We want such performances to center the issue and speak truth to power. We strive to teach students the difference between theatre that "punches up" (attacks systems of oppression) vs. theatre that "punches down" (exploits trauma). We discuss narratives that reinforce oppression through ignorance, bias, microaggressions, and stereotyping. We discuss how humor can be used to reinforce oppression through emotional and gaslighting abuse. We teach students how to create improv through a values-based process. 

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Decentering Whiteness & Male Hegemony

Bird City Improv believes in sharing a history of improvisation and theatre that decenters whiteness and interrupts male hegemony. We do not believe a singular group can lay claim to improvisation; all cultures have their own improvisational processes and to ignore that truth is to perpetuate oppression. However, many schools and historical texts center white male contributions to the artform, ignoring or erasing contributions from women, Black people, Indigenous people, Asian people, and People of Color, TLGBQ+ people and their intersections. To combat cultural erasure and Eurocentric models of history, Bird City Improv takes the following actions: 

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• Defines improv as "finding potential in what is readily available." We believe this definition helps to include all improvisational methods regardless of culture, genre, medium, or style. 

• Acknowledges that all people improvise, intentionally or incidentally, everyday. 

• Acknowledges that theatre began in Africa along with civilization and the storytelling traditions of humanity's ancestors. 

• Acknowledges that gender has nothing to do with humor or theatrical ability. All people can be funny. All people have stories to tell.

• Acknowledges that contemporary improv comedy (i.e. long form and short form) was funded by the WPA, a socialist program from the Second New Deal that was established in 1935. 

• Acknowledges that that contemporary improv comedy began as a collaboration between three women: Neva Boyd, Viola Spolin, and Jane Adams with funding from the WPA.

• Eschews the history of improvisation that is recounted as a sea of white faces.

• Includes BIPOC artists in the history of theatrical improvisation.

• Includes discussions of musical forms of improvisation - like jazz, hip-hop, and dance - which are often omitted from improv history in lieu of theatrical styles. 

• Denounces problematic historical figures in the arts, particularly those that have been venerated and deified despite their harmful practices. Del Close is one such figure. 

• Acknowledges that minstrelsy was the first theatrical form and improvised style invented in the colonized United States. It popularized blackface and racial stereotyping - the traumatic legacy of which can still be felt in today's storytelling.

• Acknowledges the correlation between social justice and representation in the arts. The struggle for representation of marginalized communities and diverse narratives is paramount.  

• Avoids white normativity in scene work, discussion, and teacher feedback.  

• Includes diverse learning materials from a wide range of artists and scholars. 

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For information about diversity in improv history click here. If you'd like additional resources, please send us an email. 

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Intervention

In the event that a student engages in harmful or problematic behavior, Bird City Improv will directly address the issue. Bird City believes patient, values-based dialogue and non-violent communication can help students realize biases and problematic actions. However, if a student is unwilling to take accountability and change their behavior after the issue has been addressed, they will be removed in order to prevent and reduce harm in the community space. 

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Self-Accountability
We welcome feedback. We welcome suggestions, questions, and reports from any community members. Email birdcityimprov@gmail.com. If you would like to express a concern anonymously click here. We promise to listen to all feedback nondefensively with an open heart and mind, taking action when needed, and working to find a resolution through a restorative process. If we mess up, we apologize. If we were ignorant, we learn. If we can help, we will. 

 

Openness to Change

Bird City Improv is here to listen, adapt, and grow. If you have a suggestion or if you would like to report an instance of harassment, inequity, or injustice, please reach out. We treat such reporting with discretion and subsequent action will be informed by the reporter's wishes.

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Hiring Practices
Bird City Improv is small right now. We contract improvisers to teach and perform. When we do, we strive to hire a diverse range of artists who are experienced and embody our anti-oppressive values. 

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Resources

Want to learn more? Linked here are some resources for continued learning. They are not fully comprehensive nor exhaustive, but for us they were powerful resources for understanding anti-oppression as a creative process.