Saturday, November 8, 2008

Improv Everywhere In Berlin On Saturday

Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere was in Berlin today to visit a movie event and of course to carry out a mission!

Adam of That Queer Expatriate had found out about the mission and quite happily was going to be in town on this day, so he suggested that we get together for a little fun.

Alexanderplatz was the chosen location for the Berlin mission. Participants needed to download an Mp3 found here and follow the other simple instructions such as wear a red, yellow, blue or green shirt... have an umbrella... and have a balloon. Everyone started their player at exactly 2.30 and most people seemed to be synched together.

The mission itself was 45 minutes from start to finish. It seems that most of these events take place in a city park or something because in the beginning and the end the participants should be lying on the ground. Well, I just gotta tell you, I've seen what goes on at Alexanderplatz, and you weren't going to catch me lying on that nasty concrete Improv Everywhere - Mp3 Experiment - Berlin 2008around that fountain!

Anyone who has been in this famous city square knows that there are always MANY people meandering about, a good many of them tourists. I can just imagine the confusion they felt as they watched two hundred or so folks huddling together holding up umbrellas as though to shut out the sky, humming all the while.

Several of the confused souls actually approached me and inquired as to what the deal was. I think they came after me because I was certainly one of the oldest participants, and hey, I probably wasn't looking quite as crazy as the rest of the group.

We did several interesting things such as make human Tetris pieces, jump in the air in unison, high five non-participants, twirl umbrellas and of course the EPIC BATTLE! It was a balloon fight which pitted participants of different colored shirts against each other.

In the end as everyone was lying on the ground the voice on the recorder, "Steve" let us know that just as in real war, there are no winners. That was the most political statement of the entire event.

All in all, a very cool event and I'm extremely happy that I was finally feeling well enough to check it all out!

My photos, shush, don't tell anyone... we were supposed to be participating... not taking photos.

When they post official photos and video, I'll make a new posting.

Here you can see some of the past events and get an idea of what happened here in Berlin.

The Mp3 Experiment Tour from ImprovEverywhere on Vimeo.

UPDATE:
Enjoy video wrap up of the Improv Everywhere in Berlin here.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How very cool. I'm jealous.

Snooker said...

It really was cool!
I love living in Berlin... so many interesting things like this happening.

Anonymous said...

Just a quick heads up that we just launched the video of the Improv Everywhere MP3 Experiment in Berlin on our channel CLTR/CTRL:
http://tv.hobnox.com/#/en/CLTR-CTRL/Eye-Candy/55kdm

You can find the embed code at the bottom left of the navigation if you like.

Cheers, David / Hobnox

Anonymous said...

Excellent! I found out about it the day before, and sent the link to a bunch of friends living in Berlin. Sadly, I was heading from Hamburg to Hannover that weekend and couldn't participate, but I did one of their Mp3 Experiments in New York a few years back, and it was a total blast. I'm glad to hear that the Berlin version was just as great!