exercise · all tools
Reverse Chair Dance
Depth · what it can open●●○○2 — reflective
Holding · facilitation2 — facilitator
Trust · group readiness★★some
Disclosure · what is sharednone
Musical chairs inverted: when the music stops, the player without a chair has to get their feet off the ground some other way. Chairs keep being removed, so by the end everyone is climbing onto and clinging to each other. The source insists the facilitator not side-coach — the group has to solve it.
Hold with care
- The source's own warning: chairs have been known to collapse under the weight of ten players
- The endgame is a pile of people climbing on each other and on furniture — the highest-contact position in this batch and a real fall risk
- Body size, strength and mobility differences decide who ends up carrying whom
Practical
- Time
- — min
- Group
- ?–∞ · large-group
- Settings
- in-person
- Materials
- Sturdy chairs, one fewer than players and reducing; music
- Mechanisms
- behavioral-rehearsal, somatic-awareness
- Change scope
- state · repeatable
Instructions
- Where
- improvencyclopedia.org/games/Reverse_Chair_Dance.html — Improv Encyclopedia, open
- Availability
- Open online — published at the link, free to read
Source link checked 1 Sep 2026 — reachable
This directory describes and points home; the instructions stay with the people who made them.
Origin
Unattributed; compiled by Improv Encyclopedia — Improvisational theatre
In this directory via Improv Encyclopedia
status: checked · added 2026-08-31