Pierpaolo Buzza is a professional improviser, director, author and actor from Italy, currently based in Belgium. He performs, teaches and directs theatre (scripted and unscripted) at all levels. He has been doing this job since 2006, creating and playing formats of all kinds: from short form games to dramatic long form, and everything in between.

He is or has been a playwright, stand up comedian, sketch writer, radio author, and math teacher, but that’s completely another story.

When he’s not in Belgium, he’s teaching and performing Improv around the world.
He has a portrait in his attic that gets old in his place.

pierpaolo@improbrussels.com

Desi is a professional actress and improviser, trianed in different techniques such as Stanislavski, Meisner, Chekhov, Laban and many others. ​
Improv is her biggest passion and she had her own duoprov - “The Sudden Knot” and a troup called “Loophole Improv”

She is an acting/improv trainer and performer for Impro Brussels, Queen City Comedy, Highwire Improv, The Bridge Theatre, Brussels Shakespeare Society and Cultural Creative Corner.​

Desi never stops learning from other professionals and developing her onstage and offstage skills. Her new passions are piano and trumpet playing and singing.

desi@improbrussels.com

Gabriele Tallone is still claiming to be in his 20s (just). He was only a teenager when he started working as a handyman in a theatre in Italy, and since then he has been addicted to drama – on and off stage. He discovered improvisational theatre in Impro Brussels, which quickly became his greatest passion. You can find him at most improv workshops and shows in the capital of Europe.

During the day Gabriele loves talking about politics to anyone who will listen. He is a fan of folk music and good movies. He has recently started going to the gym, after being compared to a Chupa Chups, in the hope of making his head look smaller. When not on stage with Impro Brussels, you can find him here.

gabriele@improbrussels.com

Discovering theatre at 14 really helped Laurie to survive her teenage years in South-West France. She spent 7 years exploring it before joining her first improv team in 2012 in Bordeaux, marking the start of an addiction! She then moved to Bruges and created and taught the first College of Europe Improv team. In Brussels she practiced and taught shortform improv at Impr’Os and joined VertigÔ to focus more on freeform and longform format and perform in international festivals.

She also joined “Voyage” to practice narrative story improv with Patrick Spadrille and was regularly performed in the show “A table” at l’Improviste, rediscovering the pleasure of a more theatre-like way of acting. She also tried theatre in Spanish for a year, because why not. 

For Laurie, acting is like breathing and she loves to unplug her brain, which tends never to leave her alone. Today, she is exploring how to use improv to promote social bond, cultural diversity and boost people self-esteem with the association ‘Atlas, impros du monde’ and DoucheFlux asbl.

She is regularly on stage at l'Improviste and Le Trac for various shows (Love etc, Confidence, 30 impros chrono, VertigÔ) and with Art& faq for young audience shows in Wallonia. 

laurie@improbrussels.com

My very first improv class was way back in 2001 and I still remember driving home that first evening with the feeling 'This is it'. What followed can not be better described as a rollercoaster of happiness. I took all the courses I could find, went to festivals, became part of a group, started my own and another and I started teaching as of 2005 and so coaching groups in Belgium and Holland, I (co)organised improv festivals. I was asked to be a spokesperson for amateur improv theatre within Opendoek, the umbrella organisation for amateur performing arts in Flanders. I also discovered the world of scripted theatre.
And last but not least I'm trying to write the history of Improv in Flanders and Brussels (only the English part) and regarding the latter, I'm proud to be part of this history in Brussels!
Where else to find me: Noevoo-T (coaching, AIN, art project ET TRANGER)
Meeza Longform Impro (co-founder/player)
Wildemonie (player)
Guest player and/or light improvisor for SwiepLight
improvisor for RIOT

frank@improbrussels.com

Justine is the social media sorceress of our school. When she is not busy conjuring up puns and hashtags, she is probably improvising her way through life's little hiccups (like accidentally, just as a theoretical example of course, liking our own content). Armed with a coffee in one hand and her magic wand, erh I mean... phone, in the other, Justine makes sure our feeds are always on point.

Justine has been a student at Impro Brussels for more than two years now. She came out of curiosity, she stayed for the people, the jokes and the many memorable moments. She is also part of the Brussels Shuffle organising team.

Justine pursues many other passions, such as feminist activism, yoga, reading good books, playing board games...

Follow us to witness her wizardry in action!

justine@improbrussels.com

Simone has been doing theatre for most of her life, and has trained as an actor, director and scriptwriter. She studied theatre in Malta and then specialised in Shakespeare when she did an MFA in Staging Shakespeare at the University of Exeter. She is also an Intimacy Director certified with the ISS (Intimacy for Stage and Screen).

She started doing improvisation as a performance art in its own right in Brussels, where she attended frequent workshops and is one of the founding members of the English-language, Brussels-based improv troupe The Ghost Sheep. She is also a member of the improv duo Invisible Women and the Mediterranean improv project, Sabir. She has used the pandemic to do improv online with global teams and is now part of Queen City Comedy’s Global Improv Project (performing with Close Distance) as well as the all-women troupe Don’t Mess and international troupe DNA Dude.tte.s. When travelling was possible she enjoyed participating in numerous international improvisation festivals and taught at the Dramatic Improv Festival in Chicago. She gives online and in-presence improv workshops, focusing mainly on grounded improv and intimacy.

Her theatre credits include Dr. Martha Livingstone in Agnes of God and Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible and she has performed in several Shakespeare plays, including The Merry Wives of Windsor as part of The Show Must Go Online in 2020. Her play The Garden won the Best Script award at the MADC’s One-Act Play Festival in 2019.

ellusim@hotmail.com

Penguins look cute and clumsy, but really, they’re very agile. Have you ever seen them underwater? They chase fish! Pure metaphor for improvisation.

Penguins have one of the strongest sense of community of all the animal kingdom. To survive the freezing winds of the winter in Antartica, they form a circle, all facing inwards. Those closer to the center are warm, those on the edges get all the wind on their back; in order to protect everyone, there is a slow “current of penguins” costantly pushing towards the center those on the edge, and vice versa. Which is another great metaphor for improvisation.

There are 17 species of penguins, all different, but associated by a common concept of Penguinitude. Just like the improvisers!

Some penguins, after years of trial and error, actually manage to fly for small distances*

When you put together the Chinese ideograms for “goose” and for “business”, you get the word “penguin”. Which is kind of funny, if you take a second to think of a goose in business.

Penguins remain faithful to their spouse until the penguin chick is old enough to afford their own rent.

[* I just made this up, but wouldn’t it be cool if they did?]

info@improbrussels.com