ICEBREAKERS & STARTERS
A playful approach to social interaction
ICEBREAKERS & ICE BREAKERS
Being part of a group can be a great experience. It is fantastic when all members of a group contribute to achieving a common goal. When the time you spend together just flies by, the atmosphere is good and everyones spirits are high.
WHAT IS AN ICE BREAKER?
Icebreakers are games and exercises that break the ice and bring people of all ages closer together. Community, personal development, presence, creativity and curiosity are strengthened when we put ourselves and each other at risk - on ice - with icebreakers as a playful setting. Music and movement are a natural part of many of the exercises, but the central thing for all icebreakers is the meeting between individual and community. The contact between each other and the understanding of the individual's role in the community.
HOW DO THEY WORK?
Icebreakers create an opportunity for all group members to welcome and introduce each other, make eye contact, learn names, shake hands and create a comfortable atmosphere in a playful way. The exercises emphasize the importance of each group member and shed light on the group's differences and similarities. Through icebreakers, the participants get to know each other better by working in pairs, in smaller groups and as a whole. The group members solve small tasks and collaborate to find and develop new ideas in an informal way. Icebreakers are effective because, with their playful nature, they create a setting where you can, in a fun way, escape the role you would normally take in a group. A person who is not used to coming forward and expressing his opinion or taking a leadership role can take control in the game and be seen and heard. Strong leaders and people who often take the lead get the opportunity to take a step back, listen, follow and support the other group members, all the while seeing new perspectives for themselves and experiencing the others in the group stepping into character.
WHY ARE THEY NECESSARY?
A good first impression and a good start are crucial for the establishment of a positive sense of community in a group, and this promotes good working relationships. A playful approach is an important element in creativity, and if ideas are to run freely, it requires the courage to make mistakes. Trust, team spirit and mutual respect are the soil that forms the fertile ground for new ideas to emerge and develop. In some groups, the participants already know each other well in advance. In other contexts, a degree of uncertainty can be detected in the meeting between people who do not know each other. Some participants may be hesitant to solve the task at hand, while others are bubbling over with ideas and are eager to get started. Still others may be preoccupied with extraneous circumstances unrelated to the project, and this may make them tired or unfocused. Icebreakers enable groups to establish a common footing and a common focus before tackling the days other tasks.
WHERE DO THEY COME FROM?
Over the past fifteen years, we have provided icebreakers to many different kinds of groups. In our first book we collected a lot of the best icebreakers we knew and in the years since the publication of 'ICEBREAKERS - A playful approach to group dynamics' we have traveled, sung concerts and taught in large parts of the world and gathered new icebreakers from near and far Remove. We think of it as a kind of souvenir from all the places and people we have met on our way, and we look forward to sharing them with you who read our books.
MUSIC, MOVEMENT AND FLOW
Music, rhythms and dance are activities that require you to be on the same wavelength and thus help to establish contact, cooperation and community. Building a musical groove is similar in many ways to building a machine. Each part of the groove has a function and is an important cog in the machinery. In order to function, everyone in the interaction must understand and be able to perform their own role, but also be able to work together crosswise as a unified organism. When we play music or sing together, we follow the same tempo, feel the same mood and are all part of the same soundscape. When the music is right, we can get into a state where we are equal parts excited, calm and focused. You have the feeling that 'it's running', 'it goes like a breeze', 'you forget the time' and 'you can hardly stop again'. You can also call it being in flow. We find that with the help of music and icebreakers, you can train the ability to get into flow, and thus make it easier to find the feeling of flow in other contexts. When you are in flow, you also feel drive and motivation and job satisfaction. And it doesn't matter whether you are young or old. Where many experience the musical flow most strongly is when we sing. In the joint song we meet ourselves and each other and feel that we are part of something bigger. Through a combination of text, melody and rhythm, we can get in touch with an undercurrent of emotion that connects us with the other singers in the choir. The result is a sense of harmony and union. This is why musical icebreakers are particularly effective in bringing people closer together.
WHO ARE WE?
Kristoffer Fynbo Thorning
Kristoffer Fynbo Thorning is a professional singer, high school teacher and technology enthusiast. He is trained as a soloist in vocal management from the Jutland Conservatory of Music, specializing in electronic voices, and works daily at Brandbjerg College. Kristoffer is known in the international choral and vocal music scene for his pioneering approach to ecapella (electronic a cappella music), his latest technological toys on stage and his songwriting in the electronic vocal group Postyr. He has more than 15 years of experience teaching choirs and vocal groups with singers at both amateur and professional level, as well as with performance and icebreakers. Kristoffer loves to get involved in new musical projects and works, among other things, in the intersection between electronic music and classical choral singing, sound and video installations and larger concert productions involving many vocal artists from different traditions and cultures. Kristoffer is a board member of the Aarhus Vocal Festival and a keen lecturer on song and community. The focal point in Kristoffer's approach to warming up is empathy, contemplation and humour. www.stoffert.dk
Tine Fris-Ronsfeld
Tine Fris-Ronsfeld is a professional singer, composer, arranger and choir director. She has a degree from the Jutland Conservatory of Music with a specialization in rhythmic singing and a trained solo conductor in rhythmic choral conducting with a specialization in timbre and harmony. Tine is co-conductor of Vocal Line, conductor of Lyt and singer in Postyr. In the international choral and vocal music community, she is known as a passionate singer, vocal coach and conductor and for her innovative choral arrangements. She writes for leading Danish choirs such as Vocal Line, Syng Selected and Lyt and is known for her catchy compositions for Postyr. Tine has more than 20 years of experience teaching soloists, choirs and vocal groups at all levels in Denmark, Europe, the USA and Asia. Tine has published the handbooks on icebreakers and warming up, a large number of albums and choral sheet music. Tine is also frontwoman for the Aarhus Vocal Festival, a member of the Contemporary A Cappella Society of Americas Advisory Board and the European Choral Associations think tank. Joy of singing, trust and learning are key words in Tines approach to warm-up. www.tinefris-ronsfeld.com
Sin(g)ergy Publishing
In 2014, the two of us, Tine and Kristoffer, started the micro-publisher Postyr Experience, which has now changed its name to Singergy Publishing I/S. It started with a long conversation over a cup of coffee in a café in Aarhus, about how nice it would be to have a collection of exercises for our own practice as teachers and workshop holders. Since then, the publisher has produced more than 10 different publications in 4 different languages. In parallel with our other work and activities, we publish and manage the various book publications ourselves. They all have a clear focus on communication, accessibility and community and deal in one way or another with learning and flow through music, song and movement. The books are aimed at anyone who teaches music and anyone who works with groups. It can be, for example, music teachers, singing teachers and choir directors and others who work in the creative and creative professions such as dancers and actors. But it can also be a wider group of primary and secondary school teachers who need brain-breaks and a good atmosphere in their classrooms and trainers in sports, social workers and integration workers who need to create a strong community based on security, trust and curiosity. It can also be managers and team builders who focus on creating workplaces where there is team spirit, psychological security and job satisfaction in everyday life and in connection with change processes and the development of new ideas and concepts. 'Warm up' is published by Singergy Publisning and supported by the Korsangernes Fællesråd, Brandbjerg Højskole and the Statens Kunstfond, and the publisher collaborates on other publications with the French choir organization Cepravoi and the Irish choir organization Sing Ireland.
Newsletter
Here you can sign up to our Danish mailing list and receive videos and ideas on how to break the ice. Then we can send you information about warm-up exercises, activities and good ideas for working with singing and communities approximately once a month. Sign up for our newsletter and receive a free extract of the book 'Warming up'