In The Spotlight: Bright SuWritten by Alex Leviton – This article is from AIM Issue 1 (released December 2022). Alex Leviton on Bright SuBright Su, the Applied Improvisation Magazine’s Editor, has been both shaped by and shaping Applied Improvisation for over a decade. A supply chain professional and consultant based in San Jose, CA, Bright is also an improv teacher and the Chinese language pioneering author of Ji Xing Xi Ju (Improvisational Theatre, 2020), the first complete book about improv ever written in Chinese. His book has been endorsed by leading improvisation practitioners, including at Second City and Stanford (where Bright was a teaching assistant for the renowned teacher Patricia Madson). After moving from China to the US in 2001 and receiving his MBA from the University of Tennessee in 2002, Bright Su discovered improv in 2008. He began bringing it into the companies in which he worked, with great results. In 2015, he began teaching improv whenever he was back in China, and pivoted to online teaching in 2020 through his organization, Bright Improv. Improvisation changed not only his personal and work life, but his spiritual, cultural and philosophical practices as well. While Applied Improvisation grew slowly over decades in the US out of theater and comedy, “In China, improv and AI have developed almost hand-in-hand,” says Bright. Bright envisions an exchange between Chinese culture and Western-style improv that would benefit both worlds, such as more English-language tools used in Chinese AI, including debrief techniques and specialties (like medical Improvisation). At the same time, he’d also like to see Chinese traditional cultural practices incorporated into AI, such as mindful walking from Zen or breathwork from Taoism. For example, he incorporates rituals (one of Confucius’ key teachings) in The Mirror Game by having participants bring their hands together and breathe in deeply three times in the beginning of the exercise, and bowing with a moment of silence to honor each other at the end. These practices are why “Improvisation is Zen in a Western context.” (See also the full article in this issue). Bright says. “Listen and observe, be aware mindfully, be here and now.” Bright also sees Improvisation as similar to Tao. In Improvisation our entire world is based on the principle of Yes, And... The correlate in the Tao, Bright says, is Yes = Yin (passive, acceptive, shadow, empathetic, feminine) and And = Yang (active, providing, shine, determinative, masculine).
About this article:Here’s the first AIM Spotlight column, in which three Applied Improvisation professionals interview one another about their work. Alex Leviton interviewed Bright Su; Bright interviewed Jackie Gnepp, and Jackie interviewed Alex. (Read more from our magazine issues: click here to access our article database.) (Last Updated: Thursday, February 5th, 2026) |