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The workshop began with traditional soccer and “capture the flag” – games that are familiar to most and easily modified. By altering the rules so teams ran backwards during soccer or had to tag opponents with a body part other than their hand during “capture the flag”; the process of playing each game changed for each player. After the games, both teams would convene and reflect on their experiences and difficulties. For all involved this allowed the day’s events to become multi-dimensional, creating new connections between the ideas of “making sport” and “making art” that participants may not have recognized before.
After warming up with the first two, attendees split into groups of four and five to create new games of their own. Interestingly, the younger participants quickly begin moving around and physically working together while the older groups remained more focused on discussing rules and technicalities. Two of the games created were “Airball”, where players worked to keep an exercise ball up in the air for as long as possible, and “Cerebral Amoeba”, a form of communal tag that had players yell out something they had in common with the person they were trying capture and enlist. Though slightly chaotic, these games allowed the workshop to move beyond known sports, and into a more collective, artistic experiment.
The day ended with a few rounds of The Federation’s namesake game – Circle Rules Football. The game, (which is described in detail here), was originally conceived by Greg Manley as an experimental theater project at NYU, and has now become the common thread between their workshops and travels. Ending the experience with a game that was being taught to everyone allowed everything learned in prior exercises to culminate with the participation in this ongoing large and expansive project.
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Circle Rules @ The Reverse Ark Schoolhouse
The Contemporary Museum
100 West Centre Street
Baltimore, Maryland
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