Circle Rules Football
publicity kit
THE MISSION:
Circle Rules Football is a new team sport with an ever
growing player base and vast potential. We are seeking partners to develop our cultural and athletic
prowess into an international league.
CIRCLE RULES FOOTBALL was developed in the
fall of 2006 as a Senior Independent Project at
New York University’s Experimental Theater Wing.
It was created by Gregory Manley with the help of
Christie Correa, Benjamin Forester, Alexia
Rassmussen, Scott Riehs, and Elizabeth Sharts.
The sport premiered to the public on December
2nd and 3rd, 2006 at the ConEdison field on East
16th St. and Avenue C in Manhattan, NY. After its
initial premier, regular games began in the Long
Meadow of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park where they
remain a weekly occurrence from March to
December.
Simple to construct, easy to learn, and exciting to
play, the sport has grown quickly in a short time.
Since its inception, circle rules has garnered
extensive press coverage and accolades,
appearing in Good Morning America, The New
York Times, WIRED Magazine, The London
Evening
Standard, and more. It has been played by
thousands of people across the world without any
outside marketing or investment. New York City
has a league of its own and several other cities are
eager to compete. It’s time to streamline our
efforts and aim for something bigger.
The NYC season runs from April to August, with
games, tournaments, and celebrations in Brooklyn’s most
popular parks all Summer Long.
Beyond the city, Circle Rules Football has spread to more
than 100 schools and fields around the country and is
growing rapidly abroad, with regular games hosted in Canada,
England, and Brazil
Our players are widely recognized trend setters and
innovators, representing institutions on the cutting edge of
visual art, fitness, social change, game design, and pop culture.
THE GAME
Circle Rules Football is played on a circular
field with one goal in the center. One
team scores through one direction, the
other through the opposite direction. The
gameball is a customized 50cm exercise
ball. Players touch the ball with any part of
their body, combining techniques of soccer,
basketball, volleyball, and some unique ball
handling skills. Surrounding the goal is an 8
meter circle called the Key. Each team has
one goalkeeper, the only player permitted
inside the key. Goalies have full contact with
each other inside the key, but no striking is
allowed. Officially, a full length game lasts
four, 15 minute periods with 6 players to a
team.
Winning more players and accolades at every
event we’ve attended, Circle Rules Football
has come to represent a growing movement
in alternative sports. It’s a strange cultural
responsibility, and we take it pretty seriously.
The Playbook:
We will work closely with you to design a business model that reflects our mutual goals. A philosophy of good sportsmanship and
teamwork is paramount to every decision we make, so once you’ve
decided to work with us, we can tailor opportunities to your needs.
Encouraging players to take the next step can be hard, but as soon
as they step, running comes easy.
We’re extremely grateful for your consideration and we look forward
to working with you soon.
Greg Manley - Founder
Featured By:
The New York Times
Good Morning America
“In the Beginning, there was Abner Doubleday. He gave us Baseball,
and it was good. Dr. James Naismith? He gave us Basketball... and
it was good. But now there’s 24 year old Greg Manley. He’s given us
Circle Rules Football. And it is AWESOME.”
-John Berman
Good Morning America
East Bay Express
ESPN
WIRED
LXTV
Four Four Two (UK)
Innovation Stuntmen (Germany)
Venue (UK)
London Evening Standard (UK)
Lugar Incomum (Brazil)
Wall Street Journal
Altoids
Bear Naked
Brokelyn
Huffington Post
“Now, thanks to one creative New Yorker, there’s
a new sport for anyone
who’s dared to dream of
hoofing that exercise ball
across the gym — and it’s
quickly commanding a
following in London, as
twentysomethings put
down their fixed-gear
bikes to chase a ball
around a circular playing
field.”
“Every sports fan lives for the drama and theatricality
of sport. We wear memorabilia, we chant using call and
response, we recite famous speeches, we in the end
are emotionally connected to our athletes, and teams.
However, what happens when “the piece of theater”
becomes “a real sport”?
Greg Manley has been figuring this part out since the
first Circle Rules Football Game was ever played.”
-Eugene Michael Santiago
Huffington Post
-Ben Bryant
London Evening Standard
L Magazine
LunchNYC
WCMF - The Break Room
Time Out New York
Radar Redux
New York Press
Good Magazine
And More...
“It’s accessible to anybody. It’s accessible at varying levels of athleticism and experience. It
defines a new set of skills that anybody can pick up relatively quickly. And those are the qualities of a good game.”
-Adam nelson, founder & game designer: Obscure Games Pittsburgh
Selected Press
To watch full videos, please visit
www.circlerulesfederation.com/press
Captains
Greg Manley - Commissioner
Scott Riehs
Since Inventing Circle Rules Football
in 2006, Greg has been interviewed by
every major media publication about
Circle Rules Football. He has also
pioneered the development of Sports
Invention education, a P.E. program
fused with critical game design. He was
a featured speaker at the 2010 BOOST
and he continues to oversee the development of Circle Rules Football across
the world.
He holds a BFA from NYU
Scott has worked with Circle Rules
Football since it was first developed
and served as an integral part of the
sport’s development, documentation,
and expansion. He is currently pursuing
an MFA in film production at
Columbia University
Andrew Butler
Matt Shroyer
Andrew Butler is a performer and
writer with several theater companies
in NYC. He was the first ambassador
for Circle Rules Football, bringing the
sport international attention in Prague.
Andrew teaches performance development with a number of schools and
institutions in New York City. He is a
graduate of the Experimental Theater
Wing at NYU
Matt has been playing and coaching
circle rules football since 2007. He is
the co-author of the 2010-2013 Official rulebooks, and captian of the New
York City regional team. Outside of
the Federation, Matt is an attorney.
Circle Rules Federation
4132 Gilbert St.
Oakland, CA, 94611
www.circlerulesfederation.com
Greg Manley-510 225 5221
[email protected]
With Games They Invent, Artists Unleash the Athlete Within - NYTimes.com
1 of 5
HOME PAGE
TODAY'S PAPER
VIDEO
MOST POPULAR
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/fashion/17games.html?_r=0
Subscribe: Digital / Home Delivery Log In Register Now
TIMES TOPICS
Search All NYTimes.com
WORLD
U.S.
N.Y. / REGION
BUSINESS
TECHNOLOGY
FASHION & STYLE
SCIENCE
DINING & WINE
HEALTH
HOME & GARDEN
SPORTS
OPINION
ARTS
WEDDINGS/CELEBRATIONS
STYLE
T MAGAZINE
TRAVEL
JOBS
REAL ESTATE
AUTOS
GLOBAL STYLE
More Articles in Fashion & Style »
MOST
Robert Stolarik for The New York Times
FIELD DRAMA A circle rules football game recently in Brooklyn.
By ALEX WILLIAMS
Published: May 15, 2009
TWITTER
A giant rubber Pilates ball soared high in the air at Prospect Park in
Brooklyn, while below it, actors and artists traded body-checks and
elbow jabs.
Multimedia
A scrum of a dozen were playing a
freeform sport called circle rules
LINKEDIN
SIGN IN TO E-MAIL
PRINT
SINGLE PAGE
REPRINTS
SHARE
6/25/2013 1:12 PM
With Games They Invent, Artists Unleash the Athlete Within - NYTimes.com
2 of 5
Video: Circle Football
Video: Wffling Hurling
Institute for Aesthletics
American Viking Ball
League
football. The point of the game — 30
percent soccer, 20 percent rugby, the
rest pure Dada — was to pound the
ball through a single, soccer-style
goal that sat, like an object of Druidic devotion, at the
center of a ring of orange pylons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/fashion/17games.html?_r=0
POPULAR
E-MAILED
BLOGGED
SEARCHED
VIEWED
1. DealBook: Mass Layoffs at a Top-Flight Law Firm
2. Well: Steps for More, and Better, Sleep
One player punched the ball with his fist. Hey, hands on
that guy! Wait, hands are allowed. So are shins, chests,
forearms and — ouch — faces, apparently.
3. Editorial | Sunday Observer: The Decline and Fall of
the English Major
As the match raged on last Sunday, players dribbled the
giant ball awkwardly on the turf as if it were a basketball
borrowed from Claes Oldenburg’s garage. At one point,
the goalie for each team wrestled each other to the turf
Greco-Roman style beneath the crossbar, while a player
on the wing swatted the huge ball violently onto a
blanket far from the field of play, where a young couple
were sunning themselves with their toddler son. Out of
bounds!
6. Well: Really? The Claim: Taking a Walk After a Meal
Aids Digestion
4. Well: The Rise of the Minimalist Workout
5. FRANK BRUNI: Paula’s Worst Ingredients
7. The TV Watch: The World Turns for Mad Men and
Women
8. Op-Ed Contributor: Big Law’s Troubling Trajectory
9. If Jack Daniels Were a Beekeeper
10. Op-Ed Contributor: The Future of Fair Labor
Go to Complete List »
Wait, there are no boundaries.
It’s art, get it?
Photographs by Robert Stolarik for The New
York Times
BRING YOUR GAME Greg Manley,
top, refereed a game of circle rules
football, center, in Prospect Park last
Sunday while others played whiffle
hurling, bottom.
Greg Manley, a 24-year-old actor who lives in Brooklyn,
created circle rules football three years ago as an
experimental theater project at New York University.
Since then, the game has inspired a plan for a league of
its own and has been played in more than eight cities
around the country, including Puerto Rico, and in Prague.
The game is also one of a growing number of highly
conceptualized art-sports that have been invented in recent years by young artists and
6/25/2013 1:12 PM
With Games They Invent, Artists Unleash the Athlete Within - NYTimes.com
3 of 5
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/fashion/17games.html?_r=0
promoted on YouTube and other Web sites. These sports, like vikingball, class-conscious
kickball and straightjacket softball, are supposed to be competitive games, but also art.
Circle rules football, for instance, is intended to highlight the common thread between
improvisational theater and athletics, an improvisational performance in its own right.
“Everything inherent in theater is inherent in sports,” Mr. Manley said. “Drama is
conflict, and there’s no better conflict than the Super Bowl.”
Like Mr. Manley, many artists say their absurdist sports are an outgrowth of the
contemporary art-world trend toward participatory art, which is intended to break down
walls between artist and audience. But beyond the high-mindedness, the skinny-armed
aesthetes also seem to be on a personal mission to reclaim sports from the bull-necked
athletes of their youth.
ALSO IN GLOBAL SPORTS »
As Rivals Come and Go, Tommy Haas Is Still Holding
Court
A Clear Women's Favorite and Flux at the Top for Men
Sure, like other young ironists who wear vintage ’80s T-shirts and listen to Of Montreal,
the adherents of art-sports could just play dodgeball and kickball on weekends. But by
creating their own games, they are making a statement that sports can be something
different in this steroid-pumped, travel-team era — namely, fun.
“It isn’t about proving yourself,” said Scott Peterson, a 23-year-old actor, of circle rules
football. “It’s about having fun, playing — both in terms of ‘a play,’ and ‘playing.’ ”
Matthew Slaats, of Staatsburg, N.Y., conceived “1 v 1,” an alternate-universe form of
one-on-one basketball involving a paddle-wheel and ice tongs. Michael Coolidge, a
31-year-old Canadian artist, is the Abner Doubleday of mini-bowl transformodrome,
basically bocce ball crossed with mini-golf. Abby Manock, a Brooklyn performance
artist, created bag tag, a relay where competitors change into costumes — polar bear,
bag lady — as they race to scoop detritus like milk cartons or old stuffed animals into
color-coordinated trash bins.
Ads by Google
what's this?
Consumerization of IT
Consumerization in the enterprise.
Learn More from Intel.
intel.com/consumerization
O.K., maybe these games are more performance art than sport. But to be fair, in 1891,
when Dr. James Naismith divided 18 snowbound Massachusetts students into opposing
teams and instructed them to toss a soccer ball into peach baskets nailed on opposite
walls, the first game of “basket ball” must have looked pretty Duchampian, too.
6/25/2013 1:12 PM
With Games They Invent, Artists Unleash the Athlete Within - NYTimes.com
4 of 5
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/fashion/17games.html?_r=0
With much contemporary art leaving regular folk baffled, art-sports can be a way to
reach out to the masses, said Anne Elizabeth Moore, a conceptual artist and writer in
Chicago. In January, Ms. Moore organized a mock-Olympics called the Unlympics,
featuring a dozen invented sports like stop, drop and roll and duration jump-roping,
which drew hundreds of participants (the “summer games” are scheduled for July).
These sports, she said, were inspired in part by the art movement social practice, in
which audience participation — highlighting personal interaction and community
involvement — is considered a medium in its own right. “So much of art has been
moving in the tech direction,” Ms. Moore said. “I just feel like that is separating people.”
Sports, of course, are often perceived as too base a subject for fine art — apologies to
LeRoy Neiman. Still, the marriage of the two has a rich tradition, from Greek depictions
of the pentathlon in black-figure vase paintings to Jeff Koons’s basketballs floating in a
fish tank.
In recent years, sports have been popping up in many forms of serious art, like the
Berlin filmmaker Harun Farocki’s 12-channel video installation on World Cup soccer or
the American photographer Hank Willis Thomas’s manipulated images exploring sports
and race. Last year, at the Tate Modern in London, artists of the Fluxus movement, a
do-it-yourself aesthetic, held the Fluxolympiad — featuring the balloon shot put, the
flipper race and soccer played on stilts.
In many ways, it’s easy to imagine that these sports aren’t meant to attract the masses,
but alienate them.
When artists become interested in sport, “they become terribly anxious that they could
be confused with the quote-unquote normal fans,” said Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, a
professor of comparative literature at Stanford University and author of “In Praise of
Athletic Beauty” (Belknap Press, 2006). “So intellectuals, when they play games, they
cannot just play normal games. It has to be intellectualized.”
1
A version of this article appeared in print on May 17, 2009, on page
ST1 of the New York edition.
2
NEXT PAGE »
More Articles in Fashion & Style »
6/25/2013 1:12 PM
With Games They Invent, Artists Unleash the Athlete Within - NYTimes.com
1 of 3
HOME PAGE
TODAY'S PAPER
VIDEO
MOST POPULAR
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/fashion/17games.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0
Subscribe: Digital / Home Delivery
TIMES TOPICS
Log In
Register Now
Search All NYTimes.com
WORLD
U.S.
N.Y. / REGION
BUSINESS
TECHNOLOGY
FASHION & STYLE
SCIENCE
DINING & WINE
HEALTH
HOME & GARDEN
SPORTS
OPINION
ARTS
WEDDINGS/CELEBRATIONS
STYLE
T MAGAZINE
TRAVEL
JOBS
REAL ESTATE
AUTOS
GLOBAL STYLE
More Articles in Fashion & Style »
Published: May 15, 2009
TWITTER
(Page 2 of 2)
LINKEDIN
And the arcane games also help shut out the high school lettermen.
Mr. Manley, who gave up soccer and football for theater in high
school, said that making up your own sport leveled the playing field
— no one knows the game better than you do — something not
possible if artists tried to square off in basketball against people
who had been playing for the last 15 years. “We’ve been out of
practice awhile,” he said.
Multimedia
Video: Circle Football
Video: Wffling Hurling
Institute for Aesthletics
American Viking Ball
SIGN IN TO E-MAIL
PRINT
SINGLE PAGE
REPRINTS
SHARE
Last Sunday in Prospect Park, about
200 yards from the circle rules
football match, Tom Russotti, a Brooklyn artist, was
sweating away with about 20 other players in a game of
his own invention, whiffle hurling.
Mr. Russotti, 31, the founder of what he calls the Institute
for Aesthletics, invented a version of the Irish sport of
Advertise on NYTimes.com
MOST POPULAR
E-MAILED
BLOGGED
SEARCHED
VIEWED
1. DealBook: Mass Layoffs at a Top-Flight Law Firm
2. Well: Steps for More, and Better, Sleep
3. Editorial | Sunday Observer: The Decline and Fall of
6/25/2013 1:20 PM
With Games They Invent, Artists Unleash the Athlete Within - NYTimes.com
2 of 3
League
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/fashion/17games.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0
hurling that uses whiffle ball bats instead of traditional
wooden hurleys. The sport has been played since 2005 in
New York, California, Chicago, and once, on a slag heap
the English Major
4. Well: The Rise of the Minimalist Workout
5. FRANK BRUNI: Paula’s Worst Ingredients
outside of Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
6. Well: Really? The Claim: Taking a Walk After a Meal
Aids Digestion
While the game, at first blush, looked like lacrosse for sociopathic 9-year-olds, whiffle
hurling, Mr. Russotti said, constitutes art because its smirky costumes (ruffled collars,
Indian dhotis) and team names (St. Brendan’s Reformatory for Incorrigible
Self-Knowing) subvert the conventions of sportsdom. And by throwing artists and
stockbrokers on the same field, he said, both are forced to explore new identities.
7. The TV Watch: The World Turns for Mad Men and
Women
8. Op-Ed Contributor: Big Law’s Troubling Trajectory
9. If Jack Daniels Were a Beekeeper
10. Op-Ed Contributor: The Future of Fair Labor
Go to Complete List »
“If you go to a gallery show, there will be the artist in the corner and the rich financier
people, but they don’t have to deal with each other,” he said. In a game, “their
personalities come out really quickly.”
He is surprised by how Type-A stock traders enthusiastically tap their inner surrealist
and hit the field in uniforms with sombreros or Pele-era short shorts. Conversely,
mild-mannered artists can turn cutthroat. One player, an animation artist, is “the
prototypical vegetarian Williamsburg hipster,” Mr. Russotti said, “but when you put him
out on the field, he goes berserk.”
As players swung their bats like medieval maces, the air filled with the thwack of plastic
on plastic, and plastic on flesh. Unlike most art, the risks in art-sports are physical, not
emotional, said one participant, Martha Clippinger, 26, a painter and sculptor in
Brooklyn.
ALSO IN GLOBAL FASHION & STYLE »
Stefano Pilati's 'Feeling' for Zegna
A Menacing Paradise
Still, there are limits. “With no health care,” she added, “I’m being a little more careful
with my dives these days.”
« PREVIOUS PAGE
A version of this article appeared in print on May 17, 2009, on page
ST1 of the New York edition.
1
2
More Articles in Fashion & Style »
Try unlimited access to NYTimes.com for just 99¢. SEE OPTIONS »
6/25/2013 1:20 PM
Circle Rules Football - a whole new ball game - Life & Style - London Evening Standard
2 of 7
http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/circle-rules-football--a-whole-new-ball-game-6515468.html
Most Read
Top stories in
Lifestyle
Share
Ben Bryant
20 September 2010
In gyms across London, there exist those who have
always suspected that the humble exercise ball is
capable of so much more than just facilitating their daily
routine of ab crunches and inclined press-ups. Now,
thanks to one creative New Yorker, there's a new sport
for anyone who's dared to dream of hoofing that
exercise ball across the gym — and it's quickly
commanding a following in London, as
twentysomethings put down their fixed-gear bikes to
chase a ball around a circular playing field.
Just ask me out
Commented
Shared
Wimbledon 2013: celebrities
descend on SW19 to watch
tennis ... and enjoy the
hospitality
Tributes paid to Time Team
archaeologist Mick Aston,
who has died aged 66
Related Articles
Cavendish surprised
by victory
Benjamin Mendy on Arsenal
hit-list
James inspires Heat to
another title
West Ham blow as Alvaro
Negredo eyes Champions
League
Microsoft U-turn on
Xbox limits
Suggested Topics
The game is Circle Rules Football, a fast-paced blend of
Gaming
football, handball and basketball (see box, right), and it's
proving a hit in London for its original gameplay and
Commonwealth Games
strong emphasis on fun.
"I wanted to play with the culture around sport," explains
Basketball
Greg Manley, the American founder of Circle Rules
Football. Greg, 25, isn't your typical sportsman. He
developed the idea for Circle Rules Football in 2006 as the concept for an
experimental theatre project while studying at New York University.
"The more I thought about the nature of sports, the more I started thinking, everything
inherent in theatre is there in sports," he explains. "You've got the conflict, you've got
the arc of the story and you've got the production values."
Taking his "cast" out into the parks around New York, he mapped out a new game that
was accessible and fun to play but also explored ideas about what constitutes theatre.
"I'm hoping that theatre-goers are going to come to this game and start identifying with
sports in a way that they haven't before," he says.
As an academic exercise, Circle Rules Football was convincing enough to earn Greg
an A grade. More importantly, though, it started to spread throughout Brooklyn,
America and now the world, typically drawing in people tired of mainstream sports
culture who are looking for something different.
Why am I still single?
Before they were famous the dramatic makeovers of
stars
Classrooms on stilts,
staggered playtimes
and 8am-8pm
teaching shifts... how
one primary school is
battling the bulge
London's best:
double-ended nail
polishes
After-dark denim:
everyone's favourite
indigo has been taken
out of Sunday
afternoon and into
cocktail hour
This is what first attracted Hampstead-based project manager Gwyn Morfey to the
6/25/2013 1:27 PM
Circle Rules Football - a whole new ball game - Life & Style - London Evening Standard
3 of 7
game when he discovered it last September at Bristol's Igfest, the interesting games
festival. "From the very beginning there's this idea of the spirit of the game — it's not all
about winning," he says. "And it's all reinforced by the fact that it doesn't take itself too
seriously. It's about being dramatic and being fun."
After playing a couple of rounds, Gwyn, 29, was hooked. He decided to bring Circle
Rules Football to London, organising an indoor variant through his fledgling games
company Fire Hazard. It became a hit as soon as he introduced it to Hampstead in
March this year.
One player is Casey Middaugh, a freelance music teacher from Clapton. Casey, 26,
never really played team sports, preferring rock-climbing and yoga. She was attracted
to Circle Rules Football because of the creative way in which it's played.
"You can dribble the ball, kick or toss it. The only thing you can't do is hold on to it,"
she says. "So I think it's funnier because it is so obviously ridiculous that there's no
pressure. I don't want to play a team sport with people who've been playing football
since they were little and are super intense about it."
Manisha Desai, a 29-year-old web designer from Dollis Hill, agrees that it's most
appealing because it's simply fun to play. "It was easy to pick up, because you can
explain it to others quite quickly and easily. It's a slightly different game because it's a
mix of basketball, football and running around, and it's just a fun game to play and be a
bit silly for half an hour."
Most players stumble upon Circle Rules Football by word of mouth — a manner very
much in keeping with the laid-back philosophy of the game. "Don't get me wrong, they
get competitive," says Casey. "But competitive in a silly way. It's very tongue-in-cheek."
So it's a tongue-in-cheek game, imported from Brooklyn, which emerged from a New
Yorker's experimental theatre degree. Hardly surprising, then, that hipsters are latching
onto Circle Rules Football. Expect to see it in a park near you soon.
Information on upcoming games of Gwyn Morfey's indoor variation of Circle Rules
Football can be found atfire-hazard.net.
CIRCLE RULES FOOTBALL
A team sport played on a circular field roughly 40 metres in diameter. A single net-less
goal stands in the middle of the field, surrounded by a small, circular perimeter — the
"key" — that's roughly four to eight metres diameter and can be marked out with cones
or painted. Players aren't allowed to enter the key or touch the ball while it's inside.
Two teams, of a minimum three players each, chase an exercise ball around the field
trying to hit or kick it through the goalposts, each from a different side of the goal.
Players aren't allowed to carry the ball, and contact between players is limited to
jostling for the ball. Play lasts for four
15-minute periods.
http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/circle-rules-football--a-whole-new-ball-game-6515468.html
Ads by Google
Fun Schrodinger's Cat Tee
Rock this tee like Sheldon
Cooper, nerdy, awesome and
100% soft cotton
www.snorgtees.com
Top 10 Golf Swing Killers
Take 36 Seconds and Learn
How to Hit Longer and Straighter
(Free)...
www.RevolutionGolf.com
Childrens Portrait Studio
$5.25 sitting fee everyday 16
years in business
kidzshotz.net
Kate Middleton Photos
Stunning Pictures of Princess
Kate Middleton and the Royal
Family.
Kate-Middleton.StyleBistro
.com
View the latest jobs in:
Central London
North London
South London
East London
West London
Lifestyle in Pictures
The outfits that went
wrong: fashion fails
from celebrities on
the red carpet
SPONSORED FEATURES
6/25/2013 1:27 PM
Circle Rules Football: Experimental Theater Meets Sports | Playbook | Wired.com
http://www.wired.com/playbook/2011/05/circle-rules-football/all/
Playbook
The Wired World of Sports
Weird & wonderful
Outdoors
Share on Facebook
176 shares
Tweet
141
0
Share
By Pahull Bains
05.13.11
4:00 PM
1 of 9
6/25/2013 1:36 PM
Circle Rules Football: Experimental Theater Meets Sports | Playbook | Wired.com
http://www.wired.com/playbook/2011/05/circle-rules-football/all/
NEW YORK — On a sunny afternoon in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, families are enjoying picnics, and groups of friends are playing
soccer, cricket and Frisbee. In one corner of the park, a bunch of twenty-somethings play with a yoga ball. A giant, bouncy yoga ball.
One guy dribbles the ball until another kicks it out of his possession, sending it flying straight through a set of tall goal posts with no
net.
“That’s seven to the Subjugates, four to Bunga Bunga,” yells out one player.
Another quickly scoops up the ball with one hand and tosses it to his teammate, who dribbles his way closer to the goal, taking care to
stay outside the perimeter of tiny cones encircling the goal posts. Dodging around the other players, he hurls the ball at his teammate
who dives into the inner circle to catch it, slamming into the ground a moment before the ball soars into his outstretched arms.
Wait, that’s a penalty! A player from the opposing team stands at the corner of the field with the yoga ball in front of him. In one
quick, strange motion he hops up with both his legs together and kicks the ball with both his feet at the same time, sending it zooming
back into the playing field. And the game is in motion once more.
It’s fine if you have no idea what’s going on. The sport is Circle Rules Football, and it’s only four years old.
Circle Rules, as it’s usually called, was invented in 2006 by Greg Manley, a student at the Experimental Theater Wing at New York
University’s Tisch School of the Arts. For his senior independent project — equivalent to a thesis, but for actors — Manley waved aside
writing his own play or producing his own show like his classmates. Instead, he spent his time churning out ideas for the development
of a new sport.
The project stemmed from his personal view that all sport is theater: dramatic, theatrical, viewed by an audience of millions. Based on
this perception, Manley began to envision the foundation of an entirely new activity, one that highlighted the theatricality and drama
inherent in all sports.
Manley, half-Indian and half-American, was born 26 years ago in Berkeley, California. He grew up primarily in Oakland, where he
attended Park Day School, whose educational mission embraces “critical and creative thinking” as well as “artistic expression.”
Indeed, it was there that Manley was exposed to a different kind of phys-ed philosophy: His sports teacher, Will Hughes, had a
penchant for inventing new sports and Manley and the other students benefited by learning a wide range of games that no one had
every played before. The excitement and awe of constantly learning something new stuck with him.
2 of 9
6/25/2013 1:36 PM
Circle Rules Football: Experimental Theater Meets Sports | Playbook | Wired.com
http://www.wired.com/playbook/2011/05/circle-rules-football/all/
The two things Manley (right) was certain of when it came to developing his own sport were that the game would involve a yoga ball
and that it would be played in a circular arena.
His relationship with yoga balls goes back to his early childhood, when he’d see them in many of his friends’ homes. It was taboo to
play with them at the time, lest they break something in the house.
Later on, with the freedom afforded by adulthood, Manley decided to indulge that childhood dream and “really abuse” the yoga ball.
So Manley drew on inspirations from different facets of his upbringing and poured everything into the sport. He wanted to create a
sport that assimilated all the things he had loved about sports as a kid and eliminated the things he didn’t like, such as overheated
competition.
“The reason the sport is like this, the reason it doesn’t have any equipment, comes from me playing soccer my whole life,” Manley
says. “The reason there’s wrestling in the middle of the field comes from me wrestling with my dad when I was growing up, as well as
my love for contact sports.”
Manley chose a circular field as the basis of the game because it’s the shape he connects most with as an actor. When he and fellow
cast members would warm up before a performance, they’d always end up in a circle facing each other. It was in that “central focus”
where he was most comfortable.
From the beginning, Manley’s vision was simple.
His aim was to take the game away from the typical jock culture that usually surrounds sports. He knew his theater friends would
enjoy playing a game that lacked the “angry competitiveness” that normally scares non-athletes away from a lot of sports, so he stayed
cognizant of that while formulating the sport’s underpinnings.
‘It’s such a funny thing to see two people standing just crumple to the ground. It’s so bizarre. I thought a simple competition like that
would serve the game well.’
Manley immediately came up with a few twists. One of these is called the “down-up,” which happens in lieu of a coin toss. In order to
determine who gets possession of the ball first, and in which direction their team will score, a player from each team — at the opening
3 of 9
6/25/2013 1:36 PM
Circle Rules Football: Experimental Theater Meets Sports | Playbook | Wired.com
http://www.wired.com/playbook/2011/05/circle-rules-football/all/
whistle — has to drop down, touch both shoulder blades to the ground, and get back up. Whoever does so first, wins.
“That’s straight out of the Experimental Theatre Wing, where I learned how to fall, how to go from standing to level yourself as fast as
possible,” Manley says. “I think it’s such a funny thing to see two people standing just crumple to the ground. It’s so bizarre. I thought
a simple competition like that would serve the game well. Artists really appreciate it, and athletes too.”
Another twist is the double kick. Early on, Manley and his friends tried to come up with a unique way to get the ball back in the field
when it got out of bounds. They didn’t want to do just a simple free kick, so they went with something fun and a bit awkward: kicking
the ball with both legs together.
“It’s a weird move,” Manley says. “To people who’ve never played, it seems ridiculous and stupid.”
Because of the game’s whimsical quality, Manley knew that the only people who would come to play his game would be “the ones with
an irreverent sense of play, but who also enjoy competitive sports.”
The playing field is a circle, 50 meters in diameter with a tall goal post in the middle. A smaller circle called the “key,” measuring five
to eight meters (approximately 16 to 26 feet) in diameter, is made around the goal using, ideally, small plastic cones, or whatever is on
hand. (Rolled-up socks are a perfectly suitable substitute). Each team scores through the same goal, but from opposite directions.
Teams can have between three to eight players, and a goalie if there are more than four players on each team. Though players are not
allowed to wrestle, goalies are permitted to make full contact with each other.
The key is perhaps the most critical aspect of Circle Rules. No player except the goalie can touch the ball within its confines. All other
players must be outside the key to touch the ball. Players can lean over the edge of the key and touch the ball, so long as their feet are
on the ground outside the key. If players dive into the key, they must make contact with the ball before they do so with the ground.
4 of 9
6/25/2013 1:36 PM
Circle Rules Football: Experimental Theater Meets Sports | Playbook | Wired.com
http://www.wired.com/playbook/2011/05/circle-rules-football/all/
Though the Circle Rules community is steadily growing in New York and beyond — it’s been played in more than 100 schools across
the country — Manley says it’s hard to keep track of just how many people are involved. He knows of some loyal followers in London
and Toronto, but usually the only way to find out that people are playing it is when someone asks him for a rulebook.
Manley is now focusing on getting the game to college campuses, which he considers “hotbeds for new ideas to take off.” He recently
approached 15 East Coast colleges but he didn’t receive a response from any.
‘The thing about this game is that you can put it in your backpack and play anywhere, this theater that I created.’
So Manley has decided that the best way to try to integrate Circle Rules into college life is by disseminating it far enough, with the
hope that some college students somewhere would pick it up and go back and teach it to their friends on campus.
“It’s difficult,” Manley says, “but I feel that its potential is just so strong that I need to pursue it.”
Lately, Manley has been spending his energy on recruiting for the 2011 New York City league. The opening game of the season (which
runs until August 30) took place at Bushwick Inlet Park in Brooklyn last week.
Circle Rules has been played at a number of sports festivals in New York over the past few years, including the Come Out & Play
Festival, the Fringe Festival, Figments, and even at festivals in Pittsburgh and Bristol, England.
“The thing about this game is that you can put it in your backpack and play anywhere, this theater that I created,” Manley says. “That
was the victory immediately. You could have a whole show in 15 minutes.”
You might not see Circle Rules at the Olympics any time soon, but that doesn’t matter to the diehards descending upon Prospect Park
every weekend. For them, the curtain never comes down.
5 of 9
6/25/2013 1:36 PM
Circle Rules Football: Experimental Theater Meets Sports | Playbook | Wired.com
http://www.wired.com/playbook/2011/05/circle-rules-football/all/
Pahull Bains is a writer/copy editor for Starring NYC, recent intern at Teen Vogue, and soon-to-be graduate of Columbia
University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She has also interned at The Indian Express, one of India’s leading newspapers. Follow
her on Twitter at @pahullbains.
Photos: Top: Sasha Arutyunova; Manley: Blaine Davis
See Also:
Introducing Poolball, America’s Next Great Barroom Sport
Hockern Takes ‘Extreme Sitting’ to New Level
Video: Basketball-Playing Robot Seals Will Rule Us All One Day
Competitive Chess Boxing: Brain Meets Pain in Iceland
Video: Wingsuit Formation Flying
Qatar World Cup May Feature Carbon-Fiber ‘Clouds’
Pages: 1 2 3 View All
Related
You Might Like
Related Links by Contextly
Wild Whiskers Make Competitive Beard Growing a Follicle Folly
In Search of Tech Cred, eBay Builds a New Engine for a New Identity
Lopsided Map of the Cosmos Offers New Clues to the Universe's Origins
The Mad Men Season Finale: Seeing the Show Through Its Ads
Tags:
circle
rules
football,
Football,
Newand
York,
Outdoors,
theatre, wacky, Weird & wonderful
Thesearts,
Crazy
Guns
Shoot
Pewter,
Plastic,
Paper
Mache
6 of 9
6/25/2013 1:36 PM
Circle Rules Bristol in FourFourTwo magazine. (Disclaimer - T... on Twitpic
2 of 3
http://twitpic.com/6haxvx
Get the official Twitpic for iPhone or Twitpic for Android apps
Login or Register
Tweet
Embed this Photo
Copy & paste this code into your website
6/25/2013 1:48 PM
Eugene Michael Santiago: Circle Rules Football -- The Road Ahead
1 of 2
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eugene-michael-santiago/circle-rules-football_b_324456.html
June 25, 2013
As a boy, Greg Manley grew up in Oakland California. As a young man Greg invented a sport in New York. That sport? Circle
Rules Football. Almost three years ago Greg Manley decided for his senior project at the Experimental Theater Wing of NYU's
Tisch School of the Arts, he would create a sport as theater. Every sports fan lives for the drama and theatricality of sport. We
wear memorabilia, we chant using call and response, we recite famous speeches, we in the end are emotionally connected to
our athletes, and teams. However, what happens when "the piece of theater" becomes "a real sport"?
Greg Manley has been figuring this part out since the first Circle Rules Football Game was ever played. What started out with
pick up games occasionally, turned into weekly Sunday afternoon pickup games with throngs of people joining in wanting to
figure out the new game. And now, Circle Rules Football is a Federation. Since summer of '07 Circle Rules has been played
across the country with groups (aspiring leagues) sprouting up in New York, Florida, Oregon, California, Toronto, Puerto Rico,
Prague and one year at Burning Man to name a few locations. This past summer Circle Rules crossed the Atlantic as part of
IG Fest 2009 (a festival dedicated to new sports) in Bristol, UK, where it won two prestigious awards: "Best in Festival" &
"Most Likely to be Played Again." The sport was also part of New York's Fringe Festival, where games included halftime
shows with marching bands, live music during games, and drum circles. And you don't even know how the game is played,
yet.
The game is played on a circular field (40m diameter), with a circle or the "key" (4-8 diameters) in the middle. Inside the "key"
is a goal (2-4 meters wide, 3 meters tall). One team scores by knocking, tapping, heading, or kicking a ball through the goal
in one direction, while the other team scores through the other direction. In a normal game no player may touch the ball in the
"key" unless he/she is airborne. In a goalie game, goalies are allowed to deflect balls in the "key", as well as, scrum with the
other goalie to prevent a deflection. The ball used is a yoga ball (the big bouncy one). At no point can a player hold or sit on
the ball, however, the player can dribble the ball anyway he chooses. Sounds confusing I'm sure, but have you ever tried
explaining football or baseball in writing? I was confused the first time it was explained to me too. But by the end of the first
half (2 halves to a game), not only did it make complete sense but I was hooked.
I grew up playing baseball, basketball, lacrosse, and was captain of my Football team. I play in a co-ed softball league (shout
out to my GameCocks), and an all men's flag football league (shout out to my Stratsmen). The level of coordination,
athleticism, team work, pride, and endurance needed for all of these sports are not lost in Circle Rules. But, at the same time,
6/25/2013 1:21 PM
Eugene Michael Santiago: Circle Rules Football -- The Road Ahead
2 of 2
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eugene-michael-santiago/circle-rules-football_b_324456.html
the nature and pace of the game suits athletes of all skill levels. So the game is truly enjoyable to all because one doesn't
have to be a stud.
The problem the Circle Rules Federation faces now is expansion. In our interview Manley asked, "How does a small
organization with limited financial means and playership assert its control over something that is designed to be easy to set up
in one's backyard, or in an open field?", before posing a shot at an answer, "all of the accoutrement". The accoutrement
entails sponsorship, field permits, night games, fundraisers, parties, and jerseys, along with regional and national
tournaments. "What we need are partnerships with leagues or groups around the country to host events, and run leagues
under an official license and name." Added Manley, "which would be available for a little amount of money."
But how does that make it more than something that could easily be free? "That's where the theater comes in," here comes
Manley's vision, "look at recreational leagues. It is theater, you get jerseys, you get drink specials, you get umpires, and that
goes all the way up from amateur to professional. Look at Monday Night Football, they have fireworks coming out of giant
helmets." As these words came out of Greg Manley's mouth images of Jerry Jones and his New Cowboy stadium flashed at
fast intervals in my head. It all comes down to the theater of it all.
Expansion only goes as far as the level of entertainment on all levels. Sports is entertainment, ergo to create a sport it has to
sell. It has to entertain people who play it, practice it, watch it, read about it, write about it, and most importantly it has to
entertain people who pay for it. No entertainment yields no payment, no money, no expansion. "Word of mouth via Internet,
TV and press can only go so far, we [the federation] need reliable regional commissioners to establish leagues nationwide
under the license of the federation."
Membership creates the money to push the theater and level of game play to the next level. People have started to play, and
sponsors have shown interest. All that is needed now is a foundation nation wide. Groups and leagues in your area can be
found on the Circle Rules Website. If you are in New York, and find yourself in Brooklyn on a Sunday afternoon stop by the
Long Meadow in Prospect Park (off of the Grand Army Plaza entrance). Games start at 2, watch or try it, you'll like it.
6/25/2013 1:21 PM
Circle Rules Football Comes to Oakland | Events | Oakland, Berkeley & Bay Area
1 of 3
« Roundabouts
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/circle-rules-football-comes-to-oakland/Content?oid=3...
Mesmerizingly Mesmeric Revelat… »
A R T S & CU L T U R E » EV EN T S
Create Account
February 15, 2012
A sport with theatrical origins.
By Cassie McFadden
0
Tweet
@cassie_mcfadden
Ask Greg Manley to draw parallels between sports and theater and
he can talk at length about their similarities. For one thing, there's
the staged conflict that makes each production worth watching:
Onstage, it's the drama that builds with an actor's scripted
delivery; on the field it's the less explicit, though no less
Share
impassioned, dramaturgy driven by an athlete's desire to win.
6/25/2013 1:55 PM
Circle Rules Football Comes to Oakland | Events | Oakland, Berkeley & Bay Area
2 of 3
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/circle-rules-football-comes-to-oakland/Content?oid=3...
And, like the protagonist of any play, in sports "you have heroes to rally
behind. There's a very epic quality to professional sports that exists in all
kinds of theater."
Still, it's easy to see how the two diverge. Sports, by their physical nature, tend
to attract more brutish types, whereas theater draws those with less corporeal
concerns. But if anyone is qualified to compare the crafts, it's Manley, who
grew up in Oakland and participated in everything from sports camps to a
high school production of The Laramie Project. Ultimately, he committed to
the latter, moving east after high school to study drama at NYU, where the
overlap between actors and athletes was basically nonexistent, he said. "I lost
touch with my athletic life after going into drama," Manley recalled.
And then, in 2006, when he was tasked with creating an original theater piece
for a senior project, Manley was bit by the athletic equivalent of the acting
bug. He decided to incorporate athletics into theater — and he seems to have
succeeded. Circle Rules Football — named for the circular field on which it's
played — is a "theatrical" team sport that combines elements of soccer,
volleyball, and wrestling, with opponents aiming a large rubber "stability ball"
at a single, central goal. And despite its theatrical origins, Manley said the
bulk of the game's drama comes from the sport itself. While certain aspects of
the game — like the requirement that a player use both feet to kick the ball
inbounds — seem silly at first, he said the game is just as competitive, and
dangerous, as any. In other words, you won't find players sauntering around,
reciting lines from Shakespeare.
The motley game, played by everyone from beefy rugby players to lanky
thespians, has garnered such a vast following that it could just be Manley's
magnum opus. Now organized under an official federation, it's been featured
in The New York Times and on Good Morning America and played across the
country and as far away as England. With a five-team league that convenes
regularly at the sport's birthplace in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, New York is
inarguably the game's epicenter. But with the league in its off-season, Manley
returned to Oakland in January to start an East Bay faction that could
eventually compete with the East Coast originators. He's been holding free,
6/25/2013 1:55 PM
Circle Rules Football Comes to Oakland | Events | Oakland, Berkeley & Bay Area
3 of 3
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/circle-rules-football-comes-to-oakland/Content?oid=3...
informal games every Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. in Astro Park (550 El
Embarcadero, Oakland), where games will continue after he eventually
returns to New York. Manley plans to check on the progress of the fledgling
team this summer. He's working as a puppeteer in an eighteen-month
traveling production of Warhorse, which makes a San Francisco stop in
August. "I guess I've made a career out of taking silly things seriously,"
Manley said.
Contact the author of this piece, send a letter to the editor, like us
on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.
« Roundabouts
Mesmerizingly Mesmeric Revelat… »
Related Locations
Astro Park
550 El Embarcadero
OAKLAND-GRAND LAKE
AstroParkOakland.org
Be the first to review this location!
6/25/2013 1:55 PM
Circle rules – OK?
2 of 3
Home
http://www.venue.co.uk/lifestyle-features/14242-circle-rules-ok-
Lifestyle
Circle rules – OK?
LIFESTYLE NEWS
Exploring Redcliffe
The extraordinary church dominates, of course, but the
once-autonomous township of…
24.06.2013
Make A Staffie Smile
launch
If you pay a visit to Bristol Dogs &
Cats Home, you'll notice that there's
often a fair…
15.05.2013
Animal rehoming
campaign
Bath Cats and Dogs Home has
launched a new campaign to
encourage more people to offer a…
19.04.2013
An innovative game combines getting fit with thinking outside of the box: Simon Fry gave
circle rules football a spin.
Since May this year a growing band of Bristolians have been among the few people in the
UK taking part in a truly fascinating pastime. Circle rules football originated in 2006 when
New York University drama student Greg Manley, who had played soccer, basketball and
American football while growing up, set out to devise a new sport for his senior
independent project (aka a thesis for actors). When Manley visited Bristol for this year’s
Igfest games festival, a Facebook group was formed to spread the word in Venueland.
I go along to Queen Square one Thursday evening (winter games are staged on an ad hoc
basis – check Twitter or Facebook), where, as players gather, organiser David Otridge, a
former website designer, inflates the 50cm diameter ball. Stakes are hammered into turf to
support a single set of goalposts at the centre of a circular pitch, wherein cones designate
a smaller, inner ‘key’ area. Goals are scored by the ball passing through the goalposts
either right-to-left or left-to-right, depending on the team.
PREV 1 NEXT
EXTERNAL LINKS
Said teams are distinguished by ribbons, which are worn around players’ foreheads and
are brought along by Jess, an illustrator/animator who had them left over from another
Igfest game. “Before the ribbons we just tried to remember who was on our teams! I also
had pink and green ribbons, but the battle of red and blue is a tale as old as time.”
6/25/2013 1:52 PM
Alternative workouts (& wacky games) in Brooklyn | Brokelyn
1 of 5
http://brokelyn.com/alternative-workouts-wacky-games-in-brooklyn/#more-18967
ABOUT
HOM E
EV EN TS
C A REERS
D ATIN G
CONTACT
ADVERTISE
SEA R C H
Sign In
REA L ESTATE
N EXT PO ST
Register
EA R LIER PO ST
The Brooklyn Eagle on our
birthday bash
Waiting for you: a summer
home-swap in Paris
EN TERTA IN M EN T
FO O D & D RIN K
SPORTS AND EXERCISE
G IV EA W AY S
N EW S
by Casey Soloff | 6.23.10 | 2 Comments
O U TIN G S
Like
13
0
Tweet
0
submit
SA LES & D EA LS
SER V IC ES
SH O PPIN G
N EIG H BO RH O O D S
B ay R idge/ B ensonhurst
B ed Stuy/ B ushw ick
B oerum H ill/ G ow anus
B rooklyn H eights/
D U M BO
B rooklyn N avy Yard
We all know the story: you pay
something ridiculous for a gym
membership and swear that this
time, you’re gonna use it.
Really. But 5 p.m. comes
around, and the last thing you
want to do is run like a hamster
for 30 minutes in front of a
flat-screen. You want something
more from your workout,
Circle Rules Football. You got what it takes?
something… alternative. Lucky
for you, you live in Brooklyn
—where football is circular, bar-hopping is aerobic and exercise need not be
boring.
SEE M O R E >
Brooklyn Hash House Harriers
Whoever said drinking isn’t good for you (ha!) obviously hasn’t tried hashing.
Let’s call this part scavenger hunt, part foot race and part pub crawl. Starting
at a predetermined point, participants race on foot to find chalk marks along a
6/25/2013 1:23 PM
Alternative workouts (& wacky games) in Brooklyn | Brokelyn
2 of 5
http://brokelyn.com/alternative-workouts-wacky-games-in-brooklyn/#more-18967
trail. After about an hour of racing, the marks eventually lead to a bar. Then,
the party begins. Average cost is around $15, but this is a workout and
bar-night all in one.
7 p.m. on Mondays. Visit HashNYC.com for weekly start locations.
Circle Rules Football
There’s a ball, and you can use
your foot if you want to—that’s
about where the similarities
between this and the other games
of football end. Half sport, half art,
the game was born from NYU’s
experimental theater program.
Played every Sunday in Prospect
Park, the rules call for players to
gather on a circular field, with the objective of getting a yoga-style fitness ball
through a central goal from one side. The opposing team defends and tries to
pass it through from the other way. This sport doesn’t take itself too seriously,
and beginners are welcome. But for those who want to make it to that inner
circle, there’s always league play.
Open Play: Long Meadow, Prospect Park, 2 p.m. on Sundays
League Play: N. 10th St. and Kent Ave., Williamsburg; 6 to 8 p.m. on
Wednesdays
Captain Quinn’s Boot Camp
Rise and shine, soldier, and report for an hour of aerobics, strength building
and teamwork exercises in the crisp, morning Brooklyn air. Jon Quinn, a
certified personal trainer with a real passion for getting people in shape,
created his Boot Camp to provide the benefits of personalized training in a
group setting for a fraction of what it would cost at a gym. With a suggested
price per session of just $10 and a policy of never turning away anyone due
to limited budget, you’ll always be able to work something out. Register for a
free one-week trial using the code “BROKELYN” and the good captain will
waive the $15 reservation fee AND give you an extra week free.
Park Slope, Carroll Gardens and Brooklyn Heights (times vary by location),
888-850-1674
Brooklyn Boulders
The old Daily News garage in
Gowanus has been completely
transformed into one of the most
extensive rock climbing gyms in
the city. Brooklyn Boulders is a
challengingly-satisfying way to
get one serious workout, with
walls for climbers of any skill
level. Rates during peak hours
EVEN T G U ID E
Culture / Art & Design
INTER. Act, Reciprocity in
Media
12:00pm | Tuesday, June 25th
Bric Rotunda Gallery, Brooklyn
Nightlife / Happy hour
Happy Hours at Belli in
Clinton Hill, Ge…
4:00pm | Tuesday, June 25th
Belli Osteria, Brooklyn
Nightlife / Happy hour
Happy Hour at The Rock
Shop, 7 nights a …
5:00pm | Tuesday, June 25th
The Rock Shop, Brooklyn
Food & Drink / Restaurant
Moules and Frites a go-go at
Chez Oskar
5:00pm | Tuesday, June 25th
Chez Oskar, Dekalb Avenue, Brooklyn, Ny, Brooklyn
SEE ALL EVENTS
+ ADD AN EVENT
KEEP IN TO U CH
0
JO IN O U R EM AIL LIST
SU BM IT
6/25/2013 1:23 PM
In Gowanus, Playgrounds Both Real and Imagined | The Measure
1 of 4
http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2012/04/09/in-gowanus-playgrounds-both-r...
Archives | RSS | Tips | Twitter
« Dreams Do Come True: Neil Strauss's…
ART
| The Permanent Collection: 13 Songs… »
In Gowanus, Playgrounds Both Real and Imagined
Posted by Jennifer Mills on Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 12:02 PM
A tiny upstairs gallery seems like a funny place to
host an exhibition on parks and public spaces. But
that was the setting for last week’s opening of
Brooklyn Utopia’s Park Space/Play Space. The
reception took place at the Old Stone House in
J.J Byrne Park, on the Park Slope-Gowanus border.
The exhibit, Brooklyn Utopia’s third at The Old
Stone House, features works that are “visioning
for parks and public space,” said Kimberly Maier,
the House’s executive director. The upstairs
gallery featured works such as Marina Zamin’s
immersive video installation “Brooklyn Canals”
and an animation by Jess Levey projected onto a
canvas with cutout flower pots and windows.
There were also panoramic photo-murals of a few
blocks on Kent Avenue, as well as picturepostcards and descriptions of eminent domain
cases across the city.
Some of the other works in the exhibit merge public space with technology. Lynn Cazabon’s
“Uncultivated” project displays pictures of plants with QR codes beneath them. When someone
scans the code, they are directed to a website which pinpoints the location of the plants and gives
their species. Then there is Skymills, an app which calls on the Old Stone House’s Dutch legacy and
6/25/2013 1:56 PM
In Gowanus, Playgrounds Both Real and Imagined | The Measure
2 of 4
http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2012/04/09/in-gowanus-playgrounds-both-r...
erects virtual windmills that can be viewed through an iPad or iPhone. The mills also create virtual
skywriting, which Will Pappenheimer was busy collecting from attendees. Holding the stand of
his iPad like a handle, Pappenheimer spun around showing off all the windmills, noting that if you
walk into the location of one you can look up at the windmill's ceiling. He envisions the app as a
virtual public space where users plant trees or write virtual messages that all users can see. “You
really are a utopian,” a listener remarked. “Yeah!” Pappenheimer said.
Pappenheimer will be conducting an
“Augmented Reality Workshop” on May 19th,
part of the exhibition’s extensive events
program. One of the most promising of these is
April 28’s bootcamp and exhibition game of
“Circle Rules Football,” a game played with
one of those bouncy exercise balls. Basically
the tenants of the game are that you can do
anything with the ball (kicking, dribbling,
passing) as long as you don’t run while holding
it. There is one goal in the center and the job of
the two goalies there is basically to stop the
other from doing their job. There will also be a
large dodgeball game nicknamed “The Battle of
Brooklyn.”
More docile events include a collective sky-gazing night, and later in the exhibition a “collective
wedding ceremony” with artist Tracy Candido. There will also be eminent domain biking tours from
Park Slope to Coney Island, and a public mural making workshop. The exhibit also coincides with
the opening of a new playground in the park. Although the playground doesn’t open till May 11,
it will feature some of the virtues of the exhibit, combining art with public space with a
submarine-inspired design by artist Julie Peppito and 3D images seen through periscope
goggles.
Tags: gowanus, park slope, old stone house, brooklyn utopia, park space/play space
Tweet
« Dreams Do Come True: Neil Strauss's…
Email
0
Share
| The Permanent Collection: 13 Songs… »
Add to favorites
6/25/2013 1:56 PM