My intervention project was a game of hopscotch that was carried out in front of Ryder Hall out near the Centennial Quad. However, this game had a twist where on each square that each player landed on, they would have to strike a dance pose. The players would take turns throwing a rock down the length of the hopscotch game and then hop down to it, pick it up, then return to the start of the game.
My main inspiration for this intervention piece would have to be the video clip we watched in class of people dancing along a crosswalk in the middle of a busy city. It really intrigued me how people could be so carefree and open while others were busy hurrying to and from work and other obligations. This scenario could easily be recreated almost anywhere, but I wanted to have similar implications on campus. I studied up on the areas around Northeastern and deemed Centennial as the spot that saw the most foot traffic during the day. I had originally planned on preforming the piece inside Ruggles station, but I soon noted that people would be so busy trying to get from one space to another, that if I was in the middle of such a small space, dancing no less, people would get irritated fairly quickly and that was not the point of the piece.
I drew out the hopscotch game on the sidewalk with chalk and labeled each square with a certain dance move. Each move was fairly simple in nature to allow for a low-level barrier to entry and would allow for more people to join should the need arise. While the plan was to have more people join in, many just watched and continued to walk on to their classes or another destination. There were a few times when a person would walk by and try to copy the moves I was doing, but other than that there was no interaction.
I later realized that my piece was probably not done during an appropriate time. After having finished the piece, I learned that there had been a tragic accident inside of Ruggles station. I feel awful having done something so childish and carefree while such an accident happen. I feel as though it would have been ten times worse had I carried out my original plan of conducting the intervention inside of the station.
This whole intervention and experience has made me think a lot more about planning out a piece and not just coming up with an idea and immediately carrying it out. I now know to plan for more circumstances that could change the meaning of my intervention or could interfere with it in some way that makes it lose its original good-hearted meaning. I only wanted to show that even in an adult’s hectic life, there should always be some time for play and relaxation to go back to childhood and remember the simple games that made them smile.