Group-Think is a hybrid sports - and educational programme that seeks to expand the current formal educational programme at schools by implementing training techniques in nonviolent civil protest, first aid, and collective intelligence skills.
Group-Thinkis a hybrid sports/educational programme by Danish artist Stine Marie Jacobsen that seeks to expand the current formal educational programme at schools by implementing training techniques in nonviolent civil protest, first aid, and collective intelligence skills.
This educational programme, which could be implemented as part of a sports, art, or other class involving physical activity, consists of a series of exercises that stimulate collective intelligence, patience, preparedness, good reflexes, violence prevention, urban resilience, verbal negotiation, responsibility, resistance, coping strategies, first aid, and group safety in protest gatherings.
Group-Think supports young people’s discussions and concerns about social and educational inequality by creating a sports platform that strives to strengthen their individual and collective political consciousness, as well as deepen the public’s understanding of what young people, collectives, and protest stakeholders need.
As an addition to current sports programmes in schools, Group-Think seeks to introduce a creative sports programme with exercises that connect individual and group minds in order to heighten solidarity, improvisation, and thinking skills. Group-Think aims at preparing young people to take care of themselves and others through collective actions. By training students in collective intelligence, solidarity, resilience, self-care and community-care, they’ll be able to better protect each other in mass gatherings.
Group-Think would like to create a positive image about mass intelligence. In 1895, Gustave Le Bon wrote in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind that decisions in groups are often made too quickly and are too consensus-oriented and irrational. In his 1972 book Victims of Groupthink, the social psychologist Irving L. Janis coined the term ‘groupthink’, which also had negative connotations. It is actually a very loaded term, describing both an instinctive and rationalized conformity that humans are prone to fall (and fail) into. But when it comes to the right to assemble and to think and express opinions freely and openly in public, this term articulates values, reaction, and politics of the commons and of the people. The idea of thinking and acting together challenges the notion of individuality that is so ingrained in our culture and proposes that we rehearse better and more robust ways of navigating and preserving space for collectives and collectivity.
Group-Think reclaims this word (with a dash) as a potential for civic action against injustice and regards this ‘fast decision-making’, ‘consensus-seeking’ and ‘irrationality’ in a group as a way to achieve safety in protest. By training these group processes, the exercises challenge the idea of the individual (leader-hero) as the focal point and instigator of action. When a huge mass of people decides to take to the street, it is never a sole individual initiating this. In these exercises there are no ‘winners’ or ‘losers’, as in normal sports activities; rather, they introduce the students to the idea of the individual as a colony of microbes. Here, the individual body is regarded as a cell that thinks, moves, and acts much more strongly when connected with others – as part of a larger whole. Singular cells exhibit great adaptive and collaborative behaviour in colonies of like or unlike cells and communicate via chemical signalling that influences colony structures. Especially in uncertain and stressful situations, making fast decisions with many others can be crucial. Similarly to cell colonies, the students learn in Group-Think to tune into each others’ impulses, weaknesses, and senses in order to ultimately reflect, strengthen, and develop their own chemical and physical signals.
This book is aimed at both educators and teenagers. All exercises are open-source, and educators and students are encouraged to use them as inspiration for continuous development. The exercises contain questions to engage students and are meant as guiding proposals that can (and should) be continually developed. It is more important to have a good conversation about the exercise than attempt to reach a final agreement. The aim of the training is to rehearse inhabiting ‘crowd bodies’ and explore their potential.
This book is also meant to activate young people in developing their own collective strategies, so after educators have explained and demonstrated the exercises, they should encourage the groups to do the exercises by themselves without any further guidance. In other words, they should avoid frontal teaching.
Use the exercises as a menu to pick and choose from. You can tailor your own program and start with a simple exercise from INTRO and BREATH and then continue to more complex exercises from BODY. The AID and § chapters are informational, and the book ends with a summary scenario exercise in END.
Seeking to create a more positive image of mass intelligence, the following exercises may be continuously developed and practiced by you, the readers.
2. Sync
Stand in a circle and count ‘1, 2, 3, 1, 2, …’ alternating between participants. Keep the rhythm. When you have found a good sense of collective rhythm, replace ‘2’ with a clap. Then replace ‘3’ with a stomp. Then replace ‘1’ with a shout.
Variation I: Before starting this exercise, ask everyone to close their eyes, trust each other, work together, and listen to each other without looking.
Variation II: Form a group and face the same direction while rotating. The idea is to move like a wave: Look in front of you and copy the person/persons you see.
Variation III: Circle around yourselves.
Aim: If you are ever in a big gathering and panic ensues, walking together in sync while counting and retreating can help prevent a stampede. In 2019, protestors in Hong Kong were observed counting while retreating.
Duration: 30 minutes Number of participants: 5 to 50
Context: See Augusto Boal’s 1992 book entitled Games for Actors and Non-Actors, 1992.
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything?
3. Lift
Stand in a circle holding hands. One person throws an inflated balloon into the middle of the circle. The goal is to keep it airborne for as long as possible using hands, arms, heads, shoulders, chests, or knees, but NOT feet. All students should continue to hold hands throughout the exercise.
Variation: Add more balloons and use only participants’ breath to keep the balloons airborne.
Aim: For this to be effective, everyone needs to work cooperatively: Each participant must make sure to not let go of their neighbour’s hands. You will quickly understand that you must all move together as a circle to ensure that you do not allow the balloon to fall to the ground. The same sense of collective movement can also be important in a protest or other mass gathering: to move together and imagine that you have to carry and move something together as a crowd, such as a body or an emergency kit.
Duration: 30 minutes
Number of participants: 5 to 50
Material: Balloons
Context: This exercise originates perhaps in the Mayan Ballgame, or Tlachtli, where players were not allowed to use their hands. (In Tlachtli, the aim was to shoot a ball through a stone hoop at one end of a court.) Some ballgames were played to arbitrate between enemies, but the Maya also saw this game as a battle between the gods of life and death.
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything?
4. Inner Map
Form smaller groups and draw an ‘inner body map’ together: One person lies down on a large piece of white paper, and another person marks the body’s contour. Now fill out the contour, inside the body, with things that you think are important to protest for or against. Talk as you draw together, although you don’t necessarily have to agree with one another. Don’t use words, just colours and figures, because they better approximate the language of the body itself.
Variation: Either lie down with arms and legs spread out or strike a ‘political floor pose’.
Aim: This exercise is a playful and creative way to brainstorm or map which emotions and political topics are present within a group.
Duration: 60 minutes
Number of participants: small groups of 5 and up to however many small groups you can manage
Material: You can buy cheap white paper rolls and black markers in hardware stores. Cut the paper to fit the length of the person.
Context: This exercise may derive from the Alexander Technique (1890s–), which promotes an awareness of the body while in action in order to correct bad movements and move more efficiently. Mapping your body can help you understand it as a source of information. It’s about paying attention to what your body is saying, because it speaks a language that is different from speech.
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything?
5. Breath
Talk to the students about how important breathing is. Breathing is the key to feeling calm and focused. Breathing is like massaging yourself inside. When you are upset, anxious, or stressed, try this simple breathing exercise and repeat it four times: Breathe in through your nose, hold the breath, and count to 7; then exhale through your mouth while counting to 8.
Aim: This exercise is a natural tranquilizer for the nervous system, helping to reduce tension and allowing the body to relax, so it’s good at times of anxiety and fear.
Duration: 5 to 10 minutes
Number of participants: 1 to as many as you can manage
Context: The 4-7-8 breathing technique is based on pranayama, an ancient Indian practice that means ‘regulation of breath’.
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything?
6. Breathing Pile
This is a simple collective breathing exercise. Lie down on the floor, so that everyone has their head on someone’s stomach. Close your eyes and register the other person’s breathing, while you yourself breathe naturally. Then shift your focus from your own breathing to that of the other person. Just stay there on the ground and do nothing but breathe in and out together.
Aim: This exercise teaches you to be silent together and to calm yourself down by feeling your own breathing in sync with that of others. We naturally breathe using our abdomen, but when we get stressed and tense, we automatically switch to chest breathing. Practising breathing through our abdomen relaxes your nervous system (as opposed to breathing through the chest) and has a calming effect in moments of stress, panic, or anxiety.
Duration: 15 to 20 minutes
Number of participants: 2 to as many as you can manage
Context: Yoga and yogic breathing originate from ancient breathing practice in the Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda, written around 1500 BCE. Practising being silent at a protest (and just being present) has become a growing tendency amongst protestors due to restrictions on and criminalisation of the right to assemble in many countries.
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything?
7. Be Like a Balloon
Let the air out like a balloon and make an S sound as you exhale.
See who can keep it the longest.
Aim: This exercise will train your voice to become louder. When you let the air out slowly, you control and train your diaphragm, a thin muscle that separates the abdomen and the chest, contracting and flattening when you breathe in and out.
Variation: Stand in a circle holding hands and launch an imaginary balloon. One after the other, each person points to another student in the circle they want to send the balloon to while uttering the words ‘zip,’ ‘zap’ and ‘bang.’ ‘Zip’ means the balloon can only move right or left within the circle while ‘zap’ means it should cross the circle in the middle. ‘Bang’ makes the balloon go back to the sender. Everyone puts their hands forwards and bounces the balloon back and forth to each other while saying these words. We must try to react quickly, without thinking.
Duration: 5 to 10 minutes
Number of participants: 1 to as many as you can manage
Context: Yoga and yogic breathing originate from ancient breathing practice in the Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda, written around 1500 BCE.
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything?
8. Diagonals
Walk around the room in diagonals, to whatever tempo you feel like.
When you reach a wall, turn around and walk straight ahead with firm steps.
When you encounter someone else, embrace each other and take a deep breath: Inhale through the nose and exhale through a big open mouth, emptying all the air from the body. Then continue.
Aim: In this exercise, you ‘reward’ yourself with a deep calming breath whenever you are in close contact with another body. It can seem a bit intimidating for people who don’t know each other, but it’s a good way to make the group acknowledge (and breathe with) one another.
Duration: 15 to 20 minutes
Number of participants: 5 to as many as you can manage
Context: A mix of yogic breathing and contemporary dance
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything?
9. Yes / No
One person asks the other person as many questions as possible and as quickly as possible without any pauses. The person being asked is not allowed to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or to nod or shake their head to signal either word. Ask, for example, the person about their day. ‘Did you have breakfast? Do you like coffee?’ Try to ask yes-no questions to test the other person’s ability to resist the urge to only answer with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’.
Aim: This is a simple warm-up game to train people to use and build arguments and speak in longer sentences instead of just saying ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ especially during stressful situations.
Duration: 15 to 20 minutes
Number of participants: 2 up to as many as you can manage
(This exercise is an exception to the other big group exercises as it is meant for two people.)
Context: At a speedy interrogation in the street (stop and frisk) or at a border control, you may need to be good at answering with clear sentences.
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything? What did the other person tell you? Make a short cartoon with speech bubbles.
10. Suspense
First, fill up a third of a plastic bottle with water and put it on your head and briefly practice balancing the bottle while talking. Then form a line. The first person in line comes up with a message and whispers it into the ear of the second person in line. That person then whispers it to the next and so on. When the sentence reaches the end of the line or the first person again, say it aloud to see if it has changed from the original sentence.
Variation: You can also try to send two sentences from each end of the line or from each side of a circle.
Aim: This exercises shows how easily information can become corrupted by indirect communication. The dissemination of messages among many people can be a good active listening exercise for crowd situations, where you might have to give clear messages to a lot of other people. Errors typically accumulate when one retells stories, so the statement announced by the last person in line usually differs a great deal from the original.
Duration: 30 to 60 minutes
Number of participants: Groups of 8 to 50
Context: Telephone game (it has many different names depending on the locale; in Marseille it is usually called Arabic telephone). The first print reference to the game appeared in the English newspaper The Guardian in 1964, but perhaps it is a variation of exquisite corpse: a practice invented by the Surrealists in 1925 where participants create a collective drawing or text on a paper that is folded to hide previous fragments.
Material: Please recycle plastic bottles! Use old ones!
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything?
11. Pin The Tail
Do you know the game Pin the Tail on the Donkey, where a blindfolded person has to pin the tale onto a drawing of a donkey? Well, this exercise is similar, just done collectively: Tell group members to cluster together: The person in the middle plays the key part, while the rest of the group act as hands. The key has to lead the hands to unlock an imaginary door located somewhere in the room. But except for the key, everyone in the group is blindfolded and not allowed to talk to each other. They also do not know who the key is, so they have to wait and follow the movement of this person.
Variation: Spin the blindfolded group around before the key starts moving the hands.
Aim: To move safely together in groups when visibility is poor (due to smoke or teargas, for example)
Duration: 30 minutes
Number of participants: 5 or more
Context: Inspired by the popular children’s game Pin the Tail on the Donkey, created by Charles Zimmerling in 1899.
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything?
12. Banner
Decide where to hang an imaginary banner. You cannot speak or make signs to each other to decide where to hang it or what it will say. Just imagine for yourself what it says. You do not have to make the banner, just mimic hanging it. Take your time and really move as far away as possible from your starting point and walk as slowly as possible. Don’t rush. After you have hung the imaginary poster, reveal to the group what your personal banner would say. And then you can decide if you want to draw a banner together or not. It can be an odd, but very valuable, group experience to rely solely on your physical energies to communicate with each other – and surprisingly, that will actually eventually lead you towards collective action.
Aim: Reversing the process of banner-making so that each person can better imagine their individual banners. This exercise is not meant to create similar banners – on the contrary. It is most likely that people will have very different ideas of what the banner should say, and this exercise is not about agreeing on one banner slogan but, instead, understanding that you can protest together without agreeing 100 per cent. Your body energies will lead you to the action that you all (unconsciously) want to do. Older protestors feel that contemporary political gatherings have become streamlined and say that in past protests one would see many more diverse slogans.
Duration: 30 to 60 minutes
Number of participants: 5 or more
Context: Inspired by ritual burying (read, for example, about the mystic Gurdjieff’s ideas) and/or somatic exercising, which builds a person’s awareness of their external environments versus their internal sensations.
Material: White paper roll
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything? Discuss as a group how you think your bodies communicated with each other. Did someone push more than others? Did people start ‘cheating’ and use facial expressions? If so, what were the gestures like?
13. Swarm
Warm up: Strike a pose!Without talking, players pretend to walk or play in a city. You can do anything, like playing ball, walking, lying down, group hugging, climbing a tree, exploring, and so on. After a few minutes, decide to copy somebody else’s actions. Always make sure you can see at least one of the others.
Variation: Decide whom you want to copy. When you have tried this exercise a few times and become acquainted with copying, then expand it and practise dispersion: Form within your copying group a composition that moves forwards and backwards: a circle, a triangle, a square, a star, and so on. At a given signal (handclap, etc.) the composition must be deconstructed very quickly and you return to your ‘normal’ city actions and disperse around the space. No one should be left alone; a minimum of two participants should be doing the same city act and formation.
Aim: This exercise is good for practising and developing different dispersion techniques in crowds.
Duration: 30 to 60 minutes
Number of participants: This is most fun with a class, or with 12 or more people.
Context: Swarm intelligence, collective behaviour of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial.
Feedback: Who decides? How do you decide? What are the final actions? If we play it again, were there repetitions in what the majority liked? Did groups form? What did you think about the exercise? Would you change anything?
14. The Movement Strikes Back
Stand in a circle or line. One person begins a repetitive action (a rhythmic tap or squeeze or whatever) on the shoulder of the person ahead of them, who must then repeat exactly the same thing on the next person, and so on, until the motion returns to its originator. At this point, it becomes clear how the original action has mutated.
Variation: When the group has gotten used to the exercise, the originator can begin to change the rhythm by adding more gestures and sending them around the circle in both directions.
Aim: This exercise shows how easily information can become corrupted by indirect communication.
Duration: 20 to 30 minutes
Number of participants: 8 or more
Context: Telephone game and exquisite corpse as described in exercise 10; suspense and Games for Actors and Non- Actors (1992) by Augusto Boal
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything?
15. The Image Strikes Back
Stand in a line with your back to one another. The first person in line makes a simple drawing (e.g. a heart, smiley, or boat) on paper (or a similar medium) and folds it so that nobody sees it. Then, using only one finger, this person repeats the drawing on the back of the person in front of them. The last person makes the drawing with a marker on a paper so that at the end, the two drawings can be compared. Take turns so that many participants can try making the drawings.
Variation: When everyone has gotten used to this exercise, you can expand by having one person draw something into the air in front of the rest of the group. This must be done with very slow movements to make it possible for people to follow and guess what it is and then make their own drawings.
Aim: This exercises shows how easily information can become corrupted by indirect communication. Tip: It makes it easier to track the finger drawing if you don’t lift your finger.
Duration: 20 to 30 minutes
Number of participants: 8 or more
Context: Telephone game and exquisite corpse as described in exercise 10; suspense and Games for Actors and Non- Actors (1992) by Augusto Boal
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything? What movements were being sent around? Which gesture did you prefer and why? What did you think about the exercise when it was a drawing and not a gesture? Would you change anything?
16. Wall
Everyone stands in a long line with their backs against the wall and then begin walking in a line. With each step, inhale and exhale slowly. Move forwards very slowly, following the micro-movements of the others. Set the pace according to the slowest participant. As soon as someone moves out of sync with the others, everyone must return to the wall and start all over again. Do this exercise as slowly as possible.
Variation I: Try moving forwards and backwards and, most importantly, moving very slowly while counting ‘1, 2, 3, …’ together, breathing out loudly together or developing other ways to move slowly as a collective.
Variation II: Tie your shoelaces together and try moving around, first in groups of three and then in larger groups.
Aim: One of the greatest risks of injury or death in a crowd arises from the dangers of a stampede. The possibility of the crowd panicking and stampeding is high. This exercise is about moving forwards, but also backwards, in an orderly retreat to avoid danger and collision.
Duration: 30 minutes
Number of participants: 5 or more
Context: Buddhist walking meditation
Feedback: What did you think about the exercise? Would you change anything?
Draw the wall to look like a person, animal, or another living being. Did you feel like you belonged to the wall? How did it feel to move so slowly with many others? How do you think the wall would look were it a person, animal, or other living being?
17. Hand Signals
Create signals that you can use to communicate with others in a mass gathering from a distance. What do you think is needed and important to be communicated besides the regular ‘stop’ (flat hand forward), ‘peace’ (fingers in a V-shape), ‘ok’ (thumbs-up), and so on? Perhaps try making a signal for ‘I’m hurt’, ‘I can’t move’, ‘I need help’ or whatever else you can think of. After you’ve created your signals, divide into two lines far apart from one another. One line makes signals while the other guesses them (recording them on paper). Then change so that everyone has the opportunity to both invent new signals and guess those of others.
Variation I: Resume exercise 14 or 15. A student makes a hand signal, and the others must quickly repeat it so that the original gesture becomes a collective gesture, visible and understandable to the rest of the group.
Variation 2: Perform your hand signal as a body gesture so that your signalisation is more visible in a crowd and from far away.
Aim: To develop signals to communicate with when others cannot hear you
Duration: 60 minutes (for 25 students or less, depending on the size of the group)
Number of participants: 5 or more
Context: In 2019, protestors in Hong Kong were seen signalling for needs in waves across huge crowds. Hand signals were common in pre-modern wars and they often change meaning over time. For example, the V-signal was used in the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453): English archers would signal a V to French enemies to show that they could still shoot, but if they were caught by the French they often got the index and middle fingers of their right hands chopped off.
Material: Pen and paper
Feedback: What do you think about of the exercise? Would you change anything? Prepare a graphic where you draw all the signals you made.
18. Debate
Write down several different topics you wish to discuss with the group (such as coal, guns, CO2, gender equality, teachers, homework, etc.) on pieces of paper spread on the floor. Now jump from one paper to the next and show the others if you are FOR or AGAINST the topic by making a hand signal. This exercise is actively using exercise 17: Hand Signals. This is a battle with hands, not words. Make up as many hand signals as you wish. The only rule is that two people can’t stand on one paper at the same time, so the hand debate must be paced according to the number of participants.
Aim: To learn to communicate with hand gestures
Duration: 30 to 60 minutes
Number of participants: 8 or more
Context: Communication through signals
Material: Paper and markers
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything?
19. Slow Run
Try to become the slowest runner. Once the race has begun, the group must never stop moving, and every movement should be executed as slowly as possible. Each runner should take the largest possible step forward on every stride. As one foot moves in front of the other, it must pass above knee-level. Another rule is that both feet should never be on the ground at the same time: The moment the right foot lands, the left foot must rise and vice versa. One foot should remain on the ground at all times.
Variation: In smaller groups, tie your shoes together and start walking around together in sync. You can use tape instead of shoelaces.
Aim: This exercise, which requires considerable equilibrium, stimulates all the muscles of the body and promotes a greater understanding of slowness as strength.
Duration: 20 to 30 minutes (depending on the distance)
Number of participants: This is most fun with an entire class or with 8 or more participants.
Context: Read the ‘Slow Motion’ exercise in Augusto Boal’s Games for Actors and Non-Actors (1992).
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything?
Make a drawing (without words) that explains the exercise.
20. (Un)wrestle
Everyone stands in a circle holding hands. One person is appointed ‘wrestler’ and moves outside of the circle so that they can’t see what’s happening inside the circle. Everyone in the circle should now weave their bodies together, stepping over or under each other while still holding hands. When the circle is tightly woven and nobody can move, everyone shouts, ‘Wrestler, wrestler, come help un-wrestle us’. The wrestler’s task is to bring the group back to its original circular form. Sometimes this succeeds; sometimes it’s impossible. Everyone must keep holding hands during the exercise.
Variation: Instead of holding the hand of the person next to you, everyone in the circle reaches their hand into the centre of the circle and grabs a few random hands – but never both hands of the same person.
Aim: To experience the feeling of imbalance but also support Duration: 30 to 60 minutes
Number of participants: It’s most fun with 8 to 30 participants.
Context: This exercise is similar to a sit-in, where one or more individuals occupy an area to promote political, social, or economic change, refusing to move until their demands are met. Being able to tightly hold onto one another is a useful act of resistance.
Feedback:What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything?
21. Falling
Find a partner and stand close to each other on a soft floor. Face each other with closed eyes, but don’t touch. Stand silently together for a while and then start melting down to the floor by sharing your weight and leaning on each other. You may manage to get down to a sitting position by leaning on each other and then end up lying prostrate on the floor while maintaining physical contact. You must both share your weight during the slow fall by gently pushing and leaning onto the other person. Trust each other.
Variations: Someone shouts ‘falling!’ and the other participants should help catch them and be really attentive. You can do this exercise with either open or closed eyes. Take a photograph of each other while you are falling. Try to catch the other person while they are still in the air, between standing and lying on the ground.
Aim: This exercise is simply about practising and experiencing how to fall safely.
Duration: 30 minutes
Number of participants: 2
Context: The most important body part that you need to protect in a fall is your head, so turn as you fall. Keep arms and legs bent. Stay loose. Roll out of the impact. Spread out the force of the fall.
Feedback: What do you think about this falling exercise? Would you change anything?
22. Divided
Divide the space you are in with chalk. Before you divide the space, discuss how you will divide it. Will you form groups or do it individually?
Variation: Use classrooms chairs and tables as well if available.
Aim: Experimenting with and negotiating different interests, needs, and intentions
Duration: 30 minutes
Number of participants: 8 or more
Context: Betzavta method: ‘The art of dividing a pumpkin’. Betzavta is a training method taught by the Adam Institute for Democracy and Peace, founded in Jerusalem in 1986 to promote the language of democracy.
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything?
23. Arrested
Decide who gets arrested and who is the arrestor. The arrestor leads the arrested person around with closed eyes and tells them when they can open their eyes and what they can see. The arrestor can also ask them to bend their knees, turn around, and use their voice to make sounds. Try not to practice this as an aggressive exercise or an exercise about submission. And try to not create a linguistic narrative from the beginning. Just choose to show them normal things that you also react to. Don’t overthink it. It’s important to be close to the centre of the other person – ask them if you may touch their waist, shoulder, and head.
Aim: This indoor and outdoor exercise creates empathy and trust between two people. And it offers the possibility to experience a simulation of an arrest – a controlled and restricted space of moving.
Duration: 30 minutes
Number of participants: 2
Context: Imagine that someone is kidnapping you or leading you somewhere blindfolded and you can only see sporadically.
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything? For example, is it good or bad that only one person leads at a time? Could you do this exercise in a big group? Make a video with your phone, re-enacting all the movements.
24. Think-Body
Everybody is designated a body part – head, finger, foot, leg, or knee group. One person acts as the brain. The brain brings the body together by shouting out the body parts: The groups must position themselves in their right place. Once connected to each other as a full body, the groups must stick together. Now that the body is formed, the brain can make the body move by shouting, for example, ‘Finger touch foot!’ Remember, you are now part of a body, so you should stay alert and move in relation to the rest of the body as the part you’ve been designated.
Variation: A person proposes a simple movement: to jump, to lie down, or to walk. The body must follow these instructions by moving organically.
Aim: Coordination within groups
Duration: 30 to 60 minutes
Number of participants: 8 or more
Context: Similar to the machine of rhythms exercise from Augusto Boal’s Games for Actors and Non-Actors (1992) or the five finger dispersion technique by the German protest group Ende Gelände (2017)
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything? Make a group photograph where you pose as the body part appointed to you. Get your trainer to take the picture.
25. Push
Try to push and pull each other without touching. After a while, you can try to touch each other while pushing, but do it in very slow motion to understand the movement better. Don’t react, just experience it, and notice what happens inside of you. How do you feel when the other person is pushing and pulling you and you can’t react? And how does it feel to push and pull someone else? Be kind to each other and try to make this exercise as collaborative as possible.
Aim: To train radical patience when someone is trying to provoke you and get you to fight back
Duration: 30 minutes.
Number of participants: 8 or more
Context: Police officers have been observed pushing protestors in order to upset and anger them so that they become belligerent, which provides a pretext for their arrest.
Material: Make sure to do this exercise on soft mattresses.
Feedback: What do you think about the exercise? Would you change anything? Make it into a dance? What physical scenarios can you come up with? Try to eventually turn it into a dance choreography.
26. Louder Voice
Here are some basic essential vocal training exercises that might make your voices louder:
Stick your chest out and lengthen your torso so that your voice is stronger.
Keep your knees slightly bent. Inhale deeply into your diaphragm and while breathing out say ‘haaa’ together.
Vibrate your lips like a trumpet three times, on and off. Then do it for a longer time at a higher pitch.
Count from 1 to 5, starting out quietly and then getting louder without shouting. Count backwards from 5 to 1, decreasing your volume again.
Make a vroom sound (like a motorcycle). Sing the letters of a word through the line of people, so that the individual consonants sung together form the entire word – like a wave of hands (see example below).
Shout a person’s name from afar in as relaxed a manner as possible, in order to learn not to strain your voice.
Throw the balls while saying in a loud, low voice, ‘tic’, ‘tac’, ‘toc’.
Aim: To make your voice louder
Exercise example: To sing the word ‘ball’ the first people in line sing ‘bbbbbb’ very slowly; the next ‘aaaaa’; and the last ones ‘llllll’, so that it sounds like they are all singing the word ‘ball’ together. When you get really good at this, you can practice doing it faster, and perhaps eventually everyone can sing the full word while remaining in sync.
Duration: 10 minutes per exercise
Number of participants: 5 or more
Context: When you’re at a protest or mass gathering, it is sometimes important to use a loud voice so that people can hear you.
Feedback: What do you think about these voice exercises? Would you change anything? Try to invent a collective breathing exercise. Make a thirty-second to one-minute video breathing exercise about something you want to change or protest. You can inhale, exhale, hold your breath, hyperventilate, and so on.
27. First Aid / Self-Care
Before participating in a protest, measure the risk of confrontation and check to see if the protest is legal or not. If the protest is illegal (see § and 29. Know your Rights), clashes are more likely.
If you do find yourself in a confrontation, move away from it in a systematic manner. For example, if tear gas grenades are fired, quickly withdraw by taking streets or directions perpendicular to the direction of the tear gas grenade.
General Recommendations:
Bring water and drink plenty of water before going to a protest.
Document if you see anything bad happen.
Keep yourself and others calm and coherent.
Know what to do if you get separated from your friends.
Dealing with teargas: Wear a gas mask, goggles, a hat, sunglasses or a wet bandana (soaked in lemon juice or vinegar) over the nose and mouth (you can bring this in a plastic bag). Do not rub your eyes. Blow your nose, rinse your mouth, cough and spit. Try not to swallow. Do not wear contact lenses, but if you must, remove them with clean hands after exposure to the gas. Don’t use vaseline or oil-based lotion because they can trap chemicals. Don’t wear jewellery or other loose, hanging objects that can be easily grabbed.
Wear shoes you can run in and bring fresh clothes in case yours get contaminated.
(*Source: Safety During Protest by Amnesty International)
ABC, A=Airways, B=Breathing, and C=Circulation:
Airways:
If a person is on the ground and is conscious: Ask the person where they are hurt and what happened. Do not, under any circumstances, move the person, but call the emergency services (fire brigade).
Make sure the injured person’s airways are open. If something is stuck in their throats, try first to make them cough it out; if that doesn’t work, try to remove it with your finger (but be careful not to push the object deeper). Make sure that their chin is up so that their airways are straight and as much air as possible can enter. You can also learn how to administer the Heimlich manoeuvre: Make a fist and place it just above the navel, thumb-side in. Grab the fist with your other hand and push it inward and upward at the same time. Perform five of these abdominal thrusts. Repeat until the object is expelled and the person can breathe or cough on their own.
Breathing:
Is the person breathing? Can you communicate with them, or are they unconscious? It is crucial to never shake an injured person due to the risk of head/spinal injury and permanent paralysation. If the person seems unconscious, pinch them and then put them in a lateral safety position. To check if they’re breathing, press your lips to their cheek, see if their chest is moving up and down, or place two fingers on their wrists or neck to feel for a pulse. Call for help. If you think they’re not breathing, begin CPR right away.
Circulation:
CPR: Press 100 times per minute. Again, make sure their chin is up so that their airways are as open as possible. Fold your hands like this (image) or this (image) and start pushing: thirty pushes and then breathe into their mouth twice; repeat with thirty pushes and two rescue breaths, and so on. The pace is quick. Remember to close their nostrils with your fingers while administering rescue breaths.
If the person is bleeding, you must apply pressure to the wound. Use your hands, fingers, belts, or strips of clothing to stop the bleeding. If an arm or leg is bleeding heavily, you can tie a scarf or belt around it to stop the bleeding. If a main artery is bleeding and gushing out blood, you should not leave the person even for a few seconds, so ask someone else to call for help. Use clothing or blankets to support the injured area. Cover the injured person with a blanket, because they can quickly become cold. If someone is panicking, calmly ask them to sit down and slowly breathe in and out. You can also tell them to breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, which naturally slows down their breathing.
NATO position*: Bend the left arm and left leg and turn the person onto their side. This prevents the person from choking on blood, vomit, or other bodily fluids. Remember, if they hit their head or neck, you cannot move them under any circumstance!
Always make sure that someone calls for help. Even the assistance of a person without any training can be crucial to the final rescue outcome.
28. 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action
Nonviolent action shows law enforcement, the media, and the public that we are just claiming the right to exercise our opinion or show solidarity without weapons or objects that could harm others. Showing this, especially to the police and military, is important.
It may be assumed that this peaceful attitude will solicit an equally peaceful response from police forces. This is not always the case, and we must be prepared for it: Protesters sitting or lying on the ground have experienced unrestrained police violence. Remember that on December 8, 2018, on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, a young yellow-vest protestor with bare hands and arms stretched out in surrender, facing the police, was still shot in the abdomen with a hard rubber bullet. In short, nonviolence is not a guarantee against police violence.
Never argue with or insult police officers in case of arrest. If the officers are aggressive or rude, the best defence against the police is silence. Just ask to exercise your rights.
198 METHODS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION by Gene Sharp:
THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT PROTEST AND PERSUASION
Formal Statements
1. Public speeches 2. Letters of opposition or support 3. Declarations by organizations and institutions
4. Signed public statements 5. Declarations of indictment and intention 6. Group or mass petitions
Communications with a Wider Audience
7. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols 8. Banners, posters, and displayed communications
9. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books 10. Newspapers and journals 11. Records, radio, and television 12. Skywriting and earthwriting
Group Representations
13. Deputations
14. Mock awards
15. Group lobbying
16. Picketing 17. Mock elections
Symbolic Public Acts
18. Displays of flags and symbolic colours
19. Wearing of symbols 20. Prayer and worship 21. Delivering symbolic objects
22. Protest disrobings 23. Destruction of own property
24. Symbolic lights 25. Displays of portraits 26. Paint as protest 27. New signs and names 28. Symbolic sounds 29. Symbolic reclamations 30. Rude gestures
Pressures on Individuals
31. ‘Haunting’ officials
32. Taunting officials
33. Fraternization 34. Vigils
Drama and Music
35. Humorous skits and pranks 36. Performances of plays and music
37. Singing
Processions
38. Marches 39. Parades 40. Religious processions
41. Pilgrimages 42. Motorcades
Honouring the Dead
43. Political mourning 44. Mock funerals 45. Demonstrative funerals
46. Homage at burial places
Public Assemblies
47. Assemblies of protest or support
48. Protest meetings 49. Camouflaged meetings of protest
50. Teach-ins
Withdrawal and Renunciation
51. Walk-outs 52. Silence 53. Renouncing honours
54. Turning one’s back
THE METHODS OF SOCIAL NONCOOPERATION
Ostracism of Persons
55. Social boycott 56. Selective social boycott
57. Lysistratic nonaction
58. Excommunication 59. Interdict
Noncooperation with Social Events, Customs, and Institutions
60. Suspension of social and sports activities
61. Boycott of social affairs 62. Student strike 63. Social disobedience
64. Withdrawal from social institutions
Withdrawal from the Social System
65. Stay-at-home 66. Total personal noncooperation
120. Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance 121. Refusal of public support 122. Literature and speeches advocating resistance
Citizens’ Noncooperation with Government
123. Boycott of legislative bodies 124. Boycott of elections 125. Boycott of government employment and positions 126. Boycott of government depts., agencies, and other bodies
127. Withdrawal from government educational institutions
128. Boycott of government-supported organizations 129. Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents 130. Removal of own signs and placemarks 131. Refusal to accept appointed officials 132. Refusal to dissolve existing institutions
Citizens’ Alternatives to Obedience
133. Reluctant and slow compliance 134. Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
135. Popular nonobedience 136. Disguised disobedience 137. Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
138. Sit-down 139. Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
140. Hiding, escape, and false identities 141. Civil disobedience of ‘illegitimate’ laws
Action by Government Personnel
142. Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
143. Blocking of lines of command and information 144. Stalling and obstruction 145. General administrative noncooperation
146. Judicial noncooperation 147. Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents 148. Mutiny
Domestic Governmental Action
149. Quasi-legal evasions and delays 150. Noncooperation by constituent governmental units
International Governmental Action
151. Changes in diplomatic and other representations
152. Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events 153. Withholding of diplomatic recognition 154. Severance of diplomatic relations
155. Withdrawal from international organizations
156. Refusal of membership in international bodies
175. Overloading of facilities 176. Stall-in 177. Speak-in
178. Guerrilla theatre 179. Alternative social institutions 180. Alternative communication system
Economic Intervention
181. Reverse Strike 182. Stay-in Strike 183. Nonviolent land seizure 184. Defiance of Blockades 185. Politically Motivated Counterfeiting
186. Preclusive Purchasing 187. Seizure of assets 188. Dumping 189. Selective patronage 190. Alternative markets 191. Alternative transportation systems
192. Alternative economic institutions
Political Intervention
193. Overloading of administrative systems
194. Disclosing identities of secret agents
195. Seeking imprisonment 196. Civil disobedience of ‘neutral’ laws
197. Work-on without collaboration
198. Dual sovereignty and parallel government
29. Know Your Rights
Freedom of Assembly
In French law, the right to protest and assemble in public is not addressed by the constitution. However, it is present in both the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the European Convention on Human Rights. This means that a real protection of the right to protest is not authorized, but has to be declared in advance.
Announce Your Public Event
Everyone has the right to take their opinion to the streets. Police cannot restrict a peaceful public assembly, but you must inform the local police about your public event up to fifteen days in advance and at least seventy-two hours before it. You must also explain the purpose, time, place, and route of the protest and name three organizers for the event, who must all live in the area.
Right to Contact your Family, a Lawyer, and a Doctor
The public authorities (police, mayors, prefects) reserve the right to prohibit any protest if it threatens to cause serious disturbances to the public. The police have the right to end your protest and arrest you for forty-eight hours if they consider the protest or you a disturbance to public order. If you are arrested, you have the right to know the reason for your arrest and to contact your family, and see a lawyer and doctor.
Article 431-3 Defines Crowd or Group as Illegal
A ‘wild or spontaneous’ protest is not clearly defined in the legislation. Article 431-3 of the French Penal Code refers to ‘criminal participation’ as a ‘crowd’ or ‘group of people’. A crowd is not illegal in and of itself, but crowds do not possess the same fundamental rights as those of an individual and can therefore be considered ‘likely to disturb public order’.
Two Warnings
Police officers are supposed to give two warnings—two requests that the crowd disperses—before using force. Only if the two warnings have no effect, or the police are themselves attacked, is force justified. However, often these warnings are never given.
Protection Gear Can Get You Arrested
Protestors have recently been charged for carrying normal protection glasses, eye-cleaning liquid, and mouth or face covers. So if you carry these items to a protest, you might get arrested and charged with the intent to collectively commit violence against individuals or destroy property.
Arrest Is Always a Risk
It’s good to know how you can protect yourselves while protesting, but there is always a risk of being arrested. The decision to criminalize participation in a protest is a very political one.
30. The End
Invent a narrative scenario that involves two or three exercises: It can be a street demonstration, a sit-in, a silent protest, and so on. It should include a fall, a withdrawal, dispersion, animated communication with the police, self- protection, or a fight, among other possibilities. Then do the choreography for one another.
Feedback: What do you think about this final end exercise? Would you change anything?
The Group-Think projectis co-authored by teenagers and contemporary circus artists from Archaos, Pôle National Cirque in Marseille, France and was commissioned by Manifesta, the European Nomadic Biennial for its thirteenth edition in Marseille.
From March to October 2019, the artist facilitated brainstorming sessions with teenagers in Marseille; from these conversations, the theme of protest was defined and exercises were prepared, tested, and co-written with students from four different schools around the city. The students first tried out the exercises; they then provided feedback and suggested changes, which the group then tested again.
The first session was difficult and did not elicit much feedback from the students; but the more time they spent together, the more the group began to critique the exercises and become involved – disagreeing and coming up with several variations and edits. For example, the breathing and hand signal exercises are based on requests from the young people: One student wanted to better deal with anxiety and stress and also felt that the group needed breathing exercises to be more attentive to each other and to the moment.
Another student argued that the police do not know how to distinguish between young people getting ‘merely’ upset and when they actually intend violence, so they suggested a hand signal system with which to communicate with the police. However, the implementation of such a hand signal system to keep very young and minor protestors safe(r) would require collaboration with the police. In this handbook, hand signalling is introduced as a mass communication tool.
Credits
Concept: Stine Marie Jacobsen
Production: Manifesta 13 Education Department (Yana Klichuk and Joana Monbaron)
Trainers: Sophie de Castalbajac of Archaos, Pamela Pantoja, and Andrew Graham
Advisor: Jacques Soncin
Project Assistant: Primavera Gomes Caldas
Editor: Ida Bencke
Translator (English to French): Aïtallah Mohamed Riahi
Copy Editor (English): Michele Faguet
Book Design: Modem Studio
A special thanks to Perla Montelongo for advising me on the writing of the exercises; Ronel Doual for her help with the vocal exercises; students Alexandre Vievard and Hanni dex Heimer for making sure the exercise descriptions are understandable; and Aleks Berditchevskaia for advising me on the introduction.
Project Supporters: The Danish Arts Foundation and Maison du Danemark.
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0)
