For today’s session of Freedom Park Fridays, we will be doing a collective workout following the directions of Peruvian artist Sergio Zevallos and his performance Educación cívica/Civic Education. You will need to find yourself a partner and a large room. Now, take a deep breath and get ready for the workout.
1. Stand at the edge of your mat in mountain pose
2. Take the edge of your belt into your hand and pass the other end to your partner, who is standing at the other end of the room to you; pull it taut between you
3. Move your right arm up and forward, as if creating a barrier, while putting your left arm out to the side. Say the word ‘left’
4. Put your right arm out to the side and move your left arm up and forward, as if creating a barrier. Say the word ‘right’
5. With a partner, walk over to a corner of the room, bend over and pretend you are both dragging a heavy bucket across the floor
6. Soft eyes as you both edge across the room, pretending all the time to pour something (a viscous, lube-like liquid, perhaps) out of the imaginary bucket and onto the floor
7. Walk the empty bucket back to the corner of the room
8. Stamp your feet, left, right, left right, left, right, at a steady pace, but fast
9. Place your left hand on the back of your neck, elbow raised above
10. Count out loud
11. Face your partner and jump up and down together
12. Count out loud (in a different language to the first time)
13. Form a line at one end of the room, take a couple of small steps forward, then crouch down, moving your hips from side to side, in unison
14. Feel your hips loosen, then stand up. Breathe
15. Now, each of you do a different action to the others. Jump, march, pace in a circle or stand still (with your left elbow raised and the hand on the back of the head, as before)
16. Fight or pretend to fight each other, wrestle each other to the ground. Lie there. One on top of the other.
17. Breathe
18. Stand up, move to the side of the room, where you sit down, crossing your arms and pretending you are watching an imaginary performance
19. In the performance you see two men wrestling on the floor, one in a white shirt and the other in soldier’s attire
20. Lie on the ground. Close your eyes. Savasana
21. In the imaginary performance, in your mind’s eye, you see one of the men in white shirts cut open the clothes of one of the others in soldier’s attire
22. In your imaginary performance, you enter, shirtless with a gun and you start tying up one of the men in white shirts as the other man in a white shirt helps
23. Still dreaming, you feel the punches on your back inflicted by the freed man in the white shirt
24. The lights go out
25. You are playing a game with the men, in white shirts and in soldier’s attire, shaking a can which seems to contain some small objects (dice?)
26. As the cans are opened, you see to your horror that the objects in the cans are bullets
27. End of Savasana. Open your eyes
28. Stand at the edge of your mat
29. Leave the room
30. Imagine yourself staying there sitting
31. Crossed legged
32. Wondering what will happen next
33. Give a round of applause
34. The lights come on
35. You are free. Namaste