The Game We Played
This short audio documentary is composed of recordings I made of one movement of Memory Flash, a series of performances created and curated by the collective John Q. It is 7 minutes and 55 seconds long and sounds best when listened to with headphones.
John Q writes:
“Memory Flash was the first series of public interventions by artist collective, John Q. Taking its source material from the Atlanta History Center’s Unspoken Past Oral History Project and from news reports, particular moments from personal stories or events were represented using the visual media of performance, installation and projection. These specifically located interventions were meant to create new memories based on Atlanta’s past. The interventions are intended as ephemeral, morphing and discursive memorials.”
This particular performance, or intervention, was titled “Tomboys vs. The Lorelei Ladies” and took place April 3, 2010 on the ball fields of Piedmont Park in Atlanta GA. The event consisted of performers reading a text based on a set of oral history transcripts while in the background a women’s softball scrimmage game was played. In the words of women who lived through the period the text describes the relationship between lesbian culture and softball leagues in Atlanta in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
From the John Q essay about Memory Flash published in Southern Spaces:
“As in other cities of comparable size, recreational sports provided an important space for women to socialize with one another in Atlanta during the 1950s and 1960s. Whether in city leagues or college physical education departments, organized athletics proved especially appealing to lesbians with an interest in sports and in search of women-only spaces. In Atlanta, many women formed friendships and romantic relationships through softball teams like the Tomboys and the Lorelei Ladies. This sphere, however, was not exclusively occupied by lesbians and required careful judgment and caution in one’s public comportment.”
John Q is Wesley Chenault, Andy Ditzler and Joey Orr. Learn more about their work here.
The performers are Priscilla Smith, Stacy Braukman, Grace Dubinson, and Jenn Nelson. Softball game courtesy of Decatur Women’s Sports League.
