Playing Apart

Collaboration with Jon Rubin

Playing Apart dismantled an entire 90 piece marching band into single performers that utilized the whole city as a playing field for a collective, yet dispersed, protest march. Each band member, dressed in plain clothes, continually played Twisted Sister's anthem of teenage angst and protest, We're Not Going To Take It, as they walked their own route through the city.

By simply walking the streets, sitting in a cafe or peering out an office window - citizens of Denver would see one band member after another passing by from random directions, like solitary pieces of a larger puzzle that can only be fit together in the mind of the viewer. The project filtered into and out of the Occupy Denver protest that was marching through the center of the city.

Band: Bear Creek Marching Band

Additional Notes

This public art work brought a day of wonderment, celebration and poetic activism to the city of Denver. Some called it a modern take on the flashmob and Americans For The Arts awarded it as one of the top public art works of the year.