Training Ground

Taking place in the lead up to the AFL Grand Final, a team of Melbourne-based performers, trained by Public Movement, undertook a daily drill devised for the city of Melbourne

commissioned by: Australian Center for Contemporary Art, as part of “Activate the City” events

at a site marked for a future memorial on the corner of Franklin and Victoria streets. There the team signaled the beginning of the drill by embodying a temporary physical structure at the site, before continuing on foot past several Melbourne institutions to Melbourne’s City Square

Every day at 5.30pm, the team arrived at the City Square, marking out a temporary playing field and activating a series of gestures of conflict rooted in the rules of the AFL game and performed in its stadiums. This new choreography combines moments of confrontation, acts of appropriation and the passion of physical rivalry. Training Ground made its mark daily, leaving its footprints in the granitic sand of the City Square