Wisdom of Play

One of the speakers coming to TEDx Bloomington is Charlie Todd, the man behind the New York City-based prank collective creating scenes of chaos and joy in public places: Improv Everywhere. In a homage to Todd and IE, we will organize a local flashmob mission to be undertaken in the days leading up to the main stage event on May 14.

We are looking for agents to help brainstorm and organize some public performance art during the first half of April. This small group will be responsible for any props, casting, and training needed to successfully execute the mission. Some examples of past efforts by IE include:

• The Tourist Lane—a sidewalk is chalked to show out-of-towners where to walk
• The MP3 Experiment—The longest-running recurring mission has thousands of people download and play an MP3 at the same time with instructions about what to do.
• Where’s Rob?—An agent pretends to be lost at a Knicks game, inciting an entire section to yell to get his attention.
• The High-Five Escalator—Commuter crowd gets an enthusiastic greeting after riding the escalator up from the subway to the street.
• The Moebius—A 5-minute storyline cycles back on itself in a Starbucks for an hour.
• Circle Line Tours—A free boat tour of Manhattan … in a fountain.
• Cell Phone Symphony—Phones stashed in bags at a store bag check all go off at the same time.
• Best Game Ever—With fervent fans, vendors, a blimp and a jumbotron, a little league game gets big league treatment.

We want our May mission to be aligned with the theme “Wisdom of Play.”