A two-sided view on a powerful game
On Nov. 27, I saw Frog in Hand perform their 15-minute contemporary piece called “Checkmate.” They showed a chess game as an epic, chaotic battle of White and Black, with some violence. At first, I had a feeling that the dance was unnecessarily harsh and violent, and I almost left.
Being a chess player myself, I always found the game to be strategic, orderly, and controlled. Seeing this completely opposite portrayal of a chess game had me thinking that the choreographer knew nothing about chess. But as the dance kept going, I kept comparing the two contrasting views on the game – calm and strategic against violent and chaotic – and I realized that it was all a matter of perspective. As the player, I always had a distant, overlooking view of the playing field, and I never identified with any of the pieces that I took, exchanged, or sacrificed for a better position or combination of moves. I suppose that is the right way to play chess; if you get attached to your pieces, you won’t be able to win. But when looking through their eyes (if pieces were alive, like in the dance), the field is a true battle to fight. At their level of perception at the front line, they could experience fear, friendship, hope, joy, despair, hatred, defeat, and victory – all of which were portrayed in the emotional dance of Frog in Hand.
Knowing that chess was invented for a king of India many hundreds of years ago as a military game, it makes me think of the real world, and how often situations have contrasting (distant versus close) perspectives. For kings in the ancient empires, and for military leaders now, sending armies out to war is not a hard task physically. They can sit in their castle or office and tell the general beside them to send out battalion 34; in such cases generals are the chess players – cold and detached from the field, playing with strategy. The soldiers in that battalion are the pieces, undergoing all the stresses, emotions, and hardships of the fight.
Likewise, large organizations have divided perspectives. CEOs rarely know the hardships of the most low-paid workers in their own company unless they had to start from the bottom themselves. Once again, the CEO is the player, while the employees are the pieces.
Distant and close perspectives each have their uses. A distant perspective allows for emotional detachment, protecting the viewer and giving the opportunity for logical and strategic thinking. Decisions made from a distant perspective are often beneficial to the group, company, or army as a whole, though some individuals in the group may suffer as a result. On the other hand, a close perspective shows the emotional struggles of the individuals in the group; this allows for decisions benefiting each individual, rather than the group as a whole. Seeing a situation from all perspectives allows for informed and appropriate decisions that are beneficial to all or at least offer a good compromise.