Old Jo's Map

An urban legend cartography role-play about regeneration.

A collective storytelling game on the spaces you are given and the stories that you make, for 2-5 active players and no specified amount of supportive audience members in sessions of 30-45 min.

Watch a full session recorded at LaMama Theater here.

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A set of illustrated vintage postcards sparks personal memories to craft the basis of an original story. Participants create together onto a clear acrylic board placed over a large permanent map base. They're invited to interpret,  name, then change a space that is as much an open canvas as an heirloom of uncertain symbolism.

LISTEN TO A MEMORY, NAME A SYMBOL, CHOOSE YOUR ADVENTURE...

The experience develops in three phases of group conversation using improvisational traditions  from  folk  and  theater  games  to  role-play within a chosen genre. Combining drawing, exchanging and free associating on a step by step story arc, the group creates a collective tall tale of people in motion. At the end, players leave a message for the ones that have gone or the ones that are to come.

Old Jo's Map provides an opportunity to create together, separated from daily patterns, and reflect on the lived territories we come with and inhabit. It showcases guided story-making as a conducive environment for diverse groups to share parts of themselves in healthy and safe ways.

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A print-and-play version is on its way.  In the meantime, to run a session of the game in person or on-line, please contact Alina via twitter @shrugworlds.

Created by Alina Constantin in collaboration with Brianna Shuttleworth between MFA programs at NYU's Game Center for CultureHub's Refest 2020, Old Jo's Map is a creative reflection on our participatory artistic practices across cultural and generational gaps. Presented at LaMama Theater in New York the day before lock-down. Photos by Lívia Sá, courtesy of CultureHub, and Alina Constantin.