Live chess
Live chess has been a form of chess that has been found for centuries , in which chess is played with living pieces or chess pieces are represented by people in costumes . Live chess is often practiced outdoors. Games with an open outcome are the exception, mostly rehearsed games are performed. Live chess can have a direct connection with dance in chess ballet . As a motif it can be found in a variety of forms. a. use in literature, theater, film and modern role-playing games .
introduction
The game of chess as an image of a conflict between two armies, as the decision of a conflict between two opponents in a fight, has linked the abstract concept of lifeless chess figures with human and animal figures since the beginning of chess history .
Live chess has exerted its appeal over various times and has often also attracted interest from non-chess players. It combines chess, which otherwise requires special knowledge, with other popular cultural forms of expression such as drama or dance. In addition to live chess, other terms such as live chess game , live chess game , etc. are used. In some forms, such as ballet or role-playing, a restriction of live chess to depicting a specific game and correct compliance with the rules of movement is not mandatory.
The term must be distinguished from the widespread idea of comparing processes of power politics with a game of chess, in which states or individuals are pushed back and forth on an imaginary board “like chess pieces”. The equipment of the costumes and the course of a live chess game make it possible, however, to allude to specific historical-political or social conditions.
Living chess game
In a narrower sense, live chess is understood as a regular game of chess that is played with “human pieces”.
Game flow
Live chess can be performed in closed rooms or halls. Most of the time, however, it is played outdoors, i.e. in a sports stadium or on urban squares. The playing field , which corresponds to the chess board , is marked on the ground, on grass or pavement (chess squares); otherwise a mat, tarpaulin or carpet that you have brought with you will be unrolled. In rarer cases stone or parquet floors laid in a checkerboard pattern are also reported. The modern performances have the character of a folk festival and they are often integrated into larger chess or cultural events such as medieval markets.
Serious games are rare in live chess. Well-known chess games , such as the Immortal Game , are usually played out in choreographed form. The performers, including children, must be specifically prepared by trainers. For more complex performances were designed in conjunction with the Springer figure real sooner in some cases horses used. Their training for long standing still and the pulling movements are fraught with particular difficulties. The deployment of the characters and the assumption of the starting position are usually already part of the performance. Particular attention is paid to capturing pieces and the almost regular mating finish . Here, the actors have to perform precisely studied movements in order to produce the desired effect on the viewer.
In addition to rehearsed games, real games can also be considered, in which well-known players are used. Among the previous world champions , José Raúl Capablanca participated several times in such exhibition fights. In 1933, Capablanca played a live chess game against Herman Steiner in Los Angeles , which he won brilliantly. However, the loser later claimed that the course of the game had been agreed in advance.
Further options can make the process attractive. So were the Grand Master Lothar Schmid and Helmut Pfleger 2004 as part of a larger event in Bamberg to a game of chess against each other, the city as "pawns" presented in which prominent citizens are available.
Examples: Ströbeck, Marostica and Jávea
A frequently mentioned example concerns the chess village Ströbeck . The game with living figures in costumes, which has been documented since 1688, is still a highlight at chess and home festivals today. In historical times, the participants wore peasant costumes - the king figure was dressed as a village mayor - and costumes reminiscent of the time of the crusaders . In addition, a game of chess was originally only performed to greet a distinguished guest in Ströbeck. The tradition is continued to this day by a youth chess ensemble, which appears on the square at the chess game in Ströbeck or on guest tours.
Some other European places also practice live chess. The northern Italian city of Marostica has made itself especially international in this regard . Every two years, a chess game accompanied by music is performed there on the Schlossplatz with living people in medieval costumes. It is a modern tradition that began in 1923. It is linked to an apparently fictional chess match dating back to the 15th century, which two male rivals had to fight for the hand of the mayor's daughter.
Since 1996 a colorful live chess show has been presented every year in the Spanish city of Jávea in the Valencia region . As in Marostica, considerable audience numbers are achieved. As an event that is deliberately aimed at foreign visitors, live chess thus fulfills the purpose of a tourist attraction in the cases mentioned . In Jávea, the live chess festival in November 2007 was also combined with a conventionally held championship tournament.
Live chess in Asia
Live chess also found its way into the Asian region, with indigenous chess variants being used. The Chinese chess game ( Xiangqi ) and the Japanese Shogi use marked pieces instead of figures. That is why the participants in live chess usually carry posters or sticks with signs so that the designations are visible. In the city of Tendō , which is famous in Japan for its Shogi pieces, every year there is a live chess game in a festive setting for the cherry blossom festival .
A special tradition exists in Vietnam , where live chess events are often organized at larger village festivals. The Vietnamese live chess is adapted to the rules of the Chinese Xiangqi. The chess opponents sit on raised platforms behind the playing field, while the team members have the opportunity to demonstrate their martial arts techniques while making moves and especially when striking opposing stones .
historical development
From chess as the image of the fight it is no further intellectual leap to the idea of personifying chess pieces . Historically, live chess is already part of the medieval European chess game. In the Middle Ages , the allegorical reference of chess to social reality was always present. In many texts, led by the widespread writing of Jacobus de Cessolis , chess pieces are assigned human characteristics. The order of chess also seemed to reflect the class order of society.
It is uncertain whether live chess games were held before the 15th century. Tradition has it that a Turkish sultan played in such a way that every beaten figure was placed in the hands of the hangman. Likewise in the realm of legend belong stories that cruel Spanish inquisitors or Tsar Ivan the Terrible played for the lives of real people. So much is certain that in connection with chess the death motive, the “game of life or death”, has always fascinated the human imagination.
The idea of living chess pieces also goes back to medieval myth. In the Arthurian stories there are magic chess games, the figures of which are moved as if by magic. The chess historian Murray derives these passages from a Celtic ancestor. In the story about Peredur from the vicinity of the Mabinogion , the hero watches a game of the board game gwyddbwyll (perhaps identical to Hnefatafl ) , whose pieces move by themselves. After the end, the characters on the victorious side utter a scream as if they were human.
Live chess as a dream: Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
The oldest written report on live chess dates back to 1467, when Francesco Colonna (possibly hiding a pseudonym ) wrote a mystical tale. One passage in the work depicts a dream in which a game with lively characters is played on a large chessboard with musical accompaniment. It partially describes the moves and real tactical and strategic considerations of the opponents. The text was published in Latinized Italian in 1499 under the title Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (literally: Poliphilus' dream love struggle) and translated into French and English.
The original nor the medieval rules of movement be based - as the as jumps Secretario designated runner diagonally into over next field as the platoons of the original Alfil corresponded - while in the translations the movements of Lady and runners for the meanwhile reformed chess rules described become.
Colonna's writing has enigmatic and fantastic features. This important text of the Renaissance is said to have had a great impact in the visual arts and literature. With regard to chess, the "dream of Poliphilus" has decisively shaped the concept of the living chess game in several ways. First and foremost, this includes the connection between the live chess idea and drama, music and dance, which has proven to be unusually vigorous.
Tradition of chess shows
At French and Italian courts, the dream of Poliphilus served as a template for practically centuries to depict a game of living chess that was presented during elegant masquerades and tournaments . François Rabelais dedicated two entire sections to these courtly chess spectacles in his work " Gargantua and Pantagruel ", which a chess lover may have added later (they are contained in a posthumously published volume). There were precise rules and regulations for the courtly parlor game . Badges of the individual figures were attached to hair or clothing, and the opponents guided the game with certain signals. Defeated pieces had to bow and vacate the field.
The material expenditure of the plays could be increased at will in the age of courtly culture . At the highest level, a live game of chess could be used for the purpose of representation . In 1796, when the Swedish King Gustav Adolf IV visited the Russian capital Saint Petersburg, a game of chess in medieval costumes was organized. Costumes and grass fields were designed in yellow and green squares . The Ströbeck example mentioned (since 1688) also shows how the courtly live chess radiated and was imitated in the lower social classes .
A continuation of the acting idea in more recent times was the costly staging of historical or fictional battles, which were performed in the open air in front of numerous spectators. At the Agricultural Exhibition in Vienna in 1898 a drama took place in which the victory of Prince Eugene over the Turks in the Battle of Zenta two centuries ago was illustrated. Each chess piece was embodied by a whole group of actors. A total of 340 men and sixteen horses took part, plus a larger orchestra for musical accompaniment.
Chess costumes
The equipment of the chess costumes (king, rook, "knight" etc.) varies widely. Often the motifs are borrowed from history, using knight costumes and historical costumes . In addition to black and white, other colors are often chosen, and colorful (multi-colored) costumes are not uncommon. The figure costumes of the two parties are also not always symmetrical . There are practically no limits to artistic freedom in design.
Motifs from the tradition of chess costumes have found their way into fashion on various occasions . In addition to a general reference of clothing to the topic of chess, for example through the use of the chessboard pattern , the connection line to live chess is visible when an orientation towards certain chess pieces can be recognized. Thus, costumes or a corresponding headgear can be equipped with appropriate symbols or suggest identification with one of the chess pieces in another way . Chess costumes , apart from being used at live chess events, are occasionally worn at costume balls or during carnival .
Variations of the live chess motif
The idea of live chess can be used as a style element and integrated into the most diverse forms of art and entertainment. A famous live chess game is included in the second act of the operetta Der Seekadett by Richard Genée, which premiered in 1876 . An opening trap in chess is shown, which has since been referred to as the midshipman's mate .
Up to the present day the subject of live chess has been taken up in various forms.
Theater and literature
The satirical play A Game at Chess (German title: Das Schachspiel), which was performed in the Globe Theater in 1624 , showed well-known contemporary politicians under the mask of chess figures. In the work, the Spanish ambassador in particular was mocked. The political dispute over this led to indictments, the court sentenced the actors involved to fines, and the writer Thomas Middleton even went to jail for some time.
The dream character of live chess was worked out as a motif in the classic children's book Alice Behind the Mirrors . Lewis Carroll builds the plot around a game of chess. The members of this fairytale world, including the "Red Queen", are not people, but literally animated chess pieces. In the science fiction story The Chess Pieces of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs , live chess plays a central role, the pieces fight to the death. For the Mars chess game "Jetan" the author constructed special rules of the game. In Kurt Vonnegut's 1951 short story All the King's Horses , an American colonel, whose family and a dozen soldiers are imprisoned with him, plays a game against an Asian guerrilla leader. With the prisoners as living pawns who have to die if they are defeated, the protagonist gets into a moral dilemma.
Live chess in the film
The live chess motif has been used variously in film art. In the visual language of a film scene , the association with a game of living chess can be created under certain conditions . The easiest way to do this is to group the actors on a checkerboard floor. A targeted camera setting and the equipment of the actors can reinforce the desired impression.
A classic example is the anti-war film Ways to Fame by director Stanley Kubrick, made in 1957 . The focus of the plot is the bloody stalemate between the Allied and German armed forces on the western front of the First World War . In a key scene, several French soldiers who have refused to give a pointless order to attack are standing in front of a military court . The defendants and military judges appear on the chessboard-like marble floor as if in a chess position in front of the beholder's eye.
In individual cases a live game of chess was shown as such in a scene. The 1981 film Mel Brooks - The Crazy History of the World parodies the courtly parlor game. The Dutch children's chess film Long Live the Queen (1995) shows several live chess scenes, including a full game that ends with a fool's mate . The theme experienced a dramatic implementation in 2001 in the film adaptation of the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone . The heroes have to win a game of chess. The huge game pieces are drawn magically , and the children themselves take the place of several figures. It speaks for the importance of the ancient motif that the defeated pieces are destroyed in this fight. The children are therefore in mortal danger and must take this factor into account when choosing a train.
Fashion show
The fashion designer Alexander McQueen caused a sensation when he presented his spring 2005 collection “It's Only a Game” in the form of a living game of chess. A train announcement with a computer voice complemented the futuristic aesthetics of the fashion show .
Adaptation in computer games
"Lively" chess games appear in early computer games. In the game Battle Chess , published in 1988, animated characters fight each other - a game idea that was shown in the 1976 film Futureworld - The Land of Tomorrow . However, due to the lack of digital technology, the use of holographic figures was simulated with copied, greatly reduced live chess scenes. Similar to live chess, pieces can also be filled with avatars . In the online role-playing game World of Warcraft , for example, a chess-based battle is possible. Allied players slip into a chess piece on the board and try to beat the computer opponent.
Chess ballet
The moves of individual chess pieces in the course of the game often resemble a peculiar “figure dance” ( Savielly Tartakower ). Live chess found a particularly artistic form in ballet. The connection of live chess with dance and music was already mapped out in literature in the "Dream of Poliphilus".
A chess ballet can depict a specific game or move movements or take up the topic of chess in another suitable form. After the advent of ballet, which had developed from ballroom dancing, chess was used as a motif at an early stage. For the first time in 1607 a game of chess was interpreted as a ballet under the French King Henry IV . The further development of the ballet form with its own ballet music was also followed in live chess. Paris was at the time of Louis XIV. , The first performance of the major in 1700 ballet - pantomime "Ballet des Echecs" instead of to the Philidor l'ainé , father of the famous chess player and composer François-André Danican Philidor , the music was composed.
A chess ballet also forms the main episode of the opera “Die Zauberkünstlerin” (La magicienne) by Jacques Fromental Halévy , which achieved great success in Paris in 1858. In the key scene, the dance of the living chess pieces in historical costumes takes place in a chessboard-like hall of the Prince's Palace.
Numerous examples of fairy tales, musical comedies and American ballet revues could be enumerated for chess dance. The greatest artistic success with chess as a theme had the Sadler's Wells Ensemble (later the Royal Ballet ), which performed the ballet "Checkmate" by the composer Arthur Bliss at the 1937 Paris World's Fair . The piece was again very successful in London after the Second World War and is still performed today. It depicts the struggle between love (red) and gloomy death (black).
The first chess scene in a ballet on ice came in 1953 in the play "Sinbad the Sailor on Ice". The ice skaters performed the well-known game of chess between Paul Morphy and the advising Duke of Braunschweig and Count Isoard.
At the chess ballet "A Living Game" presented on the occasion of the Chess Olympiad in Havana in 1966, a thousand-part choir sang accompanied by the Cuban national orchestra. On this occasion, the basis was Capablanca's winning game against Emanuel Lasker from the Moscow tournament in 1936 . The 2002 Chess Olympiad in Bled , Slovenia opened with a chess ballet.
Cosplay chess
Live chess experienced its most recent form in live role-playing games . Since 2004, several American anime conventions have included live chess shows in their programs. The young participants represent their favorite characters from the anime area as faithfully as possible through their costume and behavior ( cosplay or “costume role play”). In Cosplay Human Chess , live chess, comparable to the situation in chess ballet, is merged with another form of cultural expression.
Different variants are possible: carefully planned choreographed processes or the option of having two players play an improvised battle on a "normal" chess board away from the live chess field, which the actors interpret. In some chess matches, the disguise of the teams is based on a motto such as “Good versus Evil” or “Magic versus Science”. As in classic live chess, capturing the pieces is of particular importance. A fight between the character actors depicts the process and, if necessary, decides whether the “killed” character has to leave the playing field or not. The cosplay chess is for entertainment, and the game shown is primarily intended to provide an opportunity for the anime characters involved to perform well worth seeing.
Cosplay Human Chess as a current phenomenon confirms the flexible character of live chess. The basic idea that “people become chess pieces” has repeatedly challenged the imagination in different epochs and produced new forms.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Edward Winter: Capablanca and living chess , Chess Notes, No. 4092 u. a. with photographs of a Berlin event (1930) with Capablanca
- ^ Partie Capablanca - Steiner, Los Angeles 1933 (Java)
- ↑ Live chess in the old court in Bamberg
- ↑ Renate Krosch: 1000 years of the Ströbeck chess village . Ströbeck 1994, p. 37; Chess Museum Ströbeck ( Memento from May 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ On the Ströbecker Ensemble see the website of the Emanuel Lasker Elementary School ( memento from January 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ); Pictures of the current chess costumes (private page of R. Grosche)
- ↑ The performance takes place on the second weekend in September in the even years.
- ↑ The live chess is advertised as a tourist attraction, "Human Chess in Vietnam"
- ↑ Hans Ferdinand Maßmann : History of the medieval, preferably the German chess game , Quedlinburg 1839, p. 84f.
- ↑ a b c Jerzy Giżycki: Schach at all times , Stauffacher-Verlag, Zurich 1967, pp. 205–220
- ^ HJR Murray: A History of Chess , Oxford University Press, 1913 (Reprint edition 2002), pp. 745ff. ISBN 0-19-827403-3
- ↑ Hypnerotomachia Poliphili , Chapter 10, p. 120 ( Memento from July 16, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ); van der Linde
- ^ The Chessmen of Mars , Project Gutenberg; "Jetan" , article at chessvariants.org
- ^ Bill Wall: Stanley Kubrick and Chess ( Memento November 30, 2011 in the Internet Archive ); see the still image from the corresponding sequence
- ↑ Pictures of the film scene are shown on the information page Chess im Kino
- ↑ For the decisive phase of the game, see Jeremy Silman : Creating the Harry Potter Chess Position (English). Retrieved January 18, 2016
- ↑ Womens Spring / Summer 2005 "It's Only a Game" ( Memento from May 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), on: alexandermcqueen.com; Video
- ↑ See description and screenshot at buffed.de (World of Warcraft database)
- ^ Savielly Tartakower: Die Hypermoderne Schachpartie , Vienna 1925 (reprint Zurich 1981), pp. 237–240 ISBN 3-283-00094-8
- ↑ Ballet des Eschecs , February 22, 1607, entry in: césar (Calendrier électronique des spectacles sous l'ancien régime et sous la révolution)
- ↑ Sarah's Chess Journal: Chess: The Ice Age
- ^ Frank Brady: Bobby Fischer, Profile of a Prodigy. New York 1973, p. 111
- ↑ See e.g. B. the requirements for Cosplay Chess players at the Sakura-Con in Seattle , 6-8. April 2012, "Sakura-Con Cosplay Chess Rules" ( Memento from December 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
literature
- Jerzy Giżycki: Schach at all times , Stauffacher-Verlag, Zurich 1967, pp. 205–220
- Antonius van der Linde : History and literature of the game of chess , Julius Springer, Berlin 1874 (reprint Olms, Zurich 1981), Vol. 2, pp. 329–334 ISBN 3-283-00079-4
Web links
- Information on the Ströbeck living chess ensemble ( Memento from January 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Website of the primary school “Dr. Emanuel Lasker “, Chess Village Ströbeck
- Internet presence of the live chess in Marostica (English)
- Live chess website in Xàbia / Jávea (Spanish)
- Sakk és Vivaldi (Chess and Vivaldi) chess ballet (HD video) by the Hungarian Botafogo Dance Ensemble
