Verona hosts the International Festival of Street Games in September - Verona is once again the home of Tocatì, the International Festival of Street Games, from the 23rd to the 25th of September
Verona hosts the International Festival of Street Games in September
By Alba Prima Posizione
Sep 8, 2011 - 11:53:34 AM
The
International Festival of Street Games, Tocatì, is back in Verona in its ninth
edition that this year has the focus on emphasizing the importance of games and
leisure traditions as a part of the cultural heritage of many countries.
To this end, the
Association of Ancient Games, in collaboration with the local authorities has
invited to this year’s event several countries among which Brasil, Iran, the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Portugal and Mexico.
Each of
these countries will share with the citizens and visitors that will be in
Verona the 23rd, 24th and 25th of September some of the most representative
traditional games of their cultures, like the Capoeira from Brasil, the Malha
from Portugal, l’Ulama de Cadera from Mexico and the Varpa from Sweden. There
will also be a place for Italian regional games, as well an area dedicated to
board games and one dedicated to more modern street activities like
skateboarding.
Among all
the initiatives proposed by the Festival’s organization there is one that seeks
to encourage the involvement of all the people and families that visit Verona
during those days. The idea is to organize workshops and group activities in
which one can, for example, create his/her own blowgun or participate in
dancing games which can be practised one against one or by teams. A
particularly interesting workshop is the one called Ludosophia, that proposes a
series of games to start with and then moves on to a discussion on the morals
and ethics behind each of these games, touching topics like the benefits from
lying, vote systems and the use of stereotypes in traditional games.
The Dixit
is one of the newest games introduced in the festival, a 3 to 6 players game
invented in 2009 that won the Spiel des Jahres in 2010 and that challenges the
linguistic abilities of the players based on a set of cards illustrated by
Marie Cardouat. One of the players, the storyteller, chooses one of his 6 cards
and enunciates a sentence based on the illustration of that card. The other
players have to select among their own cards the one that better matches the
storyteller’s sentence and give it to him/her.
The storyteller mixes the cards
and puts them on the table so that the rest of the players try to figure out
which one is his/hers. The ones that take the right guess get 3 points, and so
does the storyteller. If all the players know the answer or none of them does,
they all get 2 points and the storyteller gets none. After each round, the turn
passes to the person sitting to the left of the storyteller. The first to reach
30 points is the winner.
The Tocatì
Festival is an event worth visiting specially for those that are curious about
the particularities of the cultural traditions in other countries and for those
kids at heart that wish to spend a fun family weekend.
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