We cannot emphasize enough how often the origins of the productive game rest not with actions of the first person to act, but with the person who defines the game by supporting and adding to what the first person is doing.  The second person is the unsung hero of the game.

Ethan Bauley sent me a link that’s a perfect depiction of the ‘Unsung Hero’ idea. Take a look at this video shot at the recent Sasquatch Music Festival outside Vancouver:

The first dancer, Collin Wynter from Calgary, deserves credit for initiating well. He’s having fun, and he’s high energy, connecting with the music and the rest of his environment and not at all caught up in his own little world. He is acting on his environment (the hillside and the soft grass and the music) and as a consequence, the environment ‘acts on him’ as his dancing becomes infectious. But it doesn’t become a scene, it doesn’t find its game, until the second dancer joins. The second dancer adds and heightens, and from that point on, there’s no stopping this scene. First, he learns the second dancer learns the ‘rules of the dance’ from the first dancer, then he makes the dance even more playful by falling to the ground and crawling through the first dancer’s legs. It is the second person who embraces the rules of the game and plays the game in a way that others cannot resist joining. After the third person joins, the joining becomes a wave that lasts until the music ends. (And maybe beyond, that’s where the video cuts.)This same dynamic is characteristic of any productive game. A game played alone has finite potential, while a game that invites joining has unlimited upside. It is the second person to play who signals to the crowd that your game is worth joining.

It is worth noting that this article in the Calgary Herald celebrates Collin Wynter as being some kind of hero, but does not mention the second dancer, or even the existence of the unsung hero of the game.