• Number of participants: 10-50
• Age level: elementary school - adult
• Source: Traditional theatre game. The dialogue-building portion of this exercise was demonstrated at the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference in Omaha, Nebraska in 2004.
• Uses: Physical warm-up, create dialogue about group dynamics, good for creating an understanding of urgency, establish dialogue about popularity/cliques, etc.

The facilitator instructs everyone to begin moving about the space at a comfortable pace, in random directions. The participants are then then told to choose one person in the room who is their "enemy." The choice is private; no one else knows who your enemy is. The participants keep moving around, but now they try to stay away from their enemy.

After a moment, the facilitator tells the participants to choose a "protector," again keeping it secret. Now the participants try to keep their protector in between themselves and their enemies. The resulting movement is often circular, and frequently produces giggles.

The facilitator can vary the intensity of play by calling out different instructions, such as "Imagine your enemy has a terrible virus," or "Your enemy has a large knife," or "Your enemy is the most annoying person in the world."

To end the game, the facilitator should count down from ten to zero. When you reach zero, the players freeze in place; the successful player will have her protector in between herself and her enemy. Not everyone will be successful, of course.

To create dialogue from this point, ask everyone to place his right hand on his protector's shoulder. People will have to move to accommodate the instruction. The resulting formation will be a kind of spider's web. Ask the participants if the grouping reminds them of anything. Frequent answers are "popularity," "cliques," "support systems," "family," etc. Occasionally there are people who weren't picked as anyone's protector... ask those people what it feels like to not be picked.