Our local Performance Art presenting organization decided to host a city-wide badminton tournament yesterday, featuring teams from a whole slew of different arts groups (theatre, music & dance companies, art museums, funding orgs, pottery collectives, even a local weekly news-and-arts paper) as part of their Season Kick-off. What they expected to be a handful of participants turned out to be something like 26 teams, all vying for the coveted "Golden Shuttlecock on top of a bottle of Jack Daniels" Award (J.D. being sort of an inside joke among the org's staff).
The parking lot across the street from the venue was fenced off, four courts set up, plenty of beer was available, as well as hot dogs and great Hawaiian/Korean/Mexican mash-up comestibles (the kimchi fried rice was particularly delicious, as were the spicy pork tacos!), and teams engaged in ritual racket combat until darkness descended and everyone moved inside for the championship match played out on the venue's main stage.
In the end, the top honors went to Pottery Northwest(that's them in the photo above, on the far side in the pink-and-black outfits) who pulled off a come-from-behind upset over the heavily-favored team from Seattle Repertory Theatre. There was a slight bit of controversy attached to their victory, as no one could definitively say whether the twosome met the team qualifications (participants had to be either a staff or board member of the organization), but in the spirit of fair-play, they were allowed to take-court anyway.
A good time was had by all and the whole thing turned into a very unique and fun networking event. Unfortunately, "Team Annex" made a pitiful showing, being eliminated in the very first round by the team from the above-mentioned publication; a grudge rematch is already in the making for next year.
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