Tuesday, November 6, 2018

InterPlay Atlanta November Newsletter


InterPlay Atlanta November News
CREATE, REST, CONNECT & PLAY!

NEXT WEEKEND! 

Friday, November 9th- Sunday, November 11th

Join us for all or part of this three day event towards embodied racial healing and justice!

Friday, November 9th
Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North
A Documentary film screening and Community Dialogue with filmmaker and InterPlay leader, Katrina Browne.The film is about her family, and New England's complicity in the slave trade/slavery, and about present-day reckoning. (Traces of the Trade received recognition from Sundance, 2008, PBS/POV, 2008, Emmy Award nomination, 2009)

6:30 P.M.-dessert reception 
7:00 P.M.- program begins

Saturday, November 10th
Moving Through 
An interactive InterPlay workshop towards embodied racial healing and justice facilitated by Katrina Browne, Jennifer Denning, Karimah Dillard, and Carolyn Renée with neighborhood Black history exhibit researched by the BiRacial History Project.There will be sacred affinity group time for people of color and white people to help deepen the work and build resilience.
Please register here to attend the Saturday workshop.

10 A.M.-4 P.M.

Sunday, November 11th
Sankofa Communities Soulprint Players Performance
Photo by Ruth Schowalter

A performance that combines the power of InterPlay, historical facts, and ancient healing ritual to educate, uplift and inspire the community to make positive change.

1 P.M.- light pre-show reception sponsored by the First Existentialist Congregation of Atlanta
2. P.M.- performance followed by community dialogue


Sliding Scale for weekend $0-50
Saturday workshop space is limited, register through Eventbrite here.

Funding for this project is made possible by InterPlay/Body Wisdom

InterPlay Atlanta Celebrates International Day of InterPlay!


Last Saturday we celebrated International Day of InterPlay along with cities all over the world Australia, 
India, Scotland, Chicago, Oakland, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Twin Cities, Seattle, and the North Carolina Triangle. 

In Atlanta we celebrated Woody Bartlett as our "Spirit of InterPlay" awardee (in center of picture above). A retired chaplain and minister, for several years Woody worked at the Corporation for Supportive Housing which served the unhoused and those with chronic mental illness. In retirement, he co-founded Georgia Interfaith Power & Light, working with congregations on sustainability, and is singing, writing a memoir and poetry, and doing InterPlay.
We are inviting people into long-term support of InterPlay and all it offers the world. As a community we see the value in coming together in story, song, and movement in order to bring more compassion and understanding to the world.

While in the world stories are being co-opted and skewed, we are maintaining communities through an active and creative way to unlock the wisdom of the body and the group body. 

Please consider joining the Giving Wings Society to make sure we have more InterPlay and Body-wise communities, or make a one-time donation online. Please note "interPlay Atlanta" with your donation.

InterPlay & Sustaining International Sisters (SIS) 
Saturday, November 17th


CONNECT, LEARN, AND INSPIRE! 
Saturday, November 17th
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Little Five Points Community Center
1083 Austin Ave.
Atlanta, 30307

Play, make friends, share stories and food. Sustaining International Sisters (SIS) & InterPlay Atlanta will be celebrating gratitude and the abundance we have in our lives during this time of Thanksgiving in the United States.

Are you a woman who is new to the United States or were you born here? Are you a temporary visitor or are you making the U.S. your new home away from home? Looking for support, nurturance, and building relationships? Join your sisters from around the world to second SIS gathering co-hosted and facilitated by InterPlay Atlanta Leader Ruth Schowalter and InterPlayer Canan Arikan.

90-minutes of InterPlay then meal sharing and networking. Bring a dish, suggested donation $5 (both optional). Save the Date -December 1st for 3rd SIS gathering. 1083 Austin Avenue Northeast, Atlanta, Georgia 30307.

Questions? Contact Canan 404-966-2014, arikancnn@gmail.com, or Ruth 404-580-2392, ruthtruth@mindspring.com

Thursday, September 13, 2018

InterPlay Atlanta September Newsletter


InterPlay Atlanta September News
CREATE, REST, CONNECT & PLAY!

The Secrets of InterPlay
September 28th-29th

Atlanta Life Practice Program leaders, Christine Gautreaux, Carolyn Renee  & Jennifer Denning
Register Now!
Secrets is filling up!

Learn how you canuse the tools and ideas of InterPlay to  
unlock the wisdom of your body. 

Get your body, mind, heart, and spirit all on the same page.

Learn more about yourself through connection and community. 

Create more ease and fun in your life!

This multiple-day event will give you direct experience in many aspects of the InterPlay system developed by Cynthia Winton-Henry and Phil Porter over the last 28 years. The Secrets of InterPlay is the first part of The InterPlay Life Practice Program which will begin in Atlanta in October 2018. 

Friday, September 28th, 7-9 p.m., Saturday, September 29th, 9:30 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sunday, September 30th, 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m.

Continuing Education Credit15 CE credits for various healthcare and allied healthcare professions are available for those practicing throughout the U.S. CE preregistration deadline is no later than 2 weeks before the start of your event.
Registration/Information: 510-465-2797 or info@interplay.org


Leaping from the Line
An Art Playshop with Ruth Schowalter


Leaping from the Line
Friday, September 14th

This ART PLAYshop engages participants in an active 90-minutes of "making marks" drawing, creative moving, and sharing stories. Come as you are. No experience required. You are enough. This September playshop - led by visual artist and InterPlay leader Ruth Schowalter - is one of the month-long creative activities of ArtFest 2018 taking place at the East Lake YMCA. Friday, September 14th, 7:00-8:30 PM, Eva Davis Community Room. FREE. 275 East Lake Blvd., Atlanta, Georgia, 30317.

Questions? Contact Ruth at ruthtruth@mindspring.com, 404-580-2392.


StillPoint: A Self-Care Playbook for Caregivers to Find Ease, 
and Time to Breathe, and Reclaim Joy

Book performance, workshop and celebration September 16th!


Join StillPoint co-authors and InterPlayers,
Sheila K. Collins & Christine Gautreaux for an afternoon of:

Discovering ways to not lose yourself when caring for others
Considering caregiving as a spiritual discipline
Personalizing your own self-care plan
Join us for an interactive reading and performance

Accompanied by members of Atlanta's SoulPrint Players Performance Troupe

Sunday, September 16th at 4pm
Shambhala in Grant Park
On the Grand Opening Weekend
1030 Grant St., Atlanta, GA 30315

$25 includes a signed copy of the book, performance & light refreshments.
For more info: christinegautreauxmsw@gmail.com

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

The Joy-full Art of Recovery

InterPlay Love. photos by Christine Gautreaux and Ruth Schowalter

by Ade Anifowose
InterPlay Leader-in-Training

Joy is underrated. Perhaps this is because we do not fully understand its power. Joy is a resistant force against limited thinking, everyday challenges, and it empowers us to redefine what we are looking at and how we are looking at it.

However, in a world where working hard, struggle and adversity are given more credence over play, being joyful and moving through the world with ease is often an afterthought. I get it. Humans are hardwired to focus on problems, who to blame and to pay more attention to struggles. With all of this being said, there are moments when people give themselves permission to be different, to try something new and maybe even allow themselves to be vulnerable. When they do, everyone in the vicinity is uplifted.

A few months ago, Jennifer, Carolyn Renee, I and other guests had the pleasure of watching the men at Trinity House give themselves permission to reveal what is possible using the tools of InterPlay. This performance was preceded by 8 weeks of rehearsal. 

The most amazing thing about this performance for me was, during the 8 weeks of rehearsal, there were times some of the men who committed to participating in the performance could not attend due to work schedules and other appointments to support them on their recovery journey. With all the angst that comes with creating such a performance, we had to trust the wisdom of play. We had to trust that the performance would be what it needed to be and everyone who attended would experience exactly what they needed. 

The day of the performance, the men were excited. We even had two men who were not part of the rehearsal ask to be a part of the performance. Again, trusting the wisdom of play, Jennifer said, yes. 

The men sang, danced, moved, chanted, told stories and left us feeling lifted up. They had us laughing out loud and literally brought us to tears. The theme of the performance was “The Art of Recovery.” They did just that, they opened the way for us- the observers, to recover our humanity individually and together.

The men’s testimonials (posted below) capture the essence of the beautiful and life affirming experience we all had.

I really enjoyed performing in InterPlay.  It opened me up to explore creative activity, and seeing other people of different parts of life to come together and do a performance.  That was very moving.  I look forward to performing again.  Thank you Jennifer, Carolyn Renee, and Ade for taking the time, for helping me in my recovery and coming out.  –Jacob
I had never heard of InterPlay until Saturday and I really enjoyed all the performances.  Even though I did not perform myself because I’m the shy type, but all in all it was a great experience.  It gave me a peace of mind to know that I can enjoy life and have fun without using drugs. –Frederick
It was like I was doing something I’ve done before.  Maybe in a past life.  -Mark
InterPlay was a very good session.  We do a lot of fun things.  We dance, laugh and play fun games.  We also have group activity such as, “I Can Talk About,” where we talk about things we experience.  We also do breathing exercise we let go with a sigh in which it allows us to express our in sound. We do different exercises, listen to the drum.  We also get to play the drum in group.–Alajuan Wilson 

To Whom It May Concern:
InterPlay has been a blessing to the men here at Trinity House-Big Bethel.  The performance on Saturday, April 14thwas magnificent. The performance that was displayed with the men put a new twist on the men’s recovery that showed talent, motivation, and expressions for themselves and others. What the men displayed will help them to express more openly to their family members and loved ones. I really enjoyed the performance and to see men interact with the guidelines through InterPlay.
Felecia Jones, Receptionist/ T.E.A.M Coordinator
Ade Anifowose

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

InterPlay Atlanta July News
THE SECRETS OF INTERPLAY COMING SOON! 

The Secrets of InterPlay
September 28th-29th

InterPlay Life Practice Program leaders, Christine Gautreaux, Carolyn Renée & Jennifer Denning
Learn how you can use the tools and ideas of InterPlay to 
unlock the wisdom of your body. 

Get your body, mind, heart, and spirit all on the same page.

Learn more about yourself through connection and community. 

Create more ease and fun in your life!

This multiple-day event will give you direct experience in many aspects of the InterPlay system developed by Cynthia Winton-Henry and Phil Porter over the last 28 years. The Secrets of InterPlay is the first part of The InterPlay Life Practice Program which will begin in Atlanta in October 2018. 

Friday, September 28th, 7-9 p.m., Saturday, September 29th, 9:30 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sunday, September 30th, 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m.
Registration/Information: 510-465-2797 or info@interplay.org

UPCOMING FREE INTROS TO THE LIFE PRACTICE PROGRAM

Saturday, July 14th
10-11:30 A.M.
The Mask Center

Friday, August 17th
12-1 P.M.
Sevananda Natural Foods Co-op

Sunday, August 19th
1-2 P.M.
Norcross Cultural Arts Center


Sankofa Communities: 
Embracing Yesterday, Creating Tomorrow

Soulprint Players offering a "gesture choir" on the theme of Sankofa
                     -photo by Ruth Schowalter

Sankofa: "It is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind."

On Wednesday, June 27th, InterPlay Atlanta's Soulprint Players partnered with the Early Edgewood-Candler Park Biracial History Project to lead the community in a ritual honoring and remembrance of the thriving black community that once lived in Candler Park. Soulprint Players shared the timeline illuminating the systematic edging out of the black community. 
Audience members are led in a "one hand dance" on behalf of our ancestors
                            -photo by Ruth Schowalter
         


The performance was followed by a community discussion about the effects of gentrification and how we can advocate for affordable housing and equitable communites in the present.

More information about a September performance and continued community engagment coming soon!

Our Liberty is Bound Together
InterPlay Atlanta partners with "Set Them Free"
Three Sentence Immigration Stories of the Plight of Turkish Refugees. Here, doing the InterPlay "Pittsburgh Form," one of the workshop participants finishes her three sentence story with the gesture of prayer and others follow.
-photo by Ruth Schowalter

InterPlay Atlanta is collaborating with Turkish immigrants and those seeking refuge in the Metro-Atlanta area. Joining Hafsay Grd of "Set Them Free," InterPlay leaders Ruth Schowalter and Christine Gautreaux are helping women and teenage girls to tell their immigration stories and that of 10,000 Turkish women and 650 children held unjustly in Turkish prisons. On June 26th, close to twenty-five women and children gathered for the storytelling workshop, "Our Liberty is Bound Together" at the Istanbul Cultural Center Atlanta and Atlantic Institute in Milton, Georgia. This performance workshop was part of the Art and Social Justice programming.

 

Stay tuned for an upcoming storytelling workshop in August!

Sunday, April 8, 2018

InterPlay Atlanta April News
PERFORMANCES, EMPOWERING PLAY, MORE COMING IN MAY!

"The Art of Recovery"
Saturday, April 14th


Men at Trinity House participate in the InterPlay warm-up
An InterPlay performance 
with the men of Trinity Community Ministries

Saturday, April 14th
3:00 p.m.

Trinity Community Ministries
21 Bell Street 
Atlanta, GA 30303
Recovery is an act of courage. InterPlay Atlanta has been visiting Trinity Ministries since March 2017 offering InterPlay sessions to the men of Trinity Ministries.  "The Art of Recovery" is an InterPlay improvisational performance based on InterPlay forms, by the men of Trinity Ministries to share with the community a creative approach to recovering a sense of themselves through InterPlay. Come out and support their journey of recovery!

"The Art of Recovery" is supported by a Project Development Grant from Alternate Roots with funding from The Nathan Cummings Foundation, The Ford Foundation, the Surdna Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.


Our Liberty is Bound Together: InterPlay & Set Them Free
Saturday, April 21st


Saturday, April 21st.
9:30 a.m.-noon
location TBD

All women and teenage girls are invited to a 3-hour InterPlay workshop to collaborate with "Set Them Free: No Moms and Babies Behind Bars in Turkey" an initiative to increase worldwide awareness of the 10, 000 women and 650 children (from newborn to age six) held in Turkish prisons as political prisoners after the failed coup attempt in Turkey.

After the InterPlay session, we will share food and learn about "Set Them Free" and the Gulen (Hizmet) Movement from women who used to call Turkey home. We hope to create friendships and together find ways to bring attention to the human rights violations against Turkish women and children in their own country. 

Everyone is welcome to come to solely play and learn. Your presence is welcome. And to those of you who are feeling compelled to make a difference with human rights issues, we hope this InterPlay workshop will be the beginning of a sustained effort to heighten the awareness of the world to the plight of these Turkish women and their children.

Certified InterPlay Leaders Ruth Schowalter and Christine Gautreaux will be facilitating. Attendance is free. Questions? Contact Ruth (404-580-2392, ruthtruth@mindspring.com) or Hafsa (girdap@icloud.com).

Soulprint Players at Earth Day Celebration
Sunday, April 22nd

2-3 P.M.

Sevananda Education Room
Sevananda Natural Foods Market
467 Moreland Ave,30307

Join InterPlay Atlanta and the Soulprint Players for Intergenerational InterPlay and a performance on "Earth Wisdom" at Sevananda's Earth Day Celebration. Check out the whole weekend's activities  here.

Earth is our Homeland-InterPlay & Earth Poetry
Saturday, May 5th


Saturday, May 5th
1-4 P.M.

The Atlanta Shambhala Center
1447 Church St.
Decatur, 30030

$25-30 or offer what you can

Join Dharma poet, Debra Hiers and InterPlay Atlanta co-founder, Jennifer Denning, for an afternoon of spacious play, connection, stillness and poetry in honor of our homeland- earth! 

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Applied InterPlay: Communicating Science Workshop at the Atlanta Science Festival

Written by Ruth Schowalter, certified InterPlay leader and MS Applied Linguistics and ESL

Have you ever thought about how you might embody the difference between weather and climate change? Do you know the difference? Well, we had tremendous fun playing around with those concepts at the InterPlay - Atlanta Science Festival 2018 workshop, “Communicating the Facts: More than a Feeling" (see the workshop description below).

Thanks to Neil deGrasse Tyson’s demonstration of “Weather versus Climate Change” on “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey” (see this video), we invited pairs of people to play with this concept, with one person as climate change and the other as weather. The climate change partner was asked to choose a destination in the room and to walk to it in a fairly steady line, while the weather partner was given the task of moving (dancing?) erratically in front of or behind or around their climate change partner (Yes, we played music). Then we had the partners reverse their roles. In this way, each got to experience either the steadfastness of the climate trend, but also the variability of weather. 

The workshop participants were jubilant! Not only had the movement enlivened them and exploded the community room into happy chaos, but also something had clicked in the way each understood this hard-to-understand difference between daily weather patterns and long-term climate change. This is the “magic” of the connections made through kinesthetic activities while explored together with others.

On this March Friday evening, the doors to the Little Five Points Community Center for Arts & Community were open, allowing spring breezes to come in along with the close to 40 participants for our workshop. At the other end of the Community Center facility, the play “Freaky Friday” was playing to a sold-out audience at the Horizon Theatre. Some of theatre goers wandered down to see what we were doing. A strong sense of community was established – Science, InterPlay, and Theatre!



During our two hours together, my collaborators, two scientists, and I were overly ambitious for what we wanted to offer. Among some of the activities we InterPlayed with were the following how-to’s:

Play around with the scientific method 

Express the difference between beliefs-opinions-feelings, and facts

Release or vent frustration around communicating scientific concepts at a time when science under attack in the United States is called “fake news”

“Change” someone’s mind about his/her stance on scientific issues

“Change” someone’s stance on science? Really? How? A lot of us think that people who “don’t believe in science” are merely suffering from a “deficit of the facts.” To solve this lack of knowledge and resulting lack of concern about climate change, pollution, and endangered species – to name a few concerns – all one need do is provide a bouquet of scientific facts. Then the person we are addressing will change his/her mind. Right? Wrong! 

Facts may impact someone’s thinking in the short term (or not), but that change is not long lasting. People’s thinking is influenced by their communities (family, political groups, friends, etc.). However, there is hope for science communicators impacting the education of nonexperts.

This hope is in the form of narratives – telling stories! That is, when you tell a story from your life enfolding scientific facts, there is a greater chance of another person listening and being influenced by that story (See this article and this article as just a beginning). Knowing the powerfulness of stories in communicating science, at the conclusion of our workshop, we offered one of several InterPlay storytelling forms to our workshop participants. (I hope to explain about this in more detail in another blogpost, so stay tuned!).
Before participants left, they were asked to fill out an evaluation of our workshop, and we got high ratings of “excellent” along with some “very goods.” As our first time to offer a workshop on this topic, I know we have more to learn about playing around with communicating scientific facts. But this first effort was tremendously fun and seemingly successful!
Post "Communicating the Facts - More than a Feeling" workshop photo.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Thanks to my collaborators, Tony Martin (science author, Emory educator 
Tony Martin
Dottie Stearns
and paleontologist) and Dottie Stearns (dancer, B.S. Environmental Sciences, and a Master’s of Public Health and pre-med student), who without their knowledge and commitment to science outreach this workshop would not have been possible. Thanks also go to the organizers of the Atlanta Science Festival, Jordan Rose, Meisa Sailaita, and Kellie Vinal, who shape this event in powerful and elegant ways. And as always, thanks to Phil Porter and Cynthia Winton-Henry for co-creating InterPlay


Workshop Description: This 2-hour improvisational workshop is a chance for participants (teens and adults) to engage their kinesthetic imaginations and affirm just how successfully they can communicate scientific facts, while also providing the means for addressing false or misleading information. The main goal is to help participants develop proactive skills for communicating environmental science on a range of topics such as global climate change, pollution, natural resources, and extinctions.


Science is based on facts, so how can we as science advocates communicate our knowledge when others don’t “feel” the same? Participants will have fun exploring new ways to express factual science through the improvisational activities of InterPlay. Using movement, story-telling and their voices, participants will be led incrementally into enlivening and personalizing the way they speak up for science.
SOME OF THE WORLD IS REPRESENTED HERE! After our workshop, participants lingered chatting and wanting different photo opportunities with Dottie, Tony, and me. Here, in the photo above you can see how diverse our crowd was. We had people from Atlanta, Georgia, and others from Colombia, Turkey, and Iraq. In the photo below, along with an Emory University student from Tony's Science Communication class, are Chinese Scholars visiting Georgia Tech posing with me (far right).