Soulprint Players Perform on All Saints Day at Pine Lake Art Salon

SOULPRINT PLAYERS PERFORM AT PINE LAKE ART SALON (photo by Sabra Bowers)

By Ruth Schowalter, Certified InterPlay Leader

The beginning of November brought Soulprint Players to their first performance of the month at the Pine Lake Art Salon in Pine Lake, Georgia, on All Saints Day, the afternoon after Halloween. In this quiet idyllic community nestled around a lake replete with turtles and geese and punctuated with a sandy beach and beach house, there are two women Kathie DeNobriga and Alice Teeter, who have a big red barn next to their home where they have been hosting this art salon for eight years.

Joyce Kinnard (photo by R. Schowalter)

This November 1^st  salon began with Joyce Kinnard (who coincidentally is a Soulprint Player) reading a collection of her prose and poetry. She was followed by Stephen Windham, who read poetry from his chapbook, “After Words.” The cool air poured in from where one whole wall of the barn was opened up to the Pine Lake neighborhood. While these writers shared their work, audience members lounged on couches and chairs watching leaves fall from trees in a gentle autumn rain.

Stephen Windham (photo by R. Schowalter)

After a short break during which conversations were conducted, furniture was rearranged, cheddar cheese, cornbread muffins, and grapes were munched on, the Soulprint Players began their performance in this informal and welcoming Pine Lake space.

Jennifer Denning, Soulprint Players director, warmed up the audience with shaking their bodies out, clapping, and creating foundation and decoration songs. Then she collected their ideas about Halloween and All Saints Day. Since Soulprint Players are an improvisational troupe, these audience-given topics were our material for performance.

SOULPRINT PLAYERS PERFORM THE PITTSBURGH FORM (photo by Sabra Bowers)

We are so fortunate to have the drummer Wade Levering, a new Soulprint Player, join Debra Hiers, a clarinetist to play music during our performance. We began with the Pittsburgh form and were invited to tell stories about someone in our lives who had died.

Afterwards, Jennifer called a new InterPlay form,“Been Stiller,” one we learned from the Minneapolis InterPlayers at the InterPlay Leaders meeting in Racine, Wisconsin, this past summer. Asked to sing a song inspired by Saints real or imaginary given to us from the audience, a group of five InterPlayers perform with one player singing and moving until another player began singing or moving.

Next, Jennifer called the “Gesture Choir” form, and Vivian Slade, also a  new InterPlay performer, told a story about her grandmother. Audience members were invited to join the gesture choir and one member did. It is was fun! Everyone can do InterPlay!

SOULPRINT PLAYERS PERFORM THE GESTURE CHOIR (photo by R. Schowalter)

We concluded our performance by playing around with another new form for our InterPlay Atlanta group--“Solo Group Movement” form. In this form, individual InterPlayers have their own spotlight for a solo dance but five movers go out incrementally and then are replaced one at a time by other InterPlayers during the performance. We did this form on “behalf of” people who had passed away with names given to us from the audience and for someone we named ourselves.

SOULPRINT PLAYERS PERFORM SOLO MOVEMENT (photo by Sabra Bowers)

Big thank you’s to Alice Teeter and Kathie DeNobriga for inviting us to perform at the November Pine Lake Art Salon and to the warm audience who played with us and gave us such great topics!

We look forward to our next performance this Sunday, November 8th at the Holy Comforter Episcopal Church at 5:00 PM. “The Art of Being Human,” will have special guest artist Masankho Banda, international InterPlayer and storyteller.  Please join us at 737 Woodland Avenue Southeast, Atlanta, Georgia,  30316. Suggested donations $10 to $50 (be affordable but generous). Donations will support InterPlay sessions at the Friendship Center of Holy Comforter.

SOULPRINT PLAYERS. Here we are! A handful of Soulprint Players. We will be joined by other players for our performance this Sunday at Holy Comforter Episcopal Church. (photo by Art Salon audience member)