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).

INTERPLAY and PLAYING WITH THE EMBODIMENT OF ENGLISH

written by Ruth Schowalter, MS Applied Linguistics and ESL, Certified InterPlay Leader

Greetings and welcome to a glimpse of my experience "Interplaying" around with teaching advanced-level American English fluency to international students entering a two-year MBA program at Emory University here in Atlanta, Georgia!

Our nonverbals govern how other people think and feel about us.  

–Amy Cuddy, Harvard Social Psychologist

Physicality is basic. 

–PhilPorter, co-founder InterPlay

“Shake one hand. Shake the other hand. Shake your foot. Shake your other foot. Shake what you have been sitting on….”

With these instructions from InterPlay’s warm up activity, I begin each Advanced Oral Communications class with business professionals from Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, and Colombia. As they shake out their bodies facing one another standing in a circle freed from the confines of their desks, I observe the stress disappearing from their faces and smiles appearing.

“I’m not used to moving,” one participant from Korea told me. “I’ve been sitting at a desk for seven years.” Ranging in age from their mid-twenties to forty-something, these newly arrived internationals experiment with “embodying English” using the improvisational activities from InterPlay to enhance their language skills before starting their two-year MBA.

To find out more about how Ruth Schowalter uses InterPlay to teach American English Fluency, go to her blog, Coffee with Hallelujah:

THE EMBODIMENT OF AMERICAN ENGLISH: Increasing Fluency Through Physical Activities

For Ruth Schowalter, InterPlay has alchemical properties

CREATIVE COMMUNICATION CLASS at Clarkston Global Academy 2016. Students take turns witnessing one another.

Interview with Ruth Schowalter, certified InterPlay leader, and M.S. in Applied Linguistics by Jennifer Denning, co-founder of InterPlay Atlanta

In the past few weeks, as InterPlay Atlanta prepared for the one-day fundraiser, "2016 Give InterPlay Day," on April 7th, the certified leaders were documenting their work with people in underserved communities through photographs, writing, getting endorsements, and interviewing one another. Here Jennifer Denning asks Ruth Schowalter questions about her work with teenage refugees in the Clarkston, Georgia, area and the role InterPlay plays in her life. 

Thank you for taking the organizational lead on this for Atlanta this year! Can you talk about your commitment to InterPlay Atlanta?

InterPlay has been life changing for me in the three short years since I “discovered” this gentle improvisational system! (I know InterPlay has been around for 26 years nationally and in Atlanta since 2008) But it was in 2013 that I came across InterPlay on the internet while I was researching the use of improvisation to teach English language fluency and knew it would be a useful tool for my instructional purposes.

From the time I met you (Jennifer), I was enthralled with the forms and principles of InterPlay and began integrating them immediately with my American English fluency lessons for short courses and workshops (i.e., instructing Brazilian educators) at Georgia Tech Language Institute, international graduate students at Emory University’s Goizueta’s Business School, and eventually with teenage refugees in Clarkston, Georgia (the Ellis Island of the south), at the Clarkston Global Academy.

INTERPLAY HAS CHANGED ME. Here I am (fourth from the right) with the participants in my "Creative Communication" class at the Clarkston Global Academy at the end of one of our classes. As I evolved from a "sage on the stage" kind of teacher to a "coach on the side," the forms and principles of InterPlay have assisted me in joining in with my students, being among them, supporting and not judging their efforts.

What I didn’t expect from InterPlay is that its alchemical properties would transform me! We’ve been so fortunate to have you (Jennifer) here in Atlanta providing the structure for us local InterPlayers to “play,” explore, and go as deep as we each desire to understand more about our own body wisdom.

I might proclaim that I am an InterPlay evangelist! That proclamation wouldn’t surprise any of my friends, colleagues, neighbors, or family members. InterPlay offers us all “choices” to the extent that we want to engage in this creative improvisational system that fosters authenticity, freedom, ease, and joy.

It's wonderful to see the pictures from InterPlay at Clarkston Community Center and also to read some of the reflections from your participants. What have been some of your favorite moments teaching InterPlay at Clarkston Community Center?

Unrestrained jubilance! While InterPlay forms are executed in a way that is recognizable no matter where you are in the world, unexpected executions of the forms can emerge because the people are different! The resettled teenage refugees are always exuberant during the InterPlay form, “Walk Stop Run.” As an educator who hasn’t worked with teenagers before, I wasn’t prepared for the boundless energy and chaos that ensues as they whir around the large auditorium with its raised ceiling and large windows emitting warm streams of sunlight on wooden floors. They chatter; they hook their arms and move together; and they mostly run with little stopping or walking. In addition to being wowed by their energy, I was also challenged by accepting their choices and wondering how I might tweak my directions to garner different results.

INCREMENTAL STEPS SUPPORT DEVELOPMENT OF CONFIDENCE. In this photo, you see students telling longer stories and "embodying" them.

Offering the students in this “Creative Communication” class the opportunity to play around with vocal and physical range has created punctuated moments of delight for me. More than one student has “popped” out of their comfort zone to speak louder or to create an imaginative body movement to accompany their name or tell a story. As I observe the classmates “witness” each other’s “creative communications,” I see them being both supportive and encouraged. These particular moments also encourage me because they reinforce my ideas about the role our community plays in our lives. Our actions can make one another stronger.

It has been such a delight to see a natural-born InterPlayer emerge from the group. One Nepalese young woman volunteers at every opportunity to tell a big body story, to do a DT3, to engage in the mystery of communicating something about herself even though she doesn’t know what the outcome will be! I am so appreciative of her courage to improvise and the fun that she experiences and demonstrates to our class.

How does InterPlay help the teen refugees at CCC become more confident communicators?

What is confidence? And how do we recognize it when we see it? I’ve been playing around with this concept for years as an instructor of English as a Second Language at the Georgia Tech Language Institute (I taught there for 20 years and now work there contractually).

I know that creating an environment in which students feel comfortable to take risks and make mistakes is key to developing an adventurous communication style. The improvisational structure of InterPlay offers the structure for creating this “safer” environment. Let me explain a few components here:

Incremental Steps—Confidence is built in the students one step at a time, beginning with “short tellings” and lengthening to longer storytelling moments engaging skills such as speaking slowly, speaking with enthusiasm, using a made up language, or describing something from a perspective of a child, expert, etc…. These incremental steps are sneaky and before they know it, students are engaged in telling their stories in ways they never thought possible.

Easy Focus—InterPlay participants are given clear directions but encouraged to soften their “gaze” or “focuser” and to discover how they want to execute the directions. In other words, the directions provide structure but the individual finds what they need to say or do within or outside of the structure. Giving students permission to be themselves and make choices is empowering.

Witness—Being seen and being heard without interruption is a powerful experience for anyone, especially if you are doing it in a language that is not your native language and in an adopted culture. InterPlay has us “witness” one another, creating a “sacred” place for these resettled refugees to tell their stories in English in a fully embodied way. To “embody” a second or third language is empowering. To have someone see you do that is positively re-enforcing.

Noticing and Affirming the Good—InterPlay is critique free! Instead of my writing down a list of things for students to improve in their pronunciation, organization of ideas, or nonverbal skills, I along with all of the paricipants applaud the accomplishments! Very good. Very good. Hurray! The students practice acknowledging what they are experiencing in their individual bodies, to ground the learning in their whole person—body, mind, heart, and spirit. This kind of affirmative noticing results in increased self-awareness..

Respecting an Individual’s Choice—Participants are asked to choose what is best for them as they “try” new behaviors “on.” That is, students are given freedom and authority as to how they want to execute the directions. Taking actions based on their own internal authority certainly helps develop confidence.

The practice of having these occur in the “Creative Communication” class is challenging and definitely a work in progress!

WORK IN PROGRESS. CPACS supervisors watch while I begin a typical "Creative Communication" class at the Clarkston Global Academy. We begin each class by saying our names, making short physical actions, playing with our voices, and sharing short snippets from our individual lives. We play around with expanding vocal range (volume, speed, and pitch) and physical range. The class is always a work in progress.

What are some of the greatest gifts you have personally received from your involvement with InterPlay?

Great question Jennifer! Although InterPlay has informed my life in many ways--too many to name, so I will speak about two here.

KINESTHETIC IMAGINATION.

Before InterPlay, I had never heard of the phrase “kinesthetic imagination.” What I found out is that I am very much a kinesthetic person and that is the way I experience the world. InterPlay really helped get me out of my head and intellect and to connect with my body. For example, last year, I collaborated with fellow InterPlayer on art performance piece, “Embody the Mother,” during which I danced and painted on stage. To prepare for this performance, I danced every day before painting three “quick” paintings. Creatively I was able to lead with my body, to have the ideas, brush strokes and images be generated through movement. Movement continues to impact my visual art making.

EXFORMATION.

Another gift I have received from InterPlay is the concept of “exformation” and a way to achieve it. This tool is a way of releasing excess information from our “bodyspirits.” Whether this information is deemed good or bad, we can let it go from our bodies, hearts, minds, and spirits. For those of us who are particularly kinesthetic, it is so much fun not to mention cathartic. Since 2013, I have been doing lots of exforming and my body loves it!

Why are you supporting InterPlay Atlanta on Give InterPlay Day?

I love InterPlay and have become a part of a warm local, regional, and national InterPlay communities. I know that InterPlay offers us all a sustainable way to be our authentic selves and still be present in our communities.

Using InterPlay for Science Communication: Improv-ing Evolution

written by Ruth Schowalter, certified InterPlay leader and InterPlay Art & Soul Creativity Coach

“Everyone spread out and find a space in the room. Now, find another space in the room that you want to travel to. Put one foot in front of the other and take your time getting to that spot. Once you arrive at your destination, you may decide to go to somewhere else in the room.”

I delivered these seemingly mysterious directions to a group of university students and professors who attended the collaborative workshop that my scientist husband, Tony Martin, and I gave at the 1st annual Southeastern Evolutionary Perspectives Society (SEEPS) meeting, which was held at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, during Valentine’s weekend 2016. Titled “Improv-ing Your Teaching and Learning of Evolution,” we teased together evolutionary concepts with improvisational forms from InterPlay so that scientists and scientists-in-training might experience “embodying” nuggets of intellectual concepts.

Introducing InterPlay with my collaborator, Tony Martin, Professor of Practice in Environmental Sciences at Emory University (left), and SEEPS organizer, Christopher Lynn, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of Evolutionary Studies. Facilitating this workshop with me has temporarily shifted Tony's position in relation to teaching students. "I'm no longer a sage on the stage, but a guide," he described his experience to me. "It's rewarding to see students learning in another way other than just using their minds."

Once the participants had taken incremental steps across the room to various chosen spots and were standing still, I stopped the languid music of “La Vie en Rose,” and asked, “What evolutionary concept might this activity represent?” Tony and I were surprised at the rapid and numerous responses that flew around the room--beak shapes in finches and neck length in tortoises--for instance. Yes! Bingo! Those are examples of the evolutionary concept, Phyletic Gradualism, which explains slow change that happens with species over time.

Incremental Steps help participants embody the evolutionary concept of Phyletic Gradualism.

INCREMENTAL STEPPING. “This workshop was so much cooler than I ever expected it to be!," anthropology major Kelly Likos (left) wrote me. "Usually workshops are just a new way to get boring information, but not this one! It was early Sunday morning and we had had very little caffeine but that didn't matter after a few minutes! The workshop quickly turned into a type of team building exercise, and I am so thankful for that! Since the workshop I have been thinking of the ways we learned to listen to each other, the value of range, and using our bodies to learn! I am so thankful to Ruth and Tony for sharing their talents with us!” 

Following the InterPlay activity of taking incremental steps to "embody" Phyletic Gradualism, we engaged the participants in "Walk Stop Run," an InterPlay form that invites everyone to make choices about what their individual bodies want to do: be still (stop), move at a leisurely pace (walk), or accelerate speed (run). Once we stopped the activity, everyone was ready to offer up evolutionary related ideas this InterPlay form might represent, especially after we added "the lean," which allows people to physically lean against one or more other participants. The response "mate selection" was my favorite answer!

Gesturing to the Powerpoint slide (below), Tony connected the "Walk Run Stop" activity with another mode of evolution, "Punctuated Equilibrium," which is when species experience stasis (no change--stop) for long periods of time followed by rapid change (walk/run). For example, this might happen when sea animals like mollusks live, breed, and die for thousands of years, and then are dramatically impacted by sea level change and must adapt or die out.

Walk Stop Run illustrates the evolutionary concept of Punctuated Equilibrium.

In addition to these InterPlay forms, we played around with "Babbling" or short tellings, and a version of "Following and Leading" that offered the participants an opportunity to have a physical experience of flocking, herding, or schooling behavior in animals. 

BABBLING ACTIVITY. In addition to telling their "personal" evolutionary stories, participants were invited to explain a "boring" evolutionary idea with enthusiasm. "I thought the workshop was really fascinating, and a great learning experience that was totally out of the box," commented sophomore anthropology major, Jensen Brown. "Even when I was talking about the most boring evolutionary idea I could think of, I found myself feeling enthusiastic about it because of how the activity was structured. It was a really great idea, and I would be glad to do something like it again!"

REFLECTIONS ON FLOCKING (Following and Leading): "I realized that you (Tony and Ruth) were adapting InterPlay exercises not just to illustrate evolutionary concepts, but to let people live them," wrote Andrew Rindsberg, associate professor of environmental geology and paleontology at the University of West Alabama. "After all, not all evolution is competitive; some aspects are cooperative. The flocking exercise effectively demonstrated humans' natural instinct to work together.

"By placing us close together (but only after getting us to loosen up with bonding experiences first), and encouraging us to follow the leader of the flock, you got us all moving in tandem. The leader of the flock could do anything from raising a hand to rolling over on the floor in the spirit of play. You got us to play together, and that's bonding.

"Since the leader of the flock could change at a moment's notice, everyone had the feeling that they could do anything for the group as leader or follower, and no one was left out. What a fine bonding experience for the attendees of a new-formed society having its first annual conference. I think that those who did not attend the workshop really missed something, and it should be included in subsequent conferences."

CONCLUSION: I would like to conclude this blog post about our first "Improv-ing Evolution" workshop with some NOTICING. In InterPlay, we do stuff and then "notice." First of all, it felt fantastic to see the willingness of these college students, many of them University of Alabama students, to play with such high energy. Next, this was a Sunday morning (Valentine's Day 2016) at 8:30 AM, and other "older" conference participants hovered on the edges of our classroom with coffee in hand, hesitating to enter. There appeared to be interest in our activity, but also some resistance. Yes, fifty minutes was too short a time for our high ambitions. We knew this going into the workshop. Some refining needs to take place.

So for our next "Improv-ing Evolution" workshop, we will have two full hours. We are so excited to be a part of the Atlanta Science Festival! Join Tony Martin and me on Sunday, March 20th, 3:30-5:30 in our town of Decatur, Georgia, at Core Studios. Our workshop is FREE but requires you to register with me at ruthtruth@mindspring.com or 404-580-2392.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Thanks as always to Phil Porter and Cynthia Winton-Henry, co-founders of InterPlay. Many thanks to my beloved husband and collaborator, Tony Martin, and his colleague, Andrew Rindsberg. Great appreciation to the student organizers of SEEPS--your enthusiasm and participation in all of the conference was inspirational. And finally, a big shout out and applause to Christopher Lynn and his boundless energy to make this conference happen, as well as his documentation of the entire event. Here is his reflection of our workshop:

"I thought it was wonderful and, like Tyler's presentation using drawing and animation, epitomized our vision for multi-modal integration of science and 'ways of knowing.' Or, in English, I fully appreciate the importance of the epiphanies or clarity that can be achieved in our brains by involving our body. We tend to embody mind/body dualism by simply sitting and to people talk AT us, despite our rhetoric about the body/mind as integrated. It is challenging to get folks to actually explore 'knowing' from an unfamiliar or uncomfortable perspective. I would be curious to see those how those who stood outside the room and waited for the workshop to be over or got up late to avoid rank on Openness to Experience. 

Christopher Lynn

On the other hand, I know many of the students were unsure about it at first but cited it after as one of their favorite events of the meeting and the one that lent them the most insight. It was not as theoretically over their heads as some of the presentations were. I also noticed that, despite my disappointment that attendance was on the low side (as it ultimately was across Sunday), the number was a perfect fit, given the space. If chairs were moved, we certainly could have worked with a larger group, but I know some of the students defer to academic seniority and would have stepped back if there were too many PhDs in the room."

InterPlay at Clarkston, Georgia, Ellis Island of the South: Screening of ELLIS and Panel Discussion

EMBODYING THE IMMIGRATION EXPERIENCE (all photos by Ruth Schowalter)

Written by Ruth Schowalter, Certified InterPlay Leader

On the second Tuesday night in November, InterPlay Atlanta was asked to join the  gathering at the Clarkston Community Center (CCC) to provide an experiential way to delve into the stories of being an immigrant in the past and now after the screening of the movie, ELLIS.

After arriving from traffic-filled metro-Atlanta roads to get to the CCC, those attending relaxed and chatted around a table of satisfying finger food and drink. I was pleased to meet various people from different nonprofit organizations that serve refugees and established communities that receive these new arrivals from different places in the world like Bhutan, Nepal, Somali, and Iraq.  

McKenzie Wren, CCC Director, welcomes everyone.

McKenzie Wren, CCC director, welcomed everyone and gave an introduction to the 15-minute film “ELLIS,” an artful film set in the abandoned Ellis hospital complex. Giving power to the stories of those who travelled through the Ellis facilities written by Academy Award winner Eric Roth, were the images in the art installation by the artist JR, who also directed the film. Adding even more star power to this film about people seeking refuge from persecution and poverty, was Robert DeNiro who starred in it.

Here is the trailer to ELLIS:

ELLIS - trailer from SOCIAL ANIMALS on Vimeo.

A “tie-in” to the InterPlay form, “Walking, Stopping, Running” were unnerving words at the conclusion of the film that advised new arrivals to the shores of the United States to walk, walk faster, and to run as they endeavored to make a new home for themselves. Did the words suggest fleeing, exhausting work, seeking help, finding eventual success and comfort?

InterPlay’s “Walking, Stopping, Running” allows a group of people to make choices in the presence of those participating to remain still to rest and witness others moving, walk at a speed they desire, or run. Participants discover on their own that they can join others in either stopping or moving.

This form supported and held space for those present in the room who had left their countries to find a new home in the United States, for example, Luay Sami from Iraq and Daniel Valdez from Mexico. It allowed others of us in the room born in this country to feel connected in a new way to those who were not.

Satyam Barakoti, CCC Advancements Director, who invited me to offer an InterPlay activity for this event explained her reasons for the invitation: “I wanted to move the energy from the sadness of the movie, move people from a place of being stuck—hopeless to a different place. I think by giving permission to walk, run, walk alone or walk with someone, we also characterized various journeys that immigrants take.”

During the ten minutes of “Walking, Stopping, Running,” that we did between the ELLIS film and the panel discussion on the topic of immigration, “I added the “lean.” The “lean” is an opportunity if participants are willing to move into contact with one another and to feel the support through a physical connection. I observed some people choosing to stop and connect while some held hands and walked or ran around the room together.

THE LEAN of WALKING STOPPING RUNNING.

“The InterPlay experience was the perfect connector between the power of the film and the richness of the discussion,” McKenzie Wren texted me.  “It helped us to feel in our bodies what we had just witnessed on the screen. It was simple and yet profound.”

After our InterPlay experience, the audience settled down for a panel discussion moderated by an immigration lawyer Meighan Vargas with Ted Terry, the Clarkston Mayor  (who I had “leaned” with not knowing he was the Mayor!); Daniel Valdez, Regional Manager of Welcoming America, and Luay Sami, CCC Events and Facilities Manager. I learned more about the immigration experience while I sat in the CCC heard for the first time Clarkston described as the “Ellis Island to the South.”

CLARKSTON, GEORGIA, "ELLIS ISLAND of the SOUTH." (Left to right), Ted Terry, Clarkston's Mayor, Daniel Valdez of Welcoming America, and Luay Sami of the CCC, answer questions moderated by Meighan Vargas, immigration lawyer. "Ellis Island of the South" is a fitting description for one of the most diverse cities in the United States.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Thank you to Satyam Barakoti for inviting me to lead InterPlay at this event. It felt like InterPlay, an improvisational system used as a tool for building community and social change, was a great fit. McKenzie Wren thank you for such a great introduction to me and to InterPlay. As always, I'm so appreciative to Phil Porter and Cynthia Winton-Henry, co-founders of InterPlay. And, finally, gratitude to all of those people who shared their experiences as new arrivals to the United States.

Accessing the Stories within You: Workshop with Masankho Banda

MASANKHO KAMSISI BANDA. Facilitating the storytelling workshop, "Accessing the Stories within You." (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

by Ruth Schowalter, certified InterPlay leader

We slipped our shoes off at the door of the Rising Phoenix T’ai Chi studio located in the Little Five Points Community Center and joined Masankho Kamsisi Banda, international storyteller and InterPlayer from Malawi. After a centering meditative activity, we shared our names and began by telling a one-minute story about “walking” with the group of six participants that had gathered for the evening storytelling workshop.

Masankho prefaced this one-minute storytelling activity with the question: “Where do our stories hang out and how do we tell them?”

To my surprise as we went around the circle telling our one-minute walking stories, I discovered that I have gathered numerous stories about my walking experiences over the course of my 57 years. This realization thrilled me! It is possible that storytelling can come in categories of simple unpretentious words! Consider the following words: toothbrush, cake, mosquito, and sidewalk. What stories organize around those words for you? Is it possible to tell a one-minute story about each one of those words? I think the answer might be “YES”! This is the beauty of InterPlay’s incremental steps and Masankho’s calm peaceful facilitation of them.

On this warm rainy Friday night in November, InterPlay Atlanta was privileged to offer a workshop to our metro Atlanta area folks to learn how to access the stories that are already with us and how to share them in dynamic and fun ways. Masankho, who learned the arts of storytelling and drumming from his village elders in the African country of Malawi, blends his cultural learning together with Interplay providing powerful learning tools for both the emerging and accomplished storyteller. (For more information about Masankho go here: http://www.ucandanc.org/masankho_biography)

After doing some “noticings” about our one-minute stories, we warmed up using  InterPlay forms accompanied by what I can only describe as “poetic” instructions. As a lifelong writing teacher who has struggled with ways to get students to be more specific by paying attention to their senses, I experienced a master teacher ease us into observation. Masankho asked us to notice the colors, the shapes, and the textures as we moved about the room. With excitement, I experienced the “embodiment” of details as I stretched my arms out and swung them and stepped about the room looking and seeing. It was almost as if the colors were brighter and the shapes more defined! And that was just the warm up!

Going deeper into the warm-up, as we continued to move, Masankho called out letters of the alphabet and asked us to give him words beginning with that letter. Moving and creating together, a symphony of voices filled the room in response to “T,” “M,” and “W.” Being a voice in a community of voices allows you to listen, to speak out and to layer on top of other voices.  Yes! It was challenging, fun, and satisfying.

Masankho offered us poetic phrases to repeat. Some were poetic phrases composed with alliteration; others were of ordinary things but compellingly visual, and still others were just really fun to say! He then asked us to complete sentences for him. Imagine such fun word play while still engaging yourself in stepping about the room, looking or not looking, listening to others, responding when you are ready!

InterPlayers around the world will gasp at the “sneaky deep” and elegant play we did to access our stories within. Masankho partnered us, with one person being “Partner A” and the other being “Partner B.” Then we did the InterPlay exercise, “Walk Stop Run” while he played the drum. When he stopped playing, we told whatever story came up from our running, stopping, and walking. Movement for me triggered a memory from the early 1980’s at a syrup sopping festival in Loachapoka, Alabama.

 

FIND MY STORY. TELL MY STORY. SOMEONE WILL LISTEN. We finished our evening with an affirming three-sentence song about being storytellers. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

The progression of Masankho’s movement and storytelling workshop led us to a “Hand to Hand” dance with a new partner and a word given to us by Masankho, which we released with a “wheee” before beginning our “dance.” The “wheee” is permission to let the word go, be present, or a launching pad for something else.
After this activity, we sat down and noticed what are experiences were. Masankho acknowledged what we said, and offered: “Physical proximity and touch are fertile grounds for stories.”

Before leaving, we had the opportunity to do a “DT3,” an InterPlay form, which the storyteller moves first, then talks in three successive intervals while a partner witnesses. Masankho encouraged us to “move, and move, and move, without thinking” and to allow words to emerge from our movement. This experience allowed some of us to relinquish “linearity” to our stories.

There is so much more to the rich experience of this storytelling workshop with Masankho. I have just given you a “taste” here with this blog post written hastily on a Saturday morning.  (It is still raining by the way.) I hope Masankho will forgive me if I have misportrayed anything about last night’s workshop by giving this broad view. It is “my story” of my first meeting with Masankho. I look forward to future ones! He led us in this short song before we dispersed out into the rainy night skies over Georgia:

Find my story

Tell my story

Someone will listen

Acknowledgments:

Thank you Jennifer Denning for contacting Masankho Kamsisi Banda and engaging him in the workshops and performances this weekend. And, as always, many thanks to Phil Porter and Cynthia Winton-Henry, co-founders of this amazing improvisational system of InterPlay. Also a shout out to Sheila K. Collins, Ginny Goings and Tom Henderson, who also gave storytelling workshops for InterPlay Atlanta.

THANK YOU MASANKHO! Here I am (left) with Masankho and Jennifer! Feeling a lot of gratitude for all that InterPlay has brought to my life. I am beginning to "grow" the storyteller in me and it feels good! I know someone will listen. (photo by Tony Martin)