InterPlaying with Chronos and Kairos Time

ALCHEMY OF THE SOUL, InterPlay at Congregation Bet Haverim

Written by Ruth Schowalter, M.S. Applied Linguistics & ESL, Certified InterPlay Leader

How can we play around TIME? Thank goodness for InterPlay, for it offers a way to embody both time and timelessness. “Dancing can dramatically shift our experience of time and space,” Cynthia Winton-Henry writes in her book, Dance-the Sacred Art. In her chapter, “Dancing into Wholeness,” she offers ways of playing around with  “chronos” and “kairos” time so that we can experience it in our bodies.

STORIES ABOUT TIME. We find that our story teller has a lot to say about time, time restraints, running out of time, lack of leisure time and more!

So it was on a Thursday night in February, that I offered a micro-play session on “fixed time” and “flying time” to my Atlanta community at the Congregation Bet Haverim in a monthly InterPlay session, “Alchemy of the Soul.” Our gathering was small and intimate and we rejoiced in the opportunity to move, tell our stories, use our voices, and find some stillness in the middle of a Georgia winter.

SPEAKING ABOUT TIME IN A MADE UP LANGUAGE. In InterPlay we say that we can have a feeling without articulating it. Speaking in a made up language about time in the form of a big body story allowed everyone a chance to express the verbally inexpressible!

In order to understand “time,” it helps to have body wisdom or to be a “body intellectual.” Body intellectual is an InterPlay term that means “one who pays attention to all forms of physical experience, seeks to be articulate about that information, and uses it as an important basis for understanding the world. (Move: What theBody Wants)”

By moving in a conscious way, it is possible for us to acknowledge how are bodies feel differently when experiencing chronos time—limited by clocks and calendars, and kairos time—expanded by boundless time. Even more powerfully, it is possible that by moving our bodies (dancing) we can alter or transform our physical experience of time from being ordinary (time restraints) to being extraordinary (all the time in the world)!

ROTATING GESTURE CHOIR. At the end of our evening "Alchemy for the Soul," we played around with our sense of "flying time," or experiencing an expansiveness of time, by telling our stories in a gesture choir with witnesses. Each of us had a chance to move and speak with support of other "bodies" repeating or imitating our gestures.

What would happen in your life, your family’s life, and the life our communities, if we all started playing around with transforming time? Cynthia Winton-Henry says that most of us spend our time in the middle zone between ordinary (chronos) and extraordinary (kairos) time. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could choose which state of reality to experience and use play and body wisdom to be and live that reality?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Many thanks to Congregation Bet Haverim that offers such a warm an inviting space for us to InterPlay in! Thanks to Joyce Kinnard and Audrey Gaylex, both CBH members and who support my InterPlay leadership offerings to the Atlanta community. I acknowledge my husband for his continued support and playfulness while attending the InterPlay sessions I conduct, even when he is busy planning to leave town for a student field trip on the Georgia Coast. I am grateful to Callahan Pope McDonough for her photography and commitment to living an artful life. As always, I am so appreciative of the work that InterPlay co-founders Phil Port and Cynthia Winton-Henry do for the entire wide world! They are amazing!

Join me for my online class, Move and Create, which uses InterPlay as a way to develop a daily creative practice (from now until April 14). First time participants are welcome for free! Here is a link to the course information.

Luminescence of a Buttercup, by Ruth Schowalter

INTERPLAY & SCIENCE COMMUNICATION AT THE COLLEGE LEVEL: Becoming the Animal through Use of Creative Forms

TRANSFORMATION OF A CLASSROOM--HOW? These first year college students are fully engaged in body and mind communication information they collected in a homework assignment about animals indigenous to the Emory University's campus. (photo by Ruth Schowalter, aka Hallelujah Truth)

Written by Ruth Schowalter, MS Applied Linguistics and Certified InterPlay Leader

InterPlay + Science Communication='s FUN--I'm repeating this mantra regularly, especially when I have the opportunity to teach college students in a science class how to express their data!

This October 2016 signals the third time that I have conducted a two-part storytelling workshop for my husband's first year seminar, "How to Interpret Behavior You Did Not See," using activities from the improvisational system of InterPlay. Each time, I have had the opportunity to refine my facilitation to provide clearer incremental steps to support the students' easeful stepping into the role of an embodied storyteller.

I envision every student finding storytelling "tools" in this workshop that they can adapt to their own personal communication style. My job is to offer ways for them to play around with expanding vocal and physical range as they express scientific information to an audience of one or many. 

In this blog post, I am offering my InterPlay facilitation experience in the form of photos and photo captions. At the end of this post are links to other blog posts I have written about this freshman seminar, as well as other science communication workshops. Enjoy! I appreciate any feedback in the form of comments here or on Facebook.

WHAT IS IMPROVISATION? WHAT IS INTERPLAY? Desks have already been rearranged from rows to a circle around the perimeter of the classroom when students arrive. After being introduced as a certified InterPlay leader, I invite students to define improvisation and how it could relate to science communication. InterPlay, I explain, is an improvisational system that fosters and supports authenticity. I invite the students to always make choices to participate in the InterPlay improvisational activities in a way that feels good to them. Soon they will be asked to use the available space to "create" or "improvise" ideas related to their seminar, "How to Interpret Behavior You Did Not Know." (photo by Tony Martin)

OUT OF THEIR DESKS AND INTO THEIR BODIES. What does the "whole" communicator  look like when fully engaged--physically, mentally, and emotionally? A simple invitation to stand up, warm up their bodies and then partner with another classmate for leading and following at first brings nervous laughter and then.... (photo by Ruth Schowalter, aka Hallelujah Truth)

THE CLASSROOM TRANSFORMED. Within moments the classroom is electrified as students step into the invitation to "play" with one another. Creative move after creative move appears as leadership alternates back-and-forth between the paired students. (photo by Ruth Schowalter, aka Hallelujah Truth)

THE ROLE OF THE PROFESSOR SHIFTS. When the professor participates in these InterPlay activities as Tony Martin (far right) does here, the classroom dynamic shifts with the students.  Students have an opportunity to interact creatively one-to-one with their professor in a give-and-take relationship. (photo by Ruth Schowalter, aka Hallelujah Truth)

EXPANDING THEIR METHOD OF EXPLANATION. After warming up physically and vocally "playing" around with telling short nonlinear descriptions, students return to their desks to take turns describing the nature observations they have recorded in their "sit spot journals," a class requirement. During the semester, they must make a minimum of thirty entries from the same "sit spot" on the Emory campus that they have chosen to observe. (photo by Ruth Schowalter, aka Hallelujah Truth)

BECOMING THE TREE. Following the activity of describing their "sit spot," students change partners and are asked to stand up in front of their listening partner (or witness). Choosing an animate or inanimate object from their "sit spot," they then "become" it and speak from its perspective. (photo by Ruth Schowalter, aka Hallelujah Truth)

DAY 2 OF THE STORYTELLING WORKSHOP--DEVELOPING RAPPORT. What is rapport and how is it created with the listener? We know that our audience is like a mirror reflecting back to us what we ourselves as speakers are creating. This group exercise of leading and following is an excellent way to "embody" that connect between what we "enact" and its impact on others. (photo by Ruth Schowalter, aka Hallelujah Truth)

EXPERIENCING NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION. Team "Red Sloth" prepares to move together for this nonverbal exercise. Teammates are asked to assume leadership as the group moves and shifts about the space like a flock of starlings in a murmuration. (photo by Tony Martin)

BODY TO BODY COMMUNICATION. Students experience first hand that communicating effectively without words is possible as each one creates unique movements and other group members follow. The leadership shifts effortlessly as long as a teammate is willing to accept his/her turn when the opportunity accuates. (photo by Tony Martin)

OBSERVATION IS PART OF LEARNING. Team "Red Sloth" observes team "Blue Whale." The process of "embodying" concepts occurs over time and through different practices. Observing others perform activities helps students to integrate their own experiences with the "new" ideas presented. (photo by Tony Martin)

PRESENTING RESEARCH? YES! Does this look like students are having fun? Is any learning going on here? Are both presenter and audience engaged? Is the transference of information occurring? Do you think students are having the opportunity to teach something they know with enthusiasm? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding YES! (photo by Tony Martin)

WHAT ANIMAL AM I? At the conclusion of our two-part storytelling InterPlay workshops, we gathered in a circle for a guessing game. Each student had researched a different animal indigenous to the Emory campus and had kept their animal "top secret." In this activity, students took turns presenting a behavior and one informational sentence (or hint) about their animal. Everyone repeated the animal behavior and tried to guess the animal. Often several other hints had to be provided before the animal could be identified. The students' enthusiasm, lack of self consciousness, and engaged presence was very rewarding to the professor (Tony Martin) and me, the facilitator.  (photo by Tony Martin)

THE EMORY CAMPUS. Here is the Math and Science Building, the site of our storytelling InterPlay workshops on this sunny fall week in October 2016 on the lovely Emory campus. (photo by Ruth Schowalter, aka Hallelujah Truth)

TELLING A STORY FROM A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE! I'm so grateful to these trusting students who allowed themselves to be engaged in improvisational exercises. Here we are embodying a squirrel. Students chose a living animal or inanimate object from their "sit spot" on the Emory University campus to embody in this freshman seminar, "How to Interpret Behavior You Did Not See." In the first workshop, I introduced InterPlay babbling and big body stories. I loved seeing the students' confidence grow as they had fun moving from partner to partner. At the end of the class, each student shared what he/she had chosen to embody from his/her sit spot and create a movement for us to repeat. Lots of deer appeared, a fish, two dead trees, a blade of grass, a clam, etc. The movements were inventive and fun to follow!(photo by Tony Martin)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Thanks to InterPlay co-founders, Cynthia Winton-Henry and Phil Porter for this sneaky deep improvisational system that fosters and supports authentic communication. Deep gratitude to my life partner, Tony Martin, who is an excellent science communicator. He has helped me grow in my communication skills and capacity as an instructor. Thank you for making education and science outreach fun! You inspire me!

Other blogposts about my work with InterPlay and “How to Interpret Behavior You Did Not See”

April 11, 2016

Shyness Evaporates: College Science Students Use InterPlay Storytelling Methods to Convey Their Nature Observations

November 6, 2014

Expressing Scientific Observation Passionately:  InterPlay Provides the Methodology

Other blogposts on how I use InterPlay for Science Communication and Outreach:

October 2016

InterPlay—A Way to Embody and Express Engineering Research Effectively and Easefully

March 2016

Improvising Trilobite Eyes: InterPlaying with Evolutionary Concepts at the Atlanta Science Festival

Light Gets In: A Workshop with Leah Mann

LIGHT GETS IN with LEAH MANN. The Mask Center, Little 5 Points Community Center, October 2016. (photo by Ruth Schowalter).

Ring the bells that still ring.

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything.

That's how the light gets in.

-Leonard Cohen

Written by Ruth Schowalter, Certified InterPlay Leader

On Friday, October 21, metro-Atlanta folks were invited to spend two hours with international performer and InterPlayer Leah Mann to explore the “cracks” in their lives—inside and out—and to examine “pathways of light” coming through to heal those fissures.

Hosted by InterPlay Atlanta at the Mask Center in the Little Five Points Community Center, Leah used the container of InterPlay as a way to launch a group of a dozen participants into investigations about their lives and the wider world in the workshop, “Light Gets In.”

In the first hour, Leah led us gently and incrementally in warming up our bodies and voices. Along with using the “primary colors” of movement—thrust, swing, hang, and shape—we were offered the opportunity to reflect on our emotions and situations in our lives associated with these movements. Leah explains, “I combined some of the ideas of Julie Motz, reiki master and author, about where emotions flow or are held in the body.”

Following this deep investigation into our bodies and spirits through movement, we then found ourselves making a community sound standing around in a circle, with some participants creating new sounds while others became historians repeating rhythms or words offered by others.

In the second hour of our workshop, with thoroughly warmed up bodies and voices and after connecting with one another, Leah guided us into making inquiries and collecting data about ourselves, our communities, and the world on the complicated theme of “systemic shatterings.” In word, sound, and movement, we explored our “groan zones” and “shatter zones.” We created a “scar inventory” and played around with “sitting in my discomfort.”

SHATTERINGS & THE CONCEPT OF "KITSUGI". In pairs, we told organic stories about things in our lives that remained broken or had been repaired (photo by Ruth Schowalter).

SCAR INVENTORY. With a witness, each of us had an opportunity to dance with our scars (photo by Ruth Schowalter).

SITTING IN MY DISCOMFORT. Leah invited us to "sit in our discomfort," explaining that it is important to be patient and to be awake for the next right step as we awaken to systems in the world that are breaking down and need to be dismantled (photo by Ruth Schowalter).

During our “babbling” or “short telling” sequence, many of us gratefully received Leah’s offering of the concept of the Japanese art form of “kitsugi” (mending pottery with gold) as metaphor for healing that which has been broken. The broken vessel is not only stronger but also has more value.

Two hours were too short to travel this trajectory of “shatterings” in relationship to our personal experiences and current events. I wonder what other discoveries I would have made had we been able to spend a third hour together! What stories might I have heard from other participants or would I have shared of my own. Leah expressed her thoughts on this: “It was just two hours. I think a minimum for this sort of exploration could be three hours or longer. A ‘walk about’ on a theme like this could have taken more than an hour.”

LIGHT GETS IN PARTICIPANTS WITH LEAH MANN. (photo by anonymous workshop participant)

There is mystery in movement, voice, story, and shape and stillness. Leah Mann is a magician, a genius, and a gentle guiding force—one who can create the container for play, insight, and healing to occur. Thank you Leah for this offering to the InterPlay Atlanta community and metro-Atlanta area. I hope you will return and spend more time with us on this theme, “Light Gets In.” It is important work!

“InterPlay has been a huge part of my personal development work as an activist, artist and human being. The system is a powerful platform for deep inquiry.” –Leah Mann

About Leah Mann: Leah lives in Vashon, Washington, but has strong ties to Atlanta, having moved here after her father retired from the Army. She returns regularly to visit her mother, who lives in College Park and to continue her work as the co-founder and artistic director emeritus of the urban outreach program, Moving in the Spirit. Leah now co-directs Lelavision Physical Music. With her partner Ela Lamblin, she tours internationally, performing a hybrid genre combining kinetic music inventions animated through music and dance in simultaneity. She teaches movement, rhythm and instrument making from ordinary objects with a wide variety of populations from a base of improvisation informed primarily by the InterPlay technique. Check out her website: www.lelavision.com

For Jennifer Denning, InterPlay Brings Connection and Spark of Aliveness for Self and Others

Interview with Jennifer Denning, co-founder of InterPlay Atlanta by Ruth Schowalter, certified InterPlay leader
 

Jennifer and John. On Thursdays, when InterPlay Atlanta goes to the Friendship Center at Holy Comforter Episcopal Church in east Atlanta to facilitate an hour of movement, voice, storytelling, and shaping and movement, John (right) has already arrived and is waiting for us. Jennifer reflects about her connection with John and her meaningful experiences at the Friendship Center HERE. (photo by R. Schowalter)

Thursday, April 7th is Give InterPlay Day, a 24-hour time period during which you are invited to give a financial gift to InterPlay Atlanta to support us as we bring the ease, grace, and joy of InterPlay to refugees, people who are living with chronical mental illness, and incarcerated women. (Click HERE to make your tax deductible donation)

As we approached the 2016 "Give InterPlay Day," I asked Jennifer Denning, the co-founder of InterPlay Atlanta to share her perspective on why people might consider supporting InterPlay. Below is her warm personal response to my questions.

Jennifer, why give on April 7th, Give InterPlay Day?

I was teaching InterPlay to women at Atlanta Pretrial Detention Center a few weeks ago and a participant said to me, "Jennifer, I don't know how many of these groups you do, but you should keep doing them. I didn't know how today was going to be, but now I feel good." This was after only fifteen minutes of InterPlay. Her words were such affirmation to me of the value of InterPlay. The simple and accessible forms of InterPlay create connection and joy so easily. Giving on Give InterPlay Day helps the InterPlay movement to grow in the world- bringing more connection, joy, peace and transformation!

The Atlanta Pre-Trial Detention Center. Once a week on Tuesday mornings InterPlay Atlanta visits this location to facilitate an hour of play to incarcerated women waiting trial. (photo from the web)

How will the funds raised on April 7th for InterPlay Atlanta be used?

In Atlanta, our InterPlay facilitators currently have two weekly groups that are unfunded--at the Atlanta Pretrial Detention Center and Clarkston Community Center. We also have the possibility to expand our programming. There is interest from two additional prison programs as well as a shelter for homeless women and children. Funding will allow us to grow our programming, make the work sustainable for our certified leaders and bring new leaders on board. 

Who are you in relation to InterPlay and InterPlay Atlanta?

As co-founder of InterPlay Atlanta, in 2008 I began bringing InterPlay to the Atlanta community in collaboration with long-time InterPlayer, Debra Weir. Over the last several years, I have brought InterPlay to women in prison, girls in

photo by C. Gautreaux

juvenile detention, National Alliance on Mental Illness of Georgia, the refugee community and The Friendship Center. Wherever I bring InterPlay I experience a spark of connection and aliveness (in myself and others.) Currently I am leading the Atlanta Life Practice Program and am inspired by the new InterPlay leaders who will be continuing to bring the gifts of InterPlay to the world.

CLARKSTON COMMUNITY CENTER 2015. From June to November, InterPlay Atlanta offered a free taste of InterPlay at the CCC's farmer market one Saturday afternoon a month. Here, Jennifer is shown with refugee participants who InterPlayed with us while they were waiting for their free bicycle and helmet from Communicycle. (photo by Okello Justine)

Want more information? Here are other articles about the work InterPlay Atlanta is doing:

Incarcerated women 

Claiming a Name at Lee Arrendale State Prison

 

Crossing the Street to the Pre-Trial Detention Center

 

InterPlay at the Pre-Trial Detention Center

 

A Glimpse of InterPlay at Lee Arrendale State Prison (2015)

 

On the Eve of Give InterPlay Day (2015)

Clarkston Refugees

InterPlay is a Bridge for Teenage Refugees

 

For Resettled Refugees InterPlay is about Making Connections with Parts that have been Stifled

Playing with Noticing

 

InterPlay at Clarkston, Georgia (Ellis Island of the South)

 

Creative Communication Begins at Clarkston Community Center

People living with chronic mental illness and poverty

The Art of Being Human

 

InterPlay at The Friendship Center: Playing in the Pews

Thank you in advance for your financial gift to InterPlay Atlanta, which will help us continue empowering people who have been marginalized. Since InterPlay Atlanta is a non-profit, you can deduct your donation from your taxes. Donate here on April 7th: Give InterPlay Day (Atlanta InterPlay)

IMPROVISING ON THE TOPIC OF AGING: Soulprint Players Rehearse for Upcoming Performances

SOULPRINT PLAYERS REHEARSE.  An improvisational troupe, the Soulprint Players rehearse in order to be familiar with the "forms" of InterPlay and to "play" together and develop what InterPlay calls a "group body." Here Jennifer Denning, the director, tells a three-sentence story on "aging," the chosen topic for the 3-hour rehearsal. (all photos by Ruth Schowalter)

by Ruth Schowalter, Certified InterPlay Leader

THE INTERPLAY WARMUP.  Generally, every InterPlay gathering includes a warmup in order to be present and to access the bodywisdom we all have. InterPlay activities play around with the entirety of being human, uniting the body, mind, heart and spirit.

Soulprint Players are excited! As we celebrate our second year of existence, we are preparing for two upcoming performances in the month of November. Happy Birthday Soulprint Players and thank you Jennifer Denning for creating us!

This Sunday afternoon, Soulprint Players will join other artists at the Pine Lake Art Salon, in Pine Lake, Georgia. Those of us InterPlayers who are in the performance troupe know that the theme will be on "The Day of the Dead," an appropriate subject matter since it will be the day after Halloween and approaching the Mexican celebration of cleaning cemeteries and building altars for their deceased. However, the topics we will use for improvisation will be given to us from the Pine Lake audience.

So what does it mean to prepare or "rehearse" when you are an improvisational InterPlay troupe? It means getting performers together so that they can be familiar both with the InterPlay forms and one another. Let me explain using our 3-hour rehearsal from this past Sunday, October 25th.  

After assembling at the Mask Theatre in the Little Five Points Community Center in Atlanta, Georgia, at 10:00, we pulled the topic of "aging" from an envelop filled with topics that Jennifer created with us for our rehearsals. Then we began to "play" around with ideas related to aging such as limitations, gifts, and retirement.

FULFILLMENT. In pairs, we witnessed one another dance or move in whatever way we chose to do in response to the word "fulfillment." My partner, Marie (right), who I witnessed, experienced an expansion and embodiment of the richness of her life.

LIMITATIONS. Here three Soulprint Players, Lesly, Lynn, and Joyce, improvise a "side-by-side" movement story on the "limitations" of aging.

TWO NEW SOULPRINT PLAYERS. We are so excited to welcome two new members to Soulprint Players (left)--Vivian Slade, one of the three Pacha Mamas, and Wade Levering, percussionist.

THREE SENTENCE STORY ON AGING. Sharon Levering is the last storyteller in an InterPlay form, "Pittsburgh Form" crafted by the Pittsburg InterPlay performance troupe. She is telling a story about reclaiming bright red lipstick after an odyssey of wearing it, not wearing it, and being a makeup artist and putting it on others.

For me, just being an InterPlayer has allowed me to dive deeply into the issues of my life in a creative and community supported way. Then being an InterPlay "performer" has given me still another dimension to explore a variety of ways to tell my stories and what I want to say publicly. 

It was such a rich experience to explore the theme of aging in our Soulprint Players' rehearsal. I found that I was able to "exform" some frustrations I have about having gathered 57 years and then also recognize and claim the "gifts" that come with my aging. And the jewels given to me by the other InterPlayers in their stories about aging! 

What a privilege it is to have the profound experience of feeling "like" everyone else while being "different." We connect through the similarities and respect one another for our differences. The principles and tools of InterPlay are magical! And Jennifer Denning is an incredible director, who is also able to be vulnerably present to share her own stories.

You will want to attend one of our upcoming performances and see what you made contribute.  Join us this Sunday, November 1st at Pine Lake, Georgia, for the Art Salon (free) or the following Sunday, November 8th, 5:00 to 6:00 PM at the Holy Comforter Episcopal Church for our performance with International InterPlay Leader and Storyteller Masankho Kamsisi Banda. Suggested donations are $10 to $50 pay what is affordable and be generous if possible. Donations will be used to support InterPlay sessions at The Friendship Center of Holy Comforter.