CREATIVE COMMUNICATION (InterPlay): Adding Visual Art and Writing

WHAT IS IT POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO CREATE? After warming up, saying our names, talking about what brings us love, ease, and grace, and playing following and leading, my class of resettled teenage refugees sat down to draw and write. (photo art by Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter)

Written by Ruth Schowalter, certified InterPlay leader, MS in Applied Linguistics and ESL, InterPlay Art & Soul Creativity Coach
 
Hurray for CREATIVITY! Hurray for PLAY! Hurray for COMMUNITY--one in which we can CREATE and PLAY.

As a visual artist, lifelong educator and certified InterPlay leader, I have taken InterPlay, an improvisational system that nurtures authenticity, to the Ellis Island of the South, Clarkston, Georgia (see this blog).

On Monday afternoons, I arrive to facilitate an hour-long class "Creative Communications," with resettled refugee teenagers from countries such as Nepal, Burma, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Using InterPlay as the foundation for this after school program in the Clarkston Global Academy, I engage these teens in movement, storytelling, voice, and shape and stillness.

As a 3-decade-long English as a Second Language instructor, a goal I integrate with play and creativity is verbal and physical expansion. Inviting the teens to experiment with volume, pitch, and speed as well as gestures, I encourage them to use English (or their own language) to offer what is unique to them. In this way, voicing their names become subtle or exaggerated dances. Talking about an ordinary day at school becomes an enthusiastically expressed story. The InterPlay forms offer adventures in being oneself and connecting with others.

CREATING WITH EASY FOCUS. What can a minute of ease offer to your creativity? Playing in community is a powerful way to access what is yours to claim. What is it your body, mind, heart, and spirit want to express?  (photo by Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter)

Yesterday, I decided to add drawing and writing to our creative communications. "What is possible for you to create and communicate," I asked them, "when you are using easy focus?" Wheee... (Easy Focus is an InterPlay principle that gives us permission to release expectations or "hard focus" and enjoy the process of creating/being).

Students gathered around a long narrow table, selected a colored marker and were asked to draw a shape, then to repeat that shape again and again, changing direction and size. Music from Eric Chappelle, swirled around them. Two InterPlay volunteers, Carolyn Renee and Lynn Hesse, engaged in the activity too. As facilitator, I had the honor to witness.

The teens relaxed into their assignment and increased the speed with which they drew their shapes. As they filled their 8" x 11" page, I encouraged them to find another color and to use that as "spice." When everyone was slowing down, I asked them to turn their papers over and write three words or more that were coming into their minds. And then, if they wanted, to write a sentence.

The energy was just right. I observed a confidence in their actions, a certainty in what to write, what to create. Ta dah!  That is what is POSSIBLE IN PLAY in Creative Communication Class at the Clarkston Global Academy.

InterPlay activities comprised the concluding 15 minutes of class, supporting an embodied way of sharing the newly generated "visual and word art." 

SHARE YOUR IMAGE IN DANCE AND WORDS. In pairs, the teens were invited to communicate their drawing through movement, however they wanted to express their multiple shapes. Then to use words from the back of their drawings or any new words that came to them. (photo by Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter)

EXPRESSING IN THE LARGER COMMUNITY. How to share this newly created work with the larger community of the class? InterPlay has a form, "Walk Stop Run." With ease, the teens made their own choices of when and what to share with others. They chose to walk, stop, run, or show and speak about their work. The fun engagement was phenomenal! (photo art by Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter)

One of the greatest gifts I received from this hour of creative communicating was when I heard one of the young women from Nepal read her sentence aloud: "I love myself, and I am enough!"

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
Many thanks go to Jes Gordon, whose Intuitive Painting class taught me some simple ways to engage people in drawing without judgment. As I explore ways to use music with lyrics, I am grateful to Soyinka Rahim for her album "BIBO LOVE." During this class, the teens happily took turns leading and following to "BIBO Funk" with such joy and fun moves. I am so appreciative to the CPACS facilitators and the Clarkston Global Academy educational program director, Justine Okello for supporting this Creative Communication Class. Recently being joined by volunteers from the InterPlay Atlanta community has filled me with such a feeling of bounty. As always, I want to acknowledge InterPlay co-founders Phil Porter and Cynthia Winton-Henry for this community building improvisational system and all that they do to make it accessible to everyone.

That's InterPlay Atlanta from the perspective of Ruth Schowalter! Comment below. I invite you to answer these questions: What is possible in play for you? What is your truth that you want to share in the world?

Interplay is a Bridge for Teenage Refugees: Playful group interaction develops self-confidence

CREATIVE COMMUNICATION through INTERPLAY. Every Monday since October 2015, InterPlay Atlanta has brought the improvisational system to the Clarkston Community Center at the request of Andrea Waterstone (back row, second from the right). --photo by CPACS staff member

Written by Andrea Waterstone, Director of Art and Education at the Clarkston Community Center (CCC)

Please support InterPlayAtlanta on InterPlay Give Day, April 7^th (midnight to midnight). Your gift of money will allow us to keep Interplay in our curriculum as one of the most fun, diverse, meaningful and needed classes we can offer. Here is the link (Donate to InterPlay Atlanta). --Andrea Waterstone

WITNESSING. Half of the "Creative Communication" class witnesses or watches the other half in a shape and stillness exercise. --photo and caption by Ruth Schowalter

I was thrilled to have Ruth Schowalter, a certified InterPlay leader, join my afterschool program (Clarkston Global Academy) to teach teenage refugee students “Creative Communication,” using the improvisational tools of InterPlay. The result from the work Ruth does with the students at the Clarkston Community Center is nothing short of transformational. I have first hand noticed students who were shy, unable to make eye contact during conversation or incapable of speaking up for themselves in group interaction BLOOM into more confident, self assured, well-spoken individuals.

BLOOMING. InterPlay activities such as one hand group dances provide teens with opportunities to interact in ways that are fun and build confidence. --photo and caption by Ruth Schowalter

This Interplay class has filled a need that is often overlooked. We expect a refugee or immigrant to suddenly be able to acclimate to our world in every way once they are in the United States. However, even though a teenage refugee may be fully taking part in the day-to-day life expected of them in-and-out of the school system, the development of his/her self confidence, linguistic confidence and soft skill sets that employers require to be competitive in the American market place are often overlooked or, perhaps, never taught.  This is a disservice to these refugee students, and Interplay has become the class at the CCC to fill that need.

 

CREATING A ONE HAND DANCE AND SONG. Students were divided into groups so that each one would have an opportunity to do a one-hand dance while the others improvised a song using the form "foundation decoration." --photo and caption by Ruth Schowalter

The Interplay class, “Creative Communication,” which Ruth teaches on Mondays after the refugee students have spent a full day in high school has become the bridge that teaches the above mentioned skill sets in a safe, fun, and playful environment. Communication, movement, listening, eye contact and play all mix together in a beautiful orchestration led by Ruth’s years of effective teaching of ESL and how those concepts of appropriate communication can be transferred to the InterPlay work she is doing with teens in Clarkston Global Academy.

The Clarkston Community Center and The Center for Pan Asian Community Services together see such value in having Interplay among our diverse curriculum offered at our co-led afterschool program Clarkston Global Academy.

COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES. The Clarkston Community City is an integral part of the city of Clarkston, Georgia. In November 2015, the CCC planned and facilitated "Clarkston Streets Alive." Here in this photo, Andrea Waterstone (third from the left) and Ruth Schowalter (left) met with some of the teenage refugees from the afterschool program who volunteered to assist at the event. --photo by Festival Go-er

 

Many thanks to Andrea Waterstone for writing this for InterPlay Give Day 2016! Here are links to other blog posts about the Clarkston refugees and marginalized communities that we are serving in the Atlanta Metro Area:

Clarkston 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

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)

Your financial gift will help us continue bringing the ease and grace and joy of InterPlay to 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)

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

INTERPLAY ATLANTA. Helping resettled refugee students test their own self-imposed barriers (March 2016).

Written by Shamsun Nahar, Site Manager Clarkston Global Academy, Center for Pan Asian Community Services, Inc (CPACS)

On a day-to-day basis, people put up so many walls, barriers, and limitations on themselves when it comes to expression and human interaction. There are many socio-normative rules that dictate what sounds to make, and what the body should look like, and what it should do.

Recently, resettled refugee students have used InterPlay at the Clarkston Global Academy to find a creative outlet in which to communicate with each other, and with themselves. As a participant, I enjoyed exploring my vocals, my body movements, and watching language manifest itself into the human body’s movement.

NEVER A DULL MOMENT. Participants in InterPlay Atlanta's "Creative Communication" class make connections through movement and story telling activities. Here participants were invited to celebrate the spring by embodying alternately flowers and pollinators like bees and butterflies. The flowers used shape and stillness but changed shapes when "pollinated."

I loved watching the same sort of fascination mirror itself on the students participating. The best part is hearing so distinctly and loudly the voices of students who are normally shy. There has never been a dull moment within this group. Each moment, we are encouraging participation, and encouraging others to test their own self-imposed barriers.

SHAMSUN NAHAR

Ultimately, the greatest take-away from this is not just the connection made with others who participate with you, but the connection you make with parts of yourself that has always been suppressed and stifled. I can wholeheartedly say I adore this InterPlay workshop series. 

GIVE INTERPLAY DAY 2016 (April 7th--one day only)

You can help us continue bringing InterPlay to these resettled refugee teenagers by supporting us on Give InterPlay Day 2016 (click here: Give InterPlay Day for Atlanta's Underserved Communities).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: In October 2015, as a result of funding raised in April 2015 for Atlanta's underserved communities on the national “Give InterPlay Day,” (Thank you everyone!) and the developing relationship with the Clarkston Community Center (CCC), InterPlay Atlanta was able to accept Andrea Waterstone’s invitation to participate in the Clarkston Youth Initiative (renamed Clarkston Global Academy) by beginning a Creative Communications class taught by Ruth Schowalter. Although funding ran out in December, classes have continued once-a-week since January because of the positive impact that InterPlay is having as described by CPACS site manager Shamsun Nahar.