EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED AT EARTH WISDOM: Join Jennifer Denning and the Soulprint Players for an evening of InterPlay improvisational forms

JENNIFER DENNING AND THE SOULPRINT PLAYERS. Pictured here on a Saturday rehearsal Soulprint Players look on while Director Jennifer Denning tells the last 3-sentence story  in a performance structure called "The Pittsburgh Form."(photo by Ruth Schowalter)

On April 22, the Soulprint Players will give an improvisational performance on the theme "Earth Wisdom" at Moving in the Spirit. See details HERE. In preparation for this first spring performance, Soulprint Player founder and director Jennifer Denning was interviewed by Ruth Schowalter, certified InterPlay Leader.

As the founder, director, and member of Soulprint Players, InterPlay Atlanta's performance troupe, can you tell us something about who you and your members are and what you do?

I am an actor and teaching artist. In my early 20's I improvised with Dad's Garage Theater. I loved having a platform to try on so many different characters and to make things up in the moment. I was great at committing to characters and being fully engaged, but not as great at having a quick wit or being up to date on current pop culture references. I am in awe of the talent of some of the improvisors at Dad's, but I wondered about what type of improvised performance might make the audience cry or connect or reveal the world in a different sort of way. 

When I discovered InterPlay and then the possibilities of InterPlay performance it clicked for me. InterPlay performance gives me a context to create and share the real stuff of my own life through story, movement and voice. I've found all three of these forms of artistic expression to be full and joyous for me.

SOULPRINT PLAYERS, GRATITUDE PERFORMANCE, November 2014 (photo by Dean Hesse)

Most of our ensemble members are performers of some sort- but not all. We have a man who is an 80-year-old dharma teacher who performs with us.  He creates some of the most honest and unexpected moments. Part of the magic of a Soulprint Player performance is the connection we create with each other and the audience. Training is less important than a willingness to show up with honesty and heart. That said, the InterPlay forms create an engaging format for what we create. That structure is important.

EARTH WISDOM PERFORMANCE. Soulprint Players give an improvisational performance on Friday, April 22, 2016, at Moving in the Spirit. Titled "Earth Wisdom," Jennifer will lead herself and her performers into the "unexpected" with inspirational input from audience members.

"Earth Wisdom" is the theme of your improvisational performance on Friday, April 22. What can the audience expect to happen and how do you engage them?
 
They can expect the unexpected! That is the joy and aliveness from creating out of who shows up and "what wants to happen." We are all connected to the earth, and I imagine everyone has a story to tell about a moment something in the natural world awed, inspired or changed them. We'll ask the audience to share a bit on that topic and use their offerings as inspiration for the dances and songs we create.  

In any InterPlay offering (performance related or not) we make space for the difficult stories as well. There is certainly plenty to grieve about when we think about losses in our natural world. There can be power and healing in a collective acknowledgement of what has been lost, and perhaps a greater awareness and commitment to action can emerge.
 
The funds that you collect from ticket donations will support scholarships for the InterPlay Atlanta sponsored June untensive, "Nda Ku Ona (I see you): From Fear to Promise," with national InterPlay leaders Coke Tani and Masankho Banda. Why?

Our connection to each other cannot be separated from our connection to the earth. If I am living my life primarily from a state of self preservation I am less likely to care about the earth or the needs of other people on the planet. Masankho and Coke are amazing leaders who will lead participants in an embodied exploration of the ways we cut our selves off from people who are different than us. 

The practice of releasing fear and stepping into promise in relationship with other people organically leads us into healthier relationship with the earth as well. We want to make this untensive available to those who might not have the funds to attend. Creating a scholarship fund through funds raised from this performance seemed like a perfect opportunity.
 
What are upcoming SoulPrint Player performances?

We will be performing on the theme of "The Art of Being Human" as a part of Breaking New Ground at the Decatur Arts Festival over Memorial Day Weekend.

Below is a slideshow of a previous Soulprint Players' performance with guest artist, Masankho Banda.

 

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)

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.

A New Playshop Series: InterPlay Alchemy: The Creative Magic of the Embodied Soul

REACHING IN THE WARM UP STRETCH. On Sunday, January 25th, 2015, I completed my final requirement to become a certified InterPlay leader by getting filmed leading InterPlay so that my mentor, Phil Porter, co-founder of InterPlay, can observe me teaching. That's me, Ruth Schowalter, second from the left. (photo by my husband, Tony Martin)

written by Ruth Schowalter, InterPlay-Leader-in-Training

Hurray for mile markers--those events in life that "mark" a significant change in one's life. Yesterday, was one of those moments for me. For almost two years I have been living and breathing InterPlay ever since I discovered it while doing research on using improvisation as tool in the English as a Second Language classroom. At Soulprint Players, our Atlanta InterPlay performance troupe's rehearsal, I completed my last requirement for becoming a certified InterPlay leader by having 30 minutes of my teaching recorded! Yay!

Of course, there are a few more formalities before I can hang my shingle as a certified InterPlay leader. For instance, Phil Porter, co-founder of InterPlay, needs to see the recording of my teaching and have a discussion with me. He is currently in Australia with InterPlayers there and then returns to California, and the Body Wisdom office only to begin a workshop with the other co-founder of InterPlay, Cynthia Winton-Henry, at the beginning of February. So we are not having the celebratory party yet!


Meanwhile, at the encouragement and support of InterPlay Atlanta regional director, Jennifer Denning, I have created my first InterPlay class! I am so excited to be offering it in my community of Decatur within walking distance of where I live! I am "reaching" out with my flaps up ready for discovery!
 

REACHING FOR THE HIGHER SELF. As I offer a new playshop series in the Metro-Atlanta area, I am practicing keeping my "flaps up."  "Flaps Up" is a phrase used in InterPlay to express reaching up to the "big self" as opposed to the "little self." Both big and small selves are equally valid and treasured but different. Perhaps it is our ability to navigate between these selves that is the challenge. At this mile marker for me as I step into being an InterPlay Leader, I am practicing loving and holding space for both my smaller, finite self that dwells in the specifics of every day life and the higher self that mingles in the great infinite mystery. (Image by me, Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter, titled "Baptism at Sweetwater Creek")

Here is the flyer I created to announce my playshop series, "InterPlay Alchemy: The Creative Magic of the Embodied Soul":

InterPlay Alchemy: The Creative Magic of the Embodied Soul

Facilitated by Ruth Schowalter

“Learn how to walk in the sweetness of the possession of your own soul.”  -D.H. Lawrence

What is it you alone know and want to express? Are you being called to speak from your soul? Each one of us has a private way of speaking that yearns for support and to be heard in community.

InterPlay allows us to speak to one another in the marvelous flexible languages of movement, voice, story telling, and stillness. But what is InterPlay and how is it alchemical?

InterPlay is an improvisational system that is an active creative way to unlock the wisdom of the body. Devoted to fun, InterPlay integrates body, mind, heart, and spirit in a “sneaky deep” way. It also teaches the language and ethic of play in a powerful way. If you would like to be a “recovering serious person,” InterPlay might be for you. For more information about InterPlay, visit http://www.interplay.org/.

In this eight-week series of Tuesday playshops, “InterPlay Alchemy: The Creative Magic of the Embodied Soul,” we will play around with themes related to the meaning of life--thresholds, “flyingtime,” the little self and higher self, grace, joy, wholeness, health, and more.

InterPlay invites us to create from where we are, and not where we think we should be. At the same time, creating from our embodied souls can transform us in ways that feel magical!

This course is open to both experienced and new InterPlay participants.

Tuesdays 10am to noon

February 3^rd-24^th and

March 3^rd  to 31^st.  

*(March 10th, no class)

Fee 8 classes:  $120.00

Decatur First Christian Church, 601 West Ponce De Leon Ave., Decatur, Georgia, 30030

Contact Ruth Schowalter for further information and for signing up at: RuthTruth@mindspring.com  or   404-580-2392

For more about InterPlay in Atlanta see:

http://atlantainterplay.blogspot.com/

Ruth Schowalter. photo by Lisa Alexander Streib

https://www.facebook.com/AtlantaInterPlay

For more about me, see my blog,

http://coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/

Ahhhh...I am experiencing the sense of wonder at taking my ideas--ones that I have been dancing, singing, drawing, painting, and speaking into the world. My love of celebrating each and every individual's uniquities including my own has manifested into InterPlay Alchemy!

I believe in living vibrant meaningful lives shared in community! How awesome to be able to celebrate this vibrancy through the marvelous languages of movement, voice, story telling and stillness in InterPlay playshops! 

This is a "flaps up" moment for me! Hallelujah!

FLAPS UP ON FACEBOOK! Experiencing my higher self, expanding into the world of friends and new possible friends using the social media of Facebook. This image accompanied my announcement of InterPlay Alchemy on the Facebook page of InterPlay Atlanta.

That's Coffee With Hallelujah! SOUL BLOG with me and share your moments of transition with me! What do you know about your big and little self?

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Thanks to InterPlay co-founders, Cynthia Winton-Henry and Phil Porter for giving us what the body wants and ways to access having it all by reuniting the body, mind, heart and soul--at last! Thanks to our ever expanding InterPlay Atlanta community, especially InterPlay Atlanta director Jennifer Denning and soon to be certified InterPlay leader Christine Gautreaux. I am also so grateful to the members of the InterPlay Atlanta performance troupe, whose soulful playing so inspires me. And gratitude to the Reverend James L. Brewer-Calvert, the senior pastor at Decatur First Christian Church, who opened the doors of his church for me to teach my first series of InterPlay play sessions. What an awesome community to be a part of! I also want to acknowledge Callahan Pope McDonough, Lesly Fredman, and Lynn Hesse for helping me shape this new class in words and place.

TA DA! Soulprint Players' Premier Performance

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE SOULPRINT PLAYERS! Sunday, November 16th, 2014, is a significant date in InterPlay Atlanta's history! Its performance group, Soulprint Players, had their premier performance! (photo by Dean Hesse)

by Ruth Schowalter, InterPlay Leader-in-Training

Ta da! The Soulprint Players have launched themselves in Atlanta! On Sunday, November 16th, 2014, InterPlay Atlanta's director, Jennifer Denning, introduced the performance group to its Atlanta community with a fundraiser for the Atlanta Foodbank on the theme of "gratitude."

Two weeks before Thanksgiving, after little more than nine months, five performance workshops with Sheila K. Collins and Phil Porter, and a number of rehearsals, the Soulprint Players danced, sang, and told stories for an hour.

ARRIVING AN HOUR BEFORE THE PERFORMANCE! Soulprint Player Christine Gautreaux came early to prep for the performance, arriving with drums, an easel and notepad, and her supportive husband and InterPlayer Joe! (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

This performance was significant in several ways. In addition to being the Soulprint Players' premier, it also represented a logical outcome and a fulfillment of a dream for InterPlay Atlanta's director, Jennifer Denning (read her blog on this topic, "On Being Seen"). This first performance also served in giving our InterPlay Atlanta community a center or a heart--a way of being together, going deeper, and serving the community.

ELICITING TOPICS ON GRATITUDE FROM THE AUDIENCE! InterPlayer Christine Gautreaux writes down the topics Jennifer Denning elicits from the audience. We used these topics for our performances! (photo by Dean Hesse)

Our one-hour performance evaporated quickly and magically. Ta da! After playing around with audience-given topics related to gratitude such as laughter, babies, health, growing old, and turkeys, we took our final bows. We had told side-by-side stories, participated in two gesture choirs, witnessed a big body story, done the Pittsburgh form, sung with the audience, and much more.

Please enjoy this slide show of our evening. The photos were taken by Dean Hesse, the music is Karen Drucker's, and the slide show was created by me, Ruth Schowalter.

   
Those of us who could went to a local watering hole after our performance to toast our achievement! Congratulations Soulprint Players! Congratulations Jennifer Denning!

CHEERS ATLANTA INTERPLAY SOULPRINT PLAYERS!

SOULPRINT PLAYERS: A week before InterPlay Atlanta's performance troupe premier

ONE SUNDAY AWAY FROM THE PREMIER OF THE SOULPRINT PLAYERS. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

by Ruth Schowalter, InterPlay Leader-in-Training

The Soulprint Players gathered together a week before their premier performance in the InterPlay Atlanta community to "rehearse." The parentheses around "rehearse" is so you know that InterPlayer performers come together to play with one another and to become familiar with the InterPlay forms. However, at its heart, InterPlay is all about improvisation--making things up in the moment. 

Jennifer Denning

Jennifer Denning has waved her magic wand and created the Soulprint Players in less than a year. Beginning on Friday, January 24th, 2014, we had our first performance workshop with Sheila Collins (see this blog, Atlanta InterPlay is Forming a Performance Group). Now, on Sunday, November 16, 2015, Soulprint Players are giving their first performance on the theme of "gratitude." 

On the Sunday before our premier performance, the Soulprint Players ran through a practice of what it is like to work with a theme and topics given from the audience. Our rehearsal theme was "freedom." 

Here are a few photos from our two-hour play with the the theme of freedom:

WARMING UP WITH WALK, RUN, STOP. (all photos by Ruth Schowalter)

PLAYING AROUND WITH THE PITTSBURGH FORM.

Although each InterPlay form is beautiful and compelling in its own way, some times one form might happen to take your breath away. Its improv. And in improv, depending on the theme, the players, and the ephemeral moment, something breathtaking happens! On this Sunday "rehearsal," it was the contact duet that captured my fascination.

BEGIN

CONNECT. PLAY WITH RESISTANCE.

FIND A WAY TO LEAN.

SEPARATE. FIND A NEW CONNECTION.

At intervals, we took moments from movement to notice what we were experiencing while playing with one another and the forms. I was feeling particularly awkward in the practices with contact InterPlay. The rubber on my tennis shoes was not allowing me to move smoothly on the wooden floor and resulted in my feeling like I was stumbling--thus, making a mistake. In our noticings, much discussion ensued my concern around stumbling.

Perhaps if I were to release judgment, the "clumsy" movement I made could be experienced as a change in intention. Since our dance is not choreographed, it is my choice how I want to accommodate an unexpected glitch. One of the players said to me, "It's how you decide to present yourself--that's what's beautiful. Viewers can even have 'movement empathy' identifying with you." 

InterPlay is a journey of self discovery taken through choices made as you play. Come see how InterPlay Atlanta's Soulprint Players make choices in response to the words or ideas you offer us.

Once again our event is Sunday, November 16th, 2014, at 8:00 at the Mask Center in the Little Five Points Community Center. We are accepting donations of $10, which will go towards supporting both Soulprint Players and the Atlanta Foodbank.

INTERPLAYING IN GRANT PARK: Soulprint Players warming up on a cold day!

SOULPRINT PLAYERS REHEARSAL. Grant Park, Atlanta, Georgia, November 1, 2014 (photo by Wade, husband of Sharon Levering)

by Ruth Schowalter, InterPlay Leader-in-Training
On Saturday, November 1, 2014, eight of the fourteen members of the Soulprint Players met to play together--or rehearse InterPlay style--for our premier performance on Sunday, November 16th. 

It was the first real cold day here in Atlanta, Georgia, and we were so fortunate to meet at the cozy home of InterPlayer Sharon Levering in the historic Grant Park. While gusting winds blew outside, we warmed up by telling stories, dancing and vocalizing on the behalf of those who are deceased. After all, it is the day after Halloween and the Day of the Dead, an appropriate time to honor those we have loved and who are no longer with us.

Since InterPlay uses improvisational tools, to prepare for a performance requires us to be present in the moment, ready to create on the spot, speaking from our "body wisdom"--that fascinating unity of body, mind, heart, and soul. InterPlay performers benefit by becoming familiar with other performers and their own responses to the prompts and InterPlay forms.

JOYCE KINNARD AND FLUTE. Joyce surprised us all by bringing a newly acquired flute to accompany some of our movement. Inspired last week by Soyinka Rahim, who played a flute at the celebration of 25 years of InterPlay, Joyce who plays musical instruments, decided it was time to try the flute. We were so pleased and surprised by the improvisational music she created for us. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

 As we commemorated those who've died using InterPlay forms, we took time to "notice" and attend to what we were experiencing. We talked about learning to "trust" our bodies, to follow the movement that was asking to be expressed. For example, to be still, form a shape and hold it and keep it until we were ready to move again. "Trusting" our bodies to find a place to "end" the improvisational performance collectively--that's tricky but definitely an acquired skill to be gained by playing together regularly.

Expanding our understanding of "trust" continued as talked about how to speak out what we were "noticing." In the every day world, you might be tempted to call this "noticing"--feedback. And everyone knows that the best kind of feedback is twofold--positive and constructive (translate constructive to mean  negative). 

However, in InterPlay, we practice affirming ONLY the good. As performers play together, we "notice" all the things that "wow" us, make us feel connected, pull us in, and take us deeper. We leave those things aside that a "critic" might think important to highlight to demonstrate an inner criterion was not met.

In our practice today, after we told 3-sentence stories about a particular deceased person who impacted our lives, we danced on behalf of gifts that the deceased have given us. We played around with shape and stillness. In this kind of movement, we begin as solo dancers and as guided by our body wisdom find a way to connect with each other.

THREE DANCING ON BEHALF OF. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

FIVE DANCING ON BEHALF OF. (photo by Christine Nichols Gautreaux)

In addition to "noticing" in InterPlay, we also "witness" one another. Today, in this rehearsal for the Soulprint Players, Jennifer Denning, our director, had us witness each other and our commemorations of the dead and themes such as patience and carefulness. One of the InterPlayers mentioned that as both a "mover" and a "witness" he experienced the movement of life, birthing freedom, the day of the dead, and reawakening. Awesome stuff!

VOCALIZATION AND DECORATION. We practiced playing with our voices in two groups of four. One person creates a foundation, leads the others who then break away and "decorate" the underlying rhythm of the foundation. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

InterPlay play always surprises me. I always learn something about myself or others. 

Yes, we had fun! 

Yes we listened to ourselves and to others. 

We moved, sang, and told stories without knowing what we were going to do, sing, or say. 

But we trusted ourselves and other InterPlayers. 

In our creativity, both solo and collaboratively, we experienced freedom in the unknown, the "not" knowing.

Thank you InterPlay! Thank you Soulprint Players! Thank you Jennifer Denning!