Performing Warrior Mother: Atlanta InterPlay Goes to Darnell Senior Multipurpose Center with Sheila K. Collins

CONNECTING AFTER THE PERFORMANCE. How wonderful to share experiences about life after Sheila K. Collins' performance of her book, Warrior Mother. Sister Jewel, an international InterPlayer, looks on while Sheila talks to members of the audience. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

By Ruth Schowalter, InterPlay Social Media Facilitator

Imagine finishing 3-days of InterPlay with Sheila K. Collins, the dancing social worker and author, and then joining her to perform her book, Warrior Mother: Fierce Love, Unbearable Loss,  and Rituals that Heal,  at a very large senior center! The Darnell Senior Multipurpose Center has programming to fully engage its seniors at physical, social, and emotional levels. What a perfect place for Atlanta InterPlay to visit with Sheila and her one of-a-kind-book performances!

Even better? We Atlanta InterPlayers had seen this group of seniors from Atlanta’s southwest side before we visited them at their center! Recently, one of their theatre troupe rehearsals followed our Second Saturday InterPlay at the Mask Center in the Little Five Points Community Center! Now, we are on the way to becoming more than acquaintances! Who knows what collaborations and play may ensue!

Here are some photos documenting this Atlanta InterPlay event with Sheila. 

ARRIVAL.  On a cool Monday morning in May, six of us Atlanta InterPlayers accompanied Sheila to the Darnell Senior Center to assist in the book performance of Warrior Mother. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

GREETINGS. We were delighted to be engulfed by the energy filling this multipurpose center for seniors. In addition to swimming, working out, art and calligraphy classes, we found that our InterPlay performance was scheduled in a room between the theatre troupe's rehearsal and the bridge club. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

THEATRE TROUPE REHEARSAL. Pre-book performance with Sheila, something fun and intriguing was going on! (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

BOOKS FOR SALE. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

THE BOOK PERFORMANCE. Sheila reads from her book and sets up the InterPlay performance. Our clarinet player, Debra Hiers, was late and one of the audience members volunteered to accompany us with his saxophone! The wonderful surprises that life brings us. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

THE PITTSBURGH FORM. We began the performance with a group InterPlay form that uses both movement and story. Each member introduces herself and tells a short three-sentence story on a theme (Sheila had given us the theme of "laughter and tears") and then creates a movement that is repeated by everyone.  (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

A LARGE BODY STORY. Instead of reading a particular passage from her book, Sheila decided to tell it as a "large body story," moving and talking at the same time. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

IMPROVISATIONAL MUSIC. Atlanta InterPlay is so thrilled to welcome Debra Hiers to its performance group. Her improvisational clarinet music is just amazing to move to! We performers did the form, "Walk, Run, Stop," while Sheila read from her book and Debra played her clarinet. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

FINISHING UP. Jennifer Denning proposes future possibilities of play with our audience. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

TALKING ABOUT THE BOOK. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

GROUP PERFORMANCE PHOTO. We were drawn to pose with this glorious sculpture directly outside the front door of the Darnell Senior Center as we left. (photo by a volunteer)

 

Help Atlanta InterPlay Support Survivors of Sex Trafficking: GIVE INTERPLAY DAY (MAY 7, 2014 midnight-to-midnight)

By Ruth Schowalter, Atlanta InterPlay Social Media Facilitator

WHAT IS INTERPLAY GIVE DAY?

May 7^th, 2014 is “Give to InterPlay Day.” Donators’ gifts will be doubled to support InterPlay make positive changes in the world (see here for in-depth information)!  Donors are invited to choose one of the various InterPlay projects they would like to support (see projects here).

ATLANTA INTERPLAY IS SUPPORTING SURVIVORS OF SEX-TRAFFICKING

Atlanta InterPlay has chosen to support survivors of sex trafficking (see here to donate for Atlanta’s cause) because Atlanta has one of the largest sex-trafficking businesses in the United States (see article here).

Below are interviews with Atlanta InterPlay Director Jennifer Denning, Atlanta InterPlayer and Social Worker Christine Gautreaux, and InterPlay Board President Sheila K. Collins.

Jennifer Denning (center)

INTERVIEW WITH JENNIFER DENNING

Ruth Schowalter: Why did Atlanta choose supporting survivors of sex trafficking?

Jennifer Denning: We are developing a partnership with an organization here in Atlanta that has a program for women who have been involved in sex trafficking or are vulnerable to it. This particular program supports these young and adult women by providing services like education and job placement and personal and interpersonal skills. During this assistance, InterPlay can be a useful tool to these survivors which honors and, in some cases, help them reclaim the wisdom of their bodies.

RS: How will the donated money to Atlanta InterPlay be used to support this partnership?

JD: The donations will provide a stipend for the InterPlay facilitators’ time, travel, and gas. InterPlay is a non-profit organization.

RS: Could you tell me about ways that you are currently using InterPlay in assisting people in marginalized communities?

JD: Last year, through “Give InterPlay Day” Atlanta partnered with Reforming Arts. It is a non-profit organization that brings education and the performing arts (acting, playwriting, and performance) to incarcerated women.

Reforming Arts is offered in a prison located in North Georgia, an hour’s drive from Atlanta. The funds from “Give InterPlay Day 2013” made it possible for me to bring InterPlay a dozen times to these women. The experience was great! The women were responsive and there was a lot of laughter and new insights. They talked about how before InterPlay they hadn’t known their “dorm-mates” in such meaningful ways. It was wonderful to see how InterPlay exercises helped them create grace for one another. A real rich sense of support and connection was generated through our InterPlay work.

I also integrate InterPlay into the theatre work I do with Synchronicity Theatre’s “Playmaking For Girls” program—a program that serves incarcerated girls and girls living in group homes. The “I Could Talk About” exercise has consistently proven to be an accessible and playful way to begin to break down boundaries between the girls and the teachers and to have participants begin to recognize that the details of their lives have value.

RS: Is there anything else you would like to add?

JD: Yes! I love InterPlay for creating connections between people and also for accessing that authentic creative place within us all. It is really important to create these opportunities for girls, women, and people who don’t get these opportunities that often. It is particularly important to make the power of the expressive arts—telling our stories, having our voices and delighting in the movement of our bodies—accessible to people who haven’t had that opportunity. I believe the health of the greater community depends on the embodied health of us all.

Sheila K. Collins

INTERVIEW WITH SHEILA COLLINS

Ruth Schowalter: As a social worker, former social work professor, and now president of the board of InterPlay, could you explain how InterPlay has evolved to being used as a tool for social change.

Sheila Collins:  We have a term called “Applied InterPlay.”  In the beginning, InterPlay was an art-based system created by two dancing ministers and those of us who collected around them were using the tools for our own growth and amusement. Then we started taking the InterPlay creativity tools into different communities, organizations, and agencies.

Those of us in the Body Wisdom Office (headquarters of InterPlay) have some concept of what InterPlay can add to an agency, and the agency knows what their people need. When you bring these entities together, it is very exciting. Something occurs that neither the agency nor InterPlay could do by themselves.

In Atlanta, these girls and women who have survived being trafficked are trying to get GEDs and job interviews. These goals are tough, especially when you are a felon (Many sex-trafficked women have been charged with prostitution and may have committed other crimes as a result of their situations). These survivors need more confidence, and some of that comes from “re-storying” their stories. Through InterPlay, what we’ve done is find a playful way to explore our own history and our own stories. And one of the Atlanta agencies working with women who have been sex-trafficked identified “re-storying” as something that would helpful to these women.

The idea of having a “Daughter-Mother Retreat” for program graduates came up in our conversation, and intergenerational work is a part of what we do in InterPlay. In a broad way, bringing InterPlay into any agency is a coming together, a partnership. You have creativity on both sides—the agency and the creative collaborators with the tools. Everybody wins. InterPlay brings new energy into what are often, pretty tough assignments.

RS: What do you have to say about Atlanta InterPlay choosing to support agencies assisting survivors of sex trafficking for “Give InterPlay Day”?

SC: Trauma is in the body, and it stays in the body longer than we would want it to. That is a scientific fact. For example, if you have been involved in a car accident, afterwards when you get into a car, your body may relive whatever happened to you. That’s why just figuring out trauma in your head with a therapist isn’t the whole solution. InterPlay is an indirect way to release that trauma from the body by using the tools of movement, dance, and voice, which wouldn’t happen if you were just talking.

RS: Why should people donate to Atlanta InterPlay for “Give InterPlay Day”?

SC: It seems to me that as a culture we have a debt to pay to our children that were not protected. That’s who these people are. There is awareness about this atrocity, so here is a creative innovative collaborative possibility that could make a huge difference for a small amount of money. IntePlay is efficient and effective.

INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE NICHOLS GAUTREAUX

Ruth Schowalter: Christine, you are a licensed master’s social worker (LMSW) with more than 16 years of experience, as well as an Atlanta InterPlayer. You will be one of the people going into the agencies working with survivors of sex trafficking using InterPlay. How do the tools of InterPlay support healing for these girls and women?

Christine Nichols Gautreaux (top center)

Christine Nichols Gautreaux: I think InterPlay is an incredible tool and a holistic way for people to heal, especially for people who have been through trauma.  Let’s explain that a little. As people go through trauma they disassociate from their bodies in order to survive. InterPlay is very effective for getting people to listen and connect with themselves and others. The healing process provided through InterPlay can be fun and gentle.

RS: What will you bring to these women as a social worker that does InterPlay?

CNG: In addition to a multitude of experience and tools, I also bring the ability to evaluate the effectiveness of InterPlay and to show that it is a proven method to increase people’s communication skills, wellbeing, and overall feeling of hope.

RS: What would you like to see happen in the future combining the tools of InterPlay and other social agencies?

CNG: I’d like to see the spread of InterPlay—does that sound like a plague? It would be a positive plague! InterPlay is a fun and proven way to increase hope in people’s lives. That’s huge! I can say from a professional and personal level that every time I participate in InterPlay, I feel great!

DO YOU WANT TO SUPPORT SURVIVORS OF ATLANTA'S SEX TRAFFICKING THROUGH INTERPLAY?  Click HERE to donate on May 7th, midnight to midnight.

Why InterPlay?

By Jennifer Denning, Director, Atlanta InterPlay

Much, much, gratitude to InterPlay leader, Coke Tani, for allowing me to share this poem she has written which so beautifully articulates the gift of InterPlay. 

InterPlay helps me to re-gather myself-
in beauty and grief, in love and body-
inspiring me to share with others in ways I feel most meant to.
InterPlay does this for me in a broader culture that has trained me,
as a Sansei woman, to be anyone except myself.
InterPlay invites me back to my senses.
It makes me want to be me.
It reminds me that life is the dance partner of my dreams,
perpetually inviting me, uncompromisingly as I am,
onto the floor- the floor that accepts
my passion and rage, my aching questions,
most convoluted, crooked humanity, my awkward laughter,
my long held tears.
On any InterPlay floor, I am received and clarified, felt and heard,
unraveled, realigned and then pointed to the door.
For me, this floor is most like God.

Second Saturday (March 2014): Exploring the circles of communities to which we belong

by Ruth Schowalter, Atlanta InterPlay social media facilitator

SECOND SATURDAY (MARCH 2014). Fifteen of us gathered at the Mask Center in the Little Five Points Community Center in Atlanta, Georgia, for 90 minutes of Atlanta InterPlay.  (photo by Callahan Pope McDonough)

Atlanta InterPlay met for its March 2014 Second Saturday play session.  Fifteen of us, including Atlanta InterPlay leader, Jennifer Denning, met at 10:00 am for 90 minutes of freeing movement and talk. 

WARMING UP. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

The forms of InterPlay allow a way of being together that is "sneaky deep." Before you know it, you are talking about things that matter in new ways.

Today, Jennifer Denning had us "babble" about the small circles of friends or people that we belong to because of our special interests. She gave, for example, Prius owners who buy special cars because of their commitments to environmental conservation. After several opportunities of talking to different people about our inner circles, we got to speak about the times we penetrated a circle that we didn't belong to and the benefits we got from being involved and engaged in that "foreign" group.

TALKING IN PAIRS. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

In InterPlay, when one person talks, the other person listens. And there are so many different fun ways to tell stories. Come to an InterPlay session in Atlanta on our Second Saturdays and experience this meaningful fun for yourself. 

AT THE END OF AN INTERPLAY SESSION. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

I Could Talk About

By Jennifer Denning, Director, Atlanta InterPlay

I could talk about some amazing
InterPlay Life Practice Program participants!

Those who’ve done InterPlay with me know one of my favorite forms is “I could talk about.” I often use it at the beginning of a session. We sit in the circle and introduce ourselves and say our name and something we could talk about.

Usually we go around the circle 3 plus times. There are so many things we could talk about: our lives are rich with experience. Sometimes it's difficult for me to listen when someone talks and talks and talks about something (I'm sure I'm sometimes the one talking too much myself...), but I could listen to people share what they could talk about forever.

I could talk about the tulips in bloom!

I could talk about being shy and loving structures that help me communicate.

I could talk about my deep curiosity about my fellow human beings.

I could talk about my desire to know and be known.

These little snippets of personal information are so intriguing to me. We learn so much about each other in this exercise.

I could talk about learning that sometimes a few words are just enough.

I could talk about the girls I teach through SynchronicityTheatre sharing themselves so easily through this exercise.

I could talk about creating connections.

I could talk about my sweet children.

Why do I teach InterPlay? I hunger for connections and play gets me connected. Having a stranger become known broadens my world, broadens my heart. It seems the more I connect with others, the more I connect with something essential about myself. InterPlay- what a beautiful gift to give myself, to offer my world.

What’s the path that you could talk about?

WARRIOR MOTHER SHEILA COLLINS: Atlanta InterPlay hosts the dancing social worker author

AFTER THE BOOK PERFORMANCE.  Following Sheila K. Collins' performance of Warrior Mother at the Alta Senior Living Center, some of the audience members lingered to talk with the author and to pose for this picture. (photos by Ruth Schowalter)

--by Ruth Schowalter, Atlanta InterPlay social media facilitator

Sheila K. Collins wears many hats and all with joyful ease of someone who has been doing InterPlay for a long time. While visiting Atlanta to facilitate InterPlay’s “Life Practice Program,” Sheila spent one day using InterPlay forms to perform her book, Warrior Mother: Fierce Love, Unbearable Loss, and Rituals that Heal (2013).

The Alta Senior Living Center

 At a book performance Sheila introduces herself as a “dancing social worker,” which always succeeds in intriguing her audience, and those in her audience at the Alta Senior Living Center in John’s Creek, an Atlanta suburb, were no exception. Their interest heightened to see where this 74-year-old author was going to take her dancing social work at the launching of their very first book club meeting. They were not disappointed.

 

NEW BOOK CLUB KICK OFF.  Sheila had the honor of being the first author for the seniors' newly launched book club. Two of the audience members had already read her book, Warrior Mother, and were ready with questions. Sheila promised she would return for another book club meeting in the future for a more in-depth discussion.

Sheila’s book readings are unique in that they combine explanation, reading, music, dance, and other InterPlayers. Jennifer Denning, Atlanta InterPlayer Director, Christine Gautreaux, and I were there at the Alta Senior Living Center to assist in the performances based on themes that Sheila pulls from her book. These meaningful themes, which include mothering, children, death, and joy, thoroughly engage the audience members who soon discover they are in the presence of a woman who has lost two adult children to disease and found a way to survive their deaths.

 

ATLANTA INTERFAITH BROADCASTERS.

After her book performance at the Alta Senior Living Center, Sheila had an engagement with Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasters (AIB) in the heart of downtown Atlanta. With Christine managing interstate traffic on a cold rainy day, Sheila arrived at AIB just in time for filming. Audrey Galex, a free-lance producer for AIB-TV and an Atlanta InterPlayer, had invited Sheila to participate in a panel discussion about managing grief.

AIB Producer Audrey Galex and Sheila

The short but very interesting panel discussion concluded with Sheila using a form of InterPlay to give viewers a “taste” of what her book, Warrior Mother, is about.  Combining storytelling with movement, she was supported by three other InterPlayers (Audrey, Christine and me), who echoed her movements.

Each time Sheila performs her book, the performance is different. The variation results from the improvisational nature of the InterPlay tools. When Sheila returns to Atlanta in May and does other book performances, I encourage you to check one out. You’ll never think of an author reading in the same way again or the themes that she brings to the stage.

AIB PANEL PARTICIPANTS.  Producer Audrey Galex (far left) assembled artist Carolyn Rose Milner (left center) life coach Lori Davila (right center), and Sheila K. Collins to discuss their different approaches to managing grief.

FIRST SECOND SATURDAY: Atlanta InterPlay invites the community to play once a month

FIRST SECOND SATURDAY. Atlanta InterPlay is offering a regular way to play using simple forms. Everyone is welcome to attend these monthly play dates. If you can't come one month, please come the next. Contact Jennifer Denning for more information. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

On Saturday, February 8, 2014, a group of 12 people from the Atlanta area met with Jennifer Denning at The Mask Center in the Little Five Points Community Center for 90 minutes of InterPlay.

InterPlay is open to anyone. Participants need no special training. Those who want a new and light way of being in a community with others might want to try InterPlay. 

SIMPLE SHAPES. Here InterPlay participants are making simple shapes, holding them for a while before moving on to a new shape that they want to make. (photos by Ruth Schowalter)

WHAT IS INTERPLAY?
InterPlay, an art form that anyone can do, has been gaining momentum in Atlanta for the past six years. Participants are invited into movement, song, story, stillness and connection through easy incremental steps. InterPlay honors and celebrates the unique expression of each individual in an affirmative and welcoming environment.

 

MOVING WITH A PARTNER. Participants were invited to move with a partner, to stay close or move a part but to stay connected in some way. Fun! (photo by Tony Martin)

 As Atlanta InterPlay meets regularly throughout 2014, we hope to see you there! Friend Atlanta InterPlay on Facebook (HERE) as a way to stay connected between play dates.