INTERPLAY WORKSHOP #3 (May 2014) WITH SHEILA COLLINS: Creating a container and engaging the audience

GETTING IDEAS FROM THE AUDIENCE. Here InterPlay performer Christine Gautreaux takes notes as Pittsburgh InterPlayer Sheila K. Collins (far right) instructs Atlanta InterPlayers, (right to left) Jennifer Denning (Atlanta InterPlay Director), Kate Savannah (Asheville InterPlayer), and Sister Jewel (International InterPlayer) how to engage the audience. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

by Ruth Schowalter, InterPlay Leader in Training

Yes! We Atlanta InterPlayers are fortunate to have Sheila K. Collins, the dancing social worker, author, and seasoned InterPlayer instructing us on how to develop as an InterPlay Performance Ensemble. On her third workshop, we focused on how to develop our relationship with the audience.

"Create a container and engage the audience," Sheila explained. "Welcome people. Get everyone to breathe and invite them to breathe with a noise or a sigh. This is one of InterPlay's root practices--breathing. We improve how we feel using oxygen. We are all people, and we need to breathe." 

After breathing together with the audience, Sheila instructed us InterPlay performers to continue warming up the audience getting them to move in their chairs by stretching, clapping, and stomping. We could play with rhythm and noise, dividing the audience in half to do one or the other. This kind of audience engagement is part of the InterPlay practice.

Once the audience is engaged, it is time to delve into their creativity and get ideas from them on the theme. For our purposes, we worked with the idea of "wild places in nature," and we experienced what  the audience members might feel while generating the ideas. We came up with the following cues or triggers for performance: wisdom, cycles, birds, trees, peace, and fragile.

PLAYING WITH REPETITION AND SIMPLICITY. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

We reviewed InterPlay practices of ecstatic following and leading, simplicity, and repetition. We played with the side-by-side story, the gesture choir, the big body story, the dance-talk 3, and the three-sentence story.

THE GESTURE CHOIR. Here Sheila tells a story that is too large for one body to hold or express it, so InterPlay performers echo her movements. "It's a billboard instead of a flyer," Sheila described this InterPlay form. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

Atlanta InterPlay's third performance workshop concluded with these insights from Sheila: 

• The more we play together, the more our bodies work together.

•  The idea of the "aesthetic group collective" is that individual performers make sacrifices or choices that help shape the overall group performance.
• "The Mystery of the Still Point" is an incredibly fascinating way to create moments of newness said Sheila. Watch the group creation and ask "Where do I have to be for something new to occur?" Be in a place of stillness, "hanging out in the sanctuary." Allow your hand to move, create a shape, use your whole body. Four to five performers hold shapes as long as possible, experiencing the psychological edge. "Go into that place and have the next movement occur from that place."

INTERPLAYERS REUNITE. InterPlayer Marquetta Dupree and her son, Zaire, visited us at the end of our performance workshop. As Jennifer Denning builds our Atlanta InterPlay Performance Ensemble, we are collecting InterPlayers in the Metro-Atlanta area. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

If you want to read more about the Atlanta InterPlay Performance Workshops that Sheila Collins has conducted, check out these blogs:

ECSTATIC FOLLOWING: Learning what it means to be part of an InterPlay performance group! 

 

INTERPLAY WORKSHOP #2 (March 2014) WITH SHEILA COLLINS: Saying Yes and Finding the "thing"!

INTERPLAY WORKSHOP #2 (March 2014) WITH SHEILA COLLINS: Saying Yes and Finding the "thing"!

THE ATLANTA INTERPLAY PERFORMANCE GROUP.  This is our March 2014 InterPlay Performance Workshop with Sheila Collins. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

By Ruth Schowalter InterPlay Leader-in-Training

“InterPlay is a big ‘YES,’” proclaimed Sheila Collins at the second performance workshop she facilitated for Atlanta InterPlay (see this blog about our first workshop) at the Mask Theater in the Little Five Points Community Center in March 2014.

Sheila instructed us to look for the “Yes” in our own bodies and in our troupe of fellow InterPlayer performers. In addition to taking “cues” for words from our creative movement, we also practiced “ecstatically” following one another in both movement and vocalization.

To build a performance, an InterPlay troupe works with a “theme,” one that is chosen ahead of time and then developed with input from the audience. For example, if a performance is being done for an environmental group, a variety of nautre-related words or phrases—such as relaxing, endangered, fun, climate change—might be gathered from the audience and used throughout the performance.

For our second InterPlay workshop with Sheila, we chose to play with the word, “creativity.” What might be our stories surrounding this word?

HELLO! MY NAME IS...I'M FROM....  Christine Gautreaux introduces herself at the beginning of the Pittsburgh form brought to us by Sheila Collins. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

We began playing with “creativity” using the “Pittsburgh” form—one that involves the entire InterPlay troupe. One InterPlayer begins a movement, which everyone on stage follows ecstatically. 

ECSTATIC FOLLOWING IN THE PITTSBURGH FORM.  Atlanta InterPlay Director, Jennifer Denning creates a new movement after introducing herself. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

Then one player steps into the “spotlight,” introduces him/herself (name and city), says something about the theme (in this case, creativity), and generates a new movement and leaves the performance space, after the rest of the performers, who have been “holding” a shape while the spotlighted performer speaks, replicate the newly introduced move.  These steps are repeated until each performer has introduced him/herself and said something about the theme.

SIMULTANEOUS STORIES WITH A THIRD PERSON.  Here two InterPlayers tell their stories about "The Scariness of Creativity" while Sheila Collins moves. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

Next in our workshop, we played around with a form called a “Simultaneous Story.” In this form, two people tell their own stories, yes, at the same time—simultaneously! And to spice it up, Sheila added a "mover" to the two story tellers. This time, the performance theme of “creativity” gets approached from a different angle—“The Scariness of Creativity”! The two storytellers are instructed to speak playing around with the following ideas:

• repeating the words or movements of the other,
• traveling around the performance space,
• using silence, and
• finding an ending.

 Sheila advised us that making a story shorter rather than longer and that finding an end or resolution doesn’t necessarily mean a “happy ending.”

After the simultaneous stories, we had the opportunity to see how a group of five people could perform together on the topic of “The Fire of Creativity.” Two people stood on the side of the performance space and chanted while three people moved. The progression of this performance occurred in this manner:

• The players began by taking a solo shape then moving by themselves.
• The chanters started after the movement and in response to it.
• Then the movers found a way to interact with one another.
• The form was completed when stillness was found.

Sheila’s performance workshop concluded with a whole-group performance, during which we moved in and out of the performance space as we wished—everyone could be performing, or five, three, two or one could be performing, the number of players shift continuously.

PLAY WITH YOUR BASKETBALL BRAINS. When moving together as a group, we are asked to think about spatial relationships and are invited to create the "dramatic diagonal." (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

During this last form, Sheila reminded us to think with our “basketball” brains, asking us to see how we were creating a range of movements in our performance space and paying attention to concepts of the “dramatic diagonal” and “spatial relationships.”

The fun part of this last performance activity?  It is looking for what we are learning to call “the thing.”  As a “group body,” each one of us performers gradually recognizes “the thing” that emerges out of what we are doing together. Ecstatically following occurs and our performance gains a “rehearsed” polish while remaining improvisational movement!

Our performance workshop with Sheila ended with us being energized from experiencing an individual and big body YES! InterPlay is, indeed, a big YES!

YES and FINDING THE THING! Here I am between two InterPlayers from Asheville, North Carolina, and I am say "YES" and finding "The Thing." (photo by an InterPlayer Performer)

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?