SUPPORTING DIVERSITY IN CLARKSTON, GEORGIA: InterPlay collaborating with people in underserved communities

CLARKSTON COMMUNITY CENTER. In 2010, I had the opportunity to facilitate an art, movement, and language class for senior refugees in Clarkston, Georgia. Now, I have been invited to bring InterPlay to the Clarkston Community Center and need financial support to do that. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

- written by Ruth Schowalter, Certified InterPlay Leader, MS Applied Lingistics & ESL

We are all connected--"the group is within us"--so we are impacted by each individual. What a pleasure and what a responsibility! If we want more joy, health, and creativity in our communities, we are responsible for making that happen. InterPlay is one of the avenues for achieving that "contagious community health."

Today, on "Give InterPlay Day," I would like you to consider supporting my returning to the Clarkston Community Center to support its diverse communities by facilitating InterPlay playshops. In 2010, I had such a rich time learning from senior refugees--mostly from Bhutan--what their needs were and connecting with them. 

In addition to the need to be involved in community with one another, they had a desire to move, have fun, laugh, learn some English, and to create. Already very creative in their daily lives, they brought such joy to participating in art and language learning in community! InterPlay is such a gentle respectful improvisational system that would provide some of these same gifts to the seniors and others in the Clarkston Community.

I AM BEAUTIFUL!  For this particular class at the Clarkston Community Center, we moved and identified our body parts. Then we cut out figures and wrote the words down before individually clothing the bodies with fabric. I love how this particular woman wrote on her figure, "I am beautiful"! For me, looking at this now, I feel that I was already moving towards InterPlay before I even had discovered InterPlay, which only happened in 2013. Cynthia Winton-Henry says that "...embodied play is the multivitamin of communal health."

By supporting InterPlay Atlanta today on "Give InterPlay Day," (go here), you will give me the  opportunity to bring InterPlay to the programming for underserved communities in Clarkston, Georgia in partnership with the Clarkston Community Center (CCC). How wonderful to collaborate with this diverse group of people through the gift of InterPlay!

CREATING TOGETHER IN COMMUNITY. Here I am, Ruth Schowalter, at the conclusion of one of our art making sessions in 2010 with Bhutanese seniors. The goal was to learn the language of directionality and patterns and then make beautiful images using the 7-design patterns. Art heals. Having fun together is fun. (photo by Karen Phillips)

The Clarkston Community Center, a 501(c)3, serves one of America’s most diverse communities. Formed in 1994, the CCC mission is to provide art, education, recreation and community building to Clarkston and Greater DeKalb County residents, both long-time Americans and newly arriving refugees.

CCC programs are about improving the quality of life of those they serve, from youth to seniors and everyone in between. CCC programs offer opportunities to learn, to gain skills, to discover new interests, to meet neighbors, to enjoy the visual and performing arts and to participate in any of a broad spectrum of programs, activities and events.

INDIVIDUALS CREATING WITHIN A COMMUNITY. I experienced such joy when I witnessed the Bhutanese seniors clothing their cardboard figures in such colorful expressive clothing. They brought their way of "being" into the new culture. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

"At the heart of everything we do is community engagement," says McKenzie Wren, CCCd director. "We bring the world together so people can learn and grow together through opportunities to share food, make art, experience cultural events, dig in the garden, play sports and so much more."

​As a newly Certified InterPlay Leader and master ESL teacher with more than 25 years of experience as an educator I am so excited about bringing InterPlay to this diverse community!

FUN. COMMUNITY. PLAY. CREATING. On the far right, my co-facilitator, artist Karen Phillips, assists one of the Bhutanese seniors during our art/movement/language sessions. What fun InterPlay would be here! (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

In February 2015, after facilitating an introduction to InterPlay for the Clarkston Community Center staff,  they brainstormed and saw the following possible applications for InterPlay:

-creating ease, joy and community for their senior refugee community, who would be engaging in InterPlay activities through the assistance of an interpreter.

-providing a safe place for  children of refugees and American-born residents to build community together and to express themselves and explore their emotions as part of Art at the Center summer camp.​

-supplying an avenue for community connections by doing InterPlay at Saturday morning Clarkston Community Market.

-assisting in the development of long lasting friendships in a diverse community.

-contributing to the professional development of the Bhutanese Dancers of Georgia through InterPlay workshops

​- Exploring inter-generational Interplay with local Mommies and Me programming​

-adding to community programming like MLK day

-using InterPlay forms to help the Clarkston community envision what kind of community they would like to have by the year 2034 in a program called "Imagining.”

I hope that you will give to InterPlay Atlanta today to support these activities at the CCC. 

In addition to supporting InterPlay at the CCC, your gift of money would also go to supporting two other InterPlay Atlanta leaders, Jennifer Denning and Christine Gautreaux in their bringing InterPlay to: 

•  Women at Lee Arrendale State Prison in partnership with Reforming Arts.
•  The Atlanta Pretrial Detention Center, part of the detention center's programming that is designed to support and empower women during their time of incarceration.
•  NAMI of Georgia in conjunction with a street performance they will bring to downtown Decatur to raise awareness about mental illness.

Read blogs about their InterPlay work in these underserved communities: 
http://atlantainterplay.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-eve-of-give-interplay-day.html
http://atlantainterplay.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-glimpse-interplay-at-lee-arrendale.html

ENGAGED WHILE CREATING IN COMMUNITY.  (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

On the Eve of Give InterPlay Day

Dear friends,

I have been a social worker for over 20 years and an advocate all my life.  I am feeling so lucky to be a part of the InterPlay Atlanta , an organization that builds community, serves under-served populations and has a lot of fun in the process!

On the eve of Give InterPlay Day, A national event to fund InterPlay projects around the nation,  I am reflecting about the current projects in the works through InterPlay Atlanta and I wanted to share with you some of these exciting programs.

One of my amazing Social Work and InterPlay Mentors +Sheila K Collins  & I at the Center for Civil and Human Rights

Here is an excerpt our director, Jennifer Denning wrote on the Give InterPlay Day page:

In 2015 we have many exciting opportunities to bring InterPlay to underserved communities in Georgia.

• We continue our work with the women at Lee Arrendale State Prison in partnership with Reforming Arts.
• In April, we begin InterPlay classes at the Atlanta Pretrial Detention Center, part of the detention center's programming that is designed to support and empower women during their time of incarceration.
• We will bring InterPlay to NAMI of Georgia in conjunction with a street performance they will bring to downtown Decatur to raise awareness about mental illness.
• We have the opportunity to be a part of the programming for underserved communities in Clarkston, Georgia, in partnership with the Clarkston Community Center (CCC), especially serving seniors and youth from refugee communities in Clarkston.

Lee Arrendale State Prison - photo by Christine G.

I've had the extraordinary opportunity to co-lead, with +Jennifer Denning, a 15 week group at Lee Arrendale state prison and here is a quote from Wende Ballew, Executive Director of Reforming Arts, Inc. that really gives voice to what we do:

"The InterPlay class at Lee Arrendale State Prison is a wonderful addition to Reforming Arts' Higher Education at LASP program. From community building to providing a space for fun and creative self-expression InterPlay is invaluable to our organization and loved by the women at Lee Arrendale State Prison." 

And from another community partner:

"The Office of the Public Defender is ecstatic to partner with InterPlay to bring a unique component of movement and song to women of the Atlanta City Detention Center.  We are working with an underserved population to enhance their sense of self and empower, educate and develop their skills so that they can re-enter the community successfully.  With the help of InterPlay, we hope our women will be able to use movement, music and personal storytelling to positively express their emotions and stories."

Here is a brief blog I wrote about one of my experiences Going To Prison.

Another exciting project is in the process of bringing InterPlay to the Clarkston Community Center (CCC), through +Ruth Schowalter who plans on serving seniors and youth from refugee communities in Clarkston.

Atlanta InterPlay Leaders +Ruth Schowalter , +Jennifer Denning  & +Christine Gautreaux 

What amazes me is these are just a few of the projects we have going.  The leaders of Atlanta InterPlay are committed and called to serve under-served communities in addition to our regular play-groups which offer a range of delightful opportunities to play and build community simultaneously.  

I hope you'll join me and  InterPlay Atlanta tomorrow on Give InterPlay Day to help support and continue this incredible work:

https://www.tikkl.com/interplay/campaigns/atlanta2015

Wrapping you around with infinite love and gratitude,

Christine Gautreaux, LMSW
Certified InterPlay Leader

TX Wildflowers -  3/30/2015

WE ARE ONE BODY: Warrior Mother Sheila K. Collins unites us all at her book performance with Soulprint Players

CELEBRATING THE WARRIOR MOTHER. On March 13, 2015, Sheila K. Collins performed her book, Warrior Mother, in Atlanta, Georgia, with the support of InterPlay Atlanta's Soulprint Players. (photo by Callahan Pope McDonough)

by Ruth Schowalter, certified InterPlay leader

"We are one body," proclaims Sheila K. Collins as she delivers her life's story written in the book, Warrior Mother: Fierce Love, Unbearable Loss, and Rituals that Heal, at the Mask Center in the Little Five Points Community Center, Atlanta, Georgia.

INTRODUCING THE STORY. With the audience on her right and the Soulprint Players on her left, Sheila stands center stage at the Mask Center and begins her story after having the audience watch the video about her book on their mobile phones. Here is the video link. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

In sharing her story of losing two adult children, one to AIDS and the other to breast cancer, Sheila emphasizes the importance of the community body to help an individual to sing and tell stories that are too large to bear alone. "The weight of one person's story becomes lighter," she says. 

And Sheila knows. Her 31-year-old son, Kenneth died of AIDS, and seven years later, her daughter, Corinne, died of breast cancer. In 2013, Warrior Mother, her journey through this unimaginable loss to healing and joy, was published.  Merging InterPlay forms with a "book reading," Sheila, now in her 70s, has shared her story of grief and loss with many communities around the world. 

The evening at the Mask Center was spent with Sheila moving between reading from the pages of her book and inviting InterPlay Atlanta Soulprint Players to expand the themes through performance. Below are some of the performance highlights:

THE WARRIOR MOTHER DANCE. Members of the Soulprint Players learn the "Warrior Mother Dance" from Sheila. Punctuated with voiced "huhs," the stomping performers energized the room--the community body--with their repetitive mother warrior dance back and forth around the stage. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

WHAT GOOD CAN COME FROM THIS? Asking several Soulprint Players to join her in singing the phrase, "What good can come from this?," Sheila engaged three other performers to move. Audience members witnessed the transformation of an anguished plea to find meaning out of loss and death (What good can come of this?) to a triumphant proclamation--GOOD CAN COME OF THIS. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

THE THINGS PEOPLE DON'T TELL YOU. As Sheila moves to the part of her book about being in the presence of her son as he is dying, she explains that there are things people don't tell you, things you have to find out for yourself. She and her family had been told to keep her son comfortable in his last hours, but that was it. She had to discover how to be with her son as he passed away. In this InterPlay form, Sheila invited her husband, Rich Citrin, to do a side-by-side story with her. Taking turns until their stories were completed, one moved while they other told a story about things that people don't tell you. (photos by Ruth Schowalter)

TOGETHER WE ARE ONE BODY. Sheila and Rich came together at the end of their story telling and movement. It was clear to the audience that these two had spent years in this dance around death, loss, healing and joy.  Yet, at the same time, there was a freshness to this moment, to this story told in community. All of us felt nurtured, moved, perhaps healed. Ahhhh, we are one body, aren't we! (photo by Callahan Pope McDonough)

Other book performances of "Warrior Mother" with Sheila K. Collins in Atlanta:

Warrior Mother Sheila Collins
Dancing social worker, Sheila Collins does a performance of her book at the Alta Senior Living Center and then participates in a program on managing grief at Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasting.

Performing Warrior Mother
Sheila brings her book performance to the Darnell Multipurpose Senior Center (May 2014)

GOOD CAN COME FROM THIS! Thank you Sheila Collins! (photo by Callahan Pope McDonough)

Stillness practice in InterPlay and Life

Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose.

Instead, create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there
patiently, until the song that is your life falls into your own cupped
hands and you recognize and greet it.

Only then will you know how to give yourself to this world so worthy of
rescue.
-------Martha Postelwaite

 Soulprint Players rest after playing together

The four components of InterPlay are often described as “movement, story, song and stillness.” During a typical InterPlay class we move our bodies, share information about our lives, and play with our voices with simple songs or tones. But what about stillness?

This winter InterPlay Leader-in-Training and Buddhist nun, Sr. Jewel and I led an InterPlay session incorporating InterPlay and mindfulness. The invitation to be still was present throughout. We began and ended in stillness; we encouraged space between our words; we took lots of deep breaths. Participants noticed an increased depth in the information that they shared with each other.

Stillness is always an option in an InterPlay class, but we don’t always choose it. In walk, stop, and run, we can stop. In sharing our noticings we can honor the times when a few words suffice or times when we don’t need to speak at all. There are times when we need to talk, express, leap and make ourselves known! That is healthy and good!, but the counterpart to that is the silence. That is good too!

Sr. Jewel and I at the Atlanta Shambhala Center

I notice the depth stillness brings forth in my daily life. When I want to discern what next steps to take in my life or where simply to put my energy each day the practice of moving my body and then being still usually evokes the truer thing. My mind might spin around in “to-do’s” and “shoulds,” but when I can move my body and then rest a deeper truth appears. I move about my day with more grace.

I trust the stillness. Sometimes that’s found in taking a few deep breaths. Sometimes that means my body is dancing but my mind is still. Sometimes it’s silently sitting. On Friday, February 27th, Debra Hiers, and I will begin a regular "Fourth Friday" InterPlay session at the Atlanta Shambhala Center. Debra will lead a short sitting meditation and then we will play. Let's explore what emerges from the stillness together!

A Glimpse of InterPlay at Lee Arrendale State Prison

By Jennifer Denning

"I look forward to this class every week. I always feel better after being here."

"For the two minutes of that (solo witnessed) dance I felt like I wasn't in prison."

Yesterday, after a sixteen week session of InterPlay in collaboration with Reforming Arts, women at Lee Arrendale State Prison shared an InterPlay performance with other women at the prison for the first time. The theme they choose to perform on was “Creative Self-Expression.”

As often goes at the prison, our day did not start as planned. We had planned 45 minutes of warming up with our ensemble. Instead there was coming and going, news of some women being sick or in “lock down,” and, most significantly, awareness in the group that just that day the date of execution for a woman in their midst had been set.

A blue sky day at Lee Arrendale State Prison

The moment called for stillness and listening. The words of Body Wisdom board president, Sheila Collins, came to mind: “We have to make art out of what happens to us.” I shared these words with the women, took a deep breath and trusted the forms of InterPlay and the time we had spent together to do the work.

It did.

There are many stories I could share with you from my time sharing InterPlay at LASP. Here is one: a woman who joined our group for the first time a few weeks ago jumped in to perform with us. She shared a bit of her personal story with us. She was married young and went from “sleeping with my sister to sleeping with my husband.” Her husband was an abuser, and she ended up in prison for injuring him in self defense. At age 70+ she told us, “I am learning how to be autonomous.” Yesterday she surprised us all when she jumped up to do a side-by-side solo dance on the theme of “passion.” She danced with an infectious freedom and joy. After the performance she said, “I didn’t think I was creative at all. InterPlay allows me to access that part of myself.”

Our work that began with playshops in 2013, expanded this year to include this performance work; soon-to-be certified InterPlay leader and Licensed Master Social Worker, Christine Gautreux, has become a teaching partner, and we are awaiting approval for a new series of workshops in the spring.

Yesterday our performance ended with performers and audience members joining together in a hand-to-hand dance in celebration of creative self-expression while one of our ensemble members played the drum. There was joy there. There was freedom there. There was something present that transcended those four walls.

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.

Sneaky Deep Transitioning into 2015: January Second Saturday

HELLO 2015! InterPlay Atlanta gathered together for Second Saturday. (photo by Callahan Pope McDonough)

written by Ruth Schowalter, InterPlay Leader-in-Training

InterPlay Atlanta members began 2015 meaningfully and playfully! Nineteen of us gathered on January 10 for our first Second Saturday of the New Year. Our numbers of InterPlayers are growing!

I'm so thankful for the structure that Jennifer Denning provides for our InterPlay Atlanta community. 2014 was rich with opportunities. In addition to our Second Saturdays, we had deep play gatherings, performance workshops, the Life Practice Program, Leader Training, and the formation of Soulprint Players, an InterPlay performance group.

For our first Second Saturday of 2015, we spent our 90-minute play period together moving, vocalizing, telling stories, witnessing, and noticing using TRANSITION as the theme thanks to the facilitation by Jennifer Denning.

WARMING UP. (photos by Ruth Schowalter)

What a great word, TRANSITION, is! And InterPlay provides so many different ways to "dance" with this word, going deeper into its meaning. Babbling, moving, and vocalizing about times of change in our lives in our InterPlay community illuminated our own lives and that of other InterPlayers!

WAITING FOR WHAT COMES NEXT.

Telling my own stories about times of change--the recent death of a friend; the year 1976 when I went to California for my freshman year of college; and the moment when I "discovered" InterPlay while doing research on improvisation--created a foundation for me to stand upon for 2015. Recognizing and honoring the changes in my life seems similar to preparing the winter soil for planting a spring garden.

Listening to other InterPlayers' stories of TRANSITIONS in either pairs or small groups added layers and dimensionality to my stories of change. In some magical way, it is as if other people's TRANSITION stories become my experience too. My life feels enlarged, and I feel connected to these story tellers in an unexpected warm way. InterPlay is indeed what some describe as "sneaky deep."

FIND A SHAPE. I love the invitation to become aware of another person's shape in the room and to take on that shape. And to do it again. And again. How affirming to see myself mirrored in another person's body. How warming it is to reflect another person's shape. Oh yes, this simple form gives the opportunity to connect and experience empathy. Sneaky deep!

 

What TRANSITIONS are you going through as we begin 2015? Come join us on Second Saturdays and share your stories. Find out for yourself what "sneaky deep" means!