cynthia winton-henry

September 29, 2011

Art and Social Change: The InterPlay Way by Tara Connoly

by cynthia winton-henry

What does art matter when people on other continents–and in my hometown–are starving? I stumbled my way around, fumbled my way through, fidgeted and sputtered about this question for some time.

Now I’ve come to believe this is a false question. California will do that to you, I guess.

I had the very fortunate opportunity recently to participate in the NextGen Art and Social Change Residency with InterPlay, a collection of creative people all around the world who dance, tell stories and sing to reach a new level of understanding and communion with ourselves and others.

I gathered with a group of next generation (“now generation” as Rosetta Thurman prefers) artists and activists to dance, wander, tell stories and share at InterPlayce in Oakland. By dance, I do mean generally throw myself around breathlessly in a more flustered way, if you can believe it, than the boundless dancing to Thriller blaring on Youtube done in the privacy of my home.

Of many, many beautiful moments of sharing, connection and insight during the residency, one of my favorite things about this time was that the relation between art and social chance was never directly addressed. It was merely experienced.

Yes, the notes scrawled in my notebook address the relation between art and social change. In passing, we discussed Johanna Macy’s three manners of social change: holding action, shifting consciousness and creating new structures. Art does not prevent starvation, but art is an incredibly powerful consciousness-shifting process by which people can access deeper wells of compassion and authority to address social change concerns. I believe that art is a process, an interaction, rather than a static thing.

InterPlay Co-founder Phil Porter so beautifully defines art as an exchange of grace (read more in my post here). In dancing, in telling our stories, in singing our songs, we are making an offering. Though not an offering of food or physical nourishment, it is an offering of grace and sharing to others.

Within the InterPlay community, we invoke ease, joy, laughter; we share pain and love, we hold separation and collision, we dance through it with others who are dancing through it.

Take your mind out every now and then and dance on it. – Mark Twain

In sharing our story, we participate in the exchange of grace — and therefore we also cultivate it within ourselves. Claiming, crafting and sharing our story is a profoundly transformative process.

This is radical in a world in which grace and the whispers of the soul are considered inconsequential, where we are asked to sacrifice every waking moment to getting ahead. We need to overwork so that our job is secure, then we need the raise so we can get the car so we can get the spouse so we can get the house so we can get the stocks so we can build the 401K.

How enlivening to take a deep breath, to play and be silly, to show up and dance our story with others.

Two months after this enlivening experience at the Art and Social Change Residency, I have a Melanie Chopko print hanging in my living room, my left big toenail remains painted partially green, flecked with emerald sparkles, I hold incredibly dear the days I spent with these gifted and generous friends from all over the world, who danced with me as I danced through this question of art and social change, as I danced and played and fumbled with questions and sought my voice.

I apologize, this is an InterPlay insider-thing

As Alison Luterman, an InterPlayer and Poet I was fortunate enough to meet in Oakland, wrote in her poem, “Little True Poem,” in See How We Almost Fly,

we inherit our stories,

but choose how to tell them.

In choosing to tell our stories and how to tell them, we might well be changing our own lives, the lives of others, and therefore, changing the world.

I’m happy to say that InterPlay Co-founder Phil Porter is in Raleigh this week for Million Connections Week-Raleigh! Check out the exciting list of opportunities for you to experience InterPlay for yourself and stay tuned for round two at the conclusion of Million Connections Week.

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September 2, 2011

Confessions of a Recovering Serious Person: Lindsey Gregerson

by cynthia winton-henry

To stress and seriousness I say WHEEEEEE! As a recovering serious person, I have known and practiced good self-care. You almost have to in order to survive your serious life. I love a good bubble bath, supportive conversations, some yoga and meditation. It’s all good stuff, but for me these things are mostly just antidotes for the underlying problem – too much seriousness and an overactive focuser.

And then I discovered the InterPlay cure – a playful way of life. InterPlay has a way of helping you tap into your creative playful spirit, shed old body grooves (ways of being), and connect with others in new and different ways using movement, storytelling, voice, contact, and stillness. This powerful cure is leading me to less
agenda and more freedom to be with the beauty of the moment.

This was all a recent discovery for me while spending two incredible weeks with young artists and activists learning about InterPlay in the context of a larger discussion called Next Gen Leaders: Art for Social Change, led by InterPlay co-founders Cynthia Winton-Henry and Phil Porter, and the vibrant young InterPlay leader Amy Shoemaker.

When you are serious a lot of the time, you tend to take yourself a little too seriously. And don’t get me wrong, there are things in this world worth taking seriously that need our full attention and loads of collective energy; but my chronic seriousness and perpetual abundant work load is not just about transforming the world for good. For me it is also about trying to create a life of certainty and predictability and finding too much of my value in my achievements. With enough planning, careful calculation, and hard work, life will go as planned, right…?

And then I met improvisation. Spontaneous expression is part enthralling, part terrifying. It makes me feel vulnerable, but teaches me to trust and appreciate myself and whatever comes out. InterPlay provides a safe space just to try some stuff with no guarantees of it being any good, but without any value system by which to judge it. It gives me the courage to be imperfect and just to be who I am. To play, dance, sing, talk and create in the presence of a witness or a group of witnesses doesn’t have to be frightening. For it is openness to
vulnerability that births the beauty of love, belonging, creativity, joy, and deep relationship; and to feel vulnerable means that I am alive.

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August 19, 2011

Rehana Tejpar: Toronto, Nairobi, Mumbai

by cynthia winton-henry

Rehana wrote this:

Powerful. Soft. Deep. Healing. Wacky. Revealing. Playful. Together. Real.

I wish I could paint for you a picture of this year’s Next Gen in the form of a Big Body Story. I’ve come to realize that I can best express the complexity and paradoxes of life through movement and storytelling combined. And this year’s Next Gen gathering was nothing less than complex and intense – integrative of our inner and outer worlds, to our minds, bodies and souls and to our journeys as young change-makers and artists seeking to find our place in this web of life in a time of chaos and hope.

Interplay and the Next Gen fell out of the sky for me like a long awaited rainfall. I knew I was seeking to find a way to bridge my passion for community learning/building with theatre and movement. I was in transition, looking to piece together the different spices of my being to make a masala that captured all of my parts. And then Interplay found me in Bombay and I knew this was for me. What I didn’t know was that I had so much healing and unlearning to do around my own ability to perform my own original pieces of movement and storytelling. And though I have been a dancer and a performer for my entire life, I still felt I wasn’t good enough to get up and speak my own truth through my voice and body. And then I was affirmed and affirmed and affirmed, and something started shifting in me! I started to realize how much I became my true self through play with others. And slowly the layers started to peel for all of us. And nestled in a community of love, amidst people we had all just met, we stood, revealed and strong, able to unpack, unlearn, accept and not just be, but embrace who we are.

I’m practicing easy focus, singing and dancing wherever I am, affirming the good, and I’m feeling the love in return. I’m passionate about alternative learning and one thing I know is that the school stifles our creativity and our ability to be ourselves. I am excited to share interplay with the communities I interact with in Toronto where I’m from, and the world, so that more people can discover their creative genius and be themselves, cause that’s the best we can be. I know the paths to just alternatives in the world, must be carved with a different clay than the ones leading to our destruction. And that means making art, play, wholeness, bodyspirit and togetherness the yeast of the cake and not just the cherry on top.

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August 11, 2011

Emily Ann Hartnett Webb: Renewed

by cynthia winton-henry

I have been saturated with Interplay. As a member of the 2011 Next Gen
Art and Social Action crew this summer, I babbled, danced, stretched,
smear-ed, ate, giggled, sang and played along side eleven other young
people. We were a group from across the country and across the world.
All of us incredibly talented, and many of us wounded by harsh
judgments around our artistic value, or horribly overworked by
organizations and communities desperate for attention and care.

We came to be renewed. We came to believe again.

We sat in circles on floor (the classic form in social justice
organizing) and talked. We explored definitions of activists, artists,
mentors, teachers, leaders and followers. We ventured into the
inexplicable reality of oppression and hope. Often, words couldn’t
describe the complexity. Sometimes we just needed to dance. Or talk in
gibberish. Or bang on a drum. Or hold onto a friend. In our movements
and conversations together, we all unfolded. Like cherry blossoms in
Spring, each of us sank down into our roots and reached for
nourishment, showing our flowery faces to the eternal Sun.

Oh! Have I gotten carried away, grandiose in my writing? Well, such
transformation deserves good metaphors.

But seriously, this stuff is truly transformative. Interplay is a
little like magic tricks with cards. Seemingly simple, yet deceptively
multifarious. While I explored the intricate shape of my hand in a
focused “hand dance,” I was also learning about mirror neurons,
right/left/integral brain functioning and the pace of my body, the
importance of stepping out of the rat race, if even for just a moment.

Phil and Cynthia, Interplay’s fearless and devoted founders (well,
maybe they have some passing anxieties or moments of apathy, but it
just sounds so good to say that), were our companions the entire two
week journey. They made themselves available during breaks and lunches
and often stayed up late at night to tag pictures of us on Facebook.

Following the two week Next Gen program, I spent some time with
family. If there is any test for spiritual growth, time with parents,
aunts, uncles and cousins usually does the trick. I found myself
utilizing the tools of Interplay over and over again. In demonstrating
“WEEEE!” and easy focus, I helped to lighten the mood between my
parents, and introduced my seventeen year old cousin to big body
stories. She was prancing around the living room telling us about her
kayaking adventure, with all of us in gales of laughter.

So far, I’ve found the wisdom of Interplay to be applicable in so many
areas of my life. Besides nurturing and easing my relationships with
others, it is an approach to work and purpose that has helped me to
make more space in my life for joy and rest.

At the close of every email, I have a “signature” that includes the
following quote from Thomas Merton “The frenzy of the activist often
neglects the root of the work which is cultivating inner peace.” I
keep this on the bottom of each email, because everyday – in coffee
shops and riding the train – I see how stressed out people can become
at their computers.

And it is not easy to remember. We live in a culture that says you can
either work hard and be successful or you can play around and waste
your time and energy. Drawing firm boundaries on what counts as
“important work” – be it artistic or another profession, is a
disservice to the vibrant, beautiful diverse creative energy that is
our divine gift. Or at least, that’s my opinion!

The Next Gen program has renewed my faith that a way to do art and
social change not only exists, but can be the pillars of a meaningful
life. Thank you, Next Gen. I’m so grateful, and I’m so ready to
continue the dance.

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August 10, 2011

Get ready! 2011 Next Gen Leaders are posting!

by cynthia winton-henry

The 2011 InterPlay Arts and Social Change Group is launched. These improvisers, movers, shakers, lovers, players, and live wires in their twenties and early thirties contribute a lot to the world as chaplains, artists, organizers, community builders, gardeners, writers, teachers, theologians, activists, and performers. They are part of a growing group of change agents seeking to listen to the wisdom of the body as we strategize sustainable ways to create the communities and environments we want.

If you would like to contribute to InterPlaying for social change let Cynthia know at cynthia@interplay.org

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August 4, 2011

2011 arts and social change group gets hooped!

by cynthia winton-henry

12 arts and social change interplayers will perform and celebrate their two-week immersion into their playful, powerful, improvisational, spontaneous, trustworthy, wise embodied work. A gorgoeus bunch with big stories to tell and to grow into. Thrilled to share their voices and reflections here in upcoming days. Stay posted!

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