All of the Gifts in InterPlay Are People!

We are lucky in InterPlay circles to be surrounded by the unbelievable beauty of being human.

People say, “How did you get such amazing people together?” The reverse is true. Visionary, wise, complicated people seek out InterPlay’s unusual, wonder-working power to help them to embody their core creative spirit in community.

These wonderful folks are all graduates of the InterPlay Life Practice Program. Visionary leaders know that InterPlay helps people make a difference!

We’ve also discovered that most visionary leaders arrive there through art practices of their own!

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Selisse Berry was awarded our 2015 National Spirit of InterPlay Award.

Selisse did the InterPlay Life Practice Program in 1999 having already founded Out and Equal Workplace Advocates, a paradigm changing nonprofit dedicated to helping 500 multinational companies create welcoming workplaces for LGBTQ folk through domestic partner health and family leave benefits, anti-discrimination policies and diversity training.

Her reach extends to key political players in Washington, DC—where she now lives—and around the globe!

Selisse’s InterPlay wisdom grounds her visionary leadership—a compassionate, imaginative, social justice intelligence that is not afraid to dance, sing, tell one’s story, and dream the dream of embracing all bodies as whole and necessary.

She adds, “There are emotional and financial benefits to being authentic…If you are putting all your energy into hiding, into changing pronouns, you are actually not working at full capacity, and that hurts the company’s bottom line.” Read more about her journey here! Selisse you are a gift!

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Mairi Campbell was just awarded Scotland’s Instrumentalist of the Year at the Scot Traditional Music Awards, and credits InterPlay’s “cross-art-form practice” for helping her birth Pulse, a new groundbreaking one-woman performance. Pulse will premiere in January at the prestigious Showcase Scotland at Celtic Connections.

In it, Mairi sings, acts, plays and dances the story of her musical homecoming and journey of the heart. She weaves live viola, voice, animation, movement and storytelling with tracks inspired by improvisations that grew out of her urgent listening to the earth during Scotland’s recent struggle for freedom during the referendum election.

Bravo Mairi! Click to get a taste of her performance on YouTube.

Mairi took the InterPlay Life Practice Program and Teacher Training in 2012.

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Leah Mann recently gave big in Atlanta, helping to creatively address issues of AIDS/HIV in young people—a 70% spike in new HIV cases in young people ages 13-24 in the US.

Funded by the Elton John Foundation, she produced a week of powerfully charged performances and events including an InterPlay workshop led with Harriet Platts. One can see the effects of InterPlay’s freeing influence on her choreography for Moving in the Spirit, an award winning youth company she helped to found! Take a look at Getting to Zero.

Leah credits InterPlay as one of the as one of the ways she can recharge her artistic batteries amidst the joyful chaos of making art and raising a child with her amazing collaborator-husband Ela Lamblin! Get more Lelavision goodies here.

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Soyinka Rahim, Grass Roots Spiritual Practitioner, gifts InterPlay in many ways including being a champion of the InterPlay workshop “Changing our Race Dance.” She recently led InterPlay at the People of Color Conference in Florida organized by the National Association of Independent Schools People of Color Conference in Florida. Another amazing InterPlay leader, Caroline Blackwell, their Vice President for Equity & Justice and Research, currently assisting with the Life Practice Program in Washington, DC, leads this 3,000-member event.

With Seattle-based Betsey Beckman as producer, Soyinka is finalizing details for her CD, BIBO Love, to be launched February 13^th in Oakland!

For Soyinka, InterPlay is a family that believes in and upholds her tremendous gifts as a facilitator,. She completed the Life Practice Program in 2006.

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During the time Katrina Browne did the Life Practice Program in 2000, she received a diary from a grandmother disclosing the history of her family’s involvement in the northern slave trade. With tremendous courage she followed her body wisdom to create the documentary Traces of the Trade about her family legacy. Katrina has initiated 1000s of conversations to help shift the race conversation in the U.S. This year she is recommitting herself to the wisdom of the body and InterPlay leadership. She moves forward with consciousness about life and love alongside her friends/leaders at Dance Exchange (founded by Liz Lerman) and Afro Flow Yoga.

InterPlay Leaders Sharie Bowman, (therapist and healer) and Nancy Pfaltzgraf (retired nurse and clergy) led their first 8-week InterPlay Tools Online course this fall. Participants were amazed at how connected they felt using this online video format. Their closing celebration was a delightful affirmation of the power of InterPlay’s tools. They were connecting with others around the world —two from Australia and seven from all over the US.

 

 

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Amy Shoemaker, Life Practice Program, and Jeff Cheifetz credit InterPlay for the body wisdom tools helping them create Sanctuary for the Arts, an innovative community at the intersection of art, faith and social change. They seek to provide holistic spiritual growth and healing to anyone who has ever felt creatively limited or frustrated in faith communities. Their visionary leadership is breaking ground for others who seek to embody faith in life and practice.

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Body Wisdom board member Olaf Elander first completed the Life Practice Program in 2009 and repeated it in 2011 and 2014. He is a former Kaiser Permante employee who is dedicated to men’s InterPlay. His long-time desire to see InterPlay introduced to the Kaiser committee led him to introduce Cynthia to Katie Rovere, co-founder of Genkp, a millennial movement within Kaiser Permanente’s health care system. Genkp seeks to provide energizing cross-organizational collaboration and professional development to inspire and empower KP employees to be the change they seek in healthcare. For two years, Katie has invited Cynthia to lead outstanding leaders of this movement as they accelerate their game-changing wisdom for the future of Kaiser with the support of the organization’s CEO, Bernhard Tyson. Olaf and Katie know the power of InterPlay to connect people to their passion and each other!

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The inspiring gifts of InterPlay leaders are endless!

What gifts we have in InterPlay leaders drawing on their body wisdom in service to a better world: Trish Watts leads Cambodia Sings, Janie Oakes serves on the board of The Vietnam Project, Keith Warner’s provides earth-wise leadership at Santa Clara University’s Miller Institute for Social Entreprneurship, Kaira Jewel Lingo teaches mindfulness and peace, Diane Rawlinson inspires dance educators using InterPlay to build community and empower the art-making of young people and Beth Sarver, serves schools as a Trauma Outreach Coordinator through Kansas City’s Truman Medical Center Behavioral Health.

The list could go on and on. If I click on any name in our Leaders Circle I can see the ways that InterPlay has opened up the gifts of that unique person in the world! Amazing!

The practices of InterPlay provide support for your deepest passions. The Life Practice Program, led worldwide, makes this happen. People are writing books, making movies, recording music, serving as care-givers with more joy, moving through illnesses with greater resilience and sharing these strategies with people in many arenas.

Interested, or know someone who might be? Check out the Life Practice Program at interplay.org to find out where the program is being offered next. You may also enroll in the Long Distance Program if there isn’t a program in your neck of the woods.

We’re all over the world and happy to support you. Call or email for more information at 510-465-2797 or info@interplay.org.

The gifts don’t end there!

Over 100 donors in the Giving Wings Society are committed to providing financial support for InterPlay millennials, leaders of color and special projects. Since August 25 people have joined in the “flap!”:

Cindy Acker, Amy Angel, Nancy Banman, David Bentley, Heidi Blythe, Susan Bowen, Andrew Chen, Joyce Copenhagen, Paul Dannhauser, Jeff & Joyce Davis, Jennifer Denning & Lachlan Brown, Indi Dieckgrafe-Dreyer, Nancy Donald, Leslie Houston, Mary Hillstrom, Katie Hymans, Liz Lang & Louise Petrasek, Amos Lans, Billie Mazzei, Terry McCarthy, Deanna Murray, Linda Palmstrom, Stephanie Pile, Ron Prieve and Madeline Udashen.

More recent news about the Giving Wings Society…

What a thrill to be part of something that makes deep, deep sense on the inside even if it looks crazy from the outside. We are excited for all who are playing a part in what is to come. More shall be revealed!!!