Dear subscriber,

WELCOME!

Welcome to our second national InterPlay Australia email newsletter!

We have all begun to emerge from winter hibernation and started our spring cleaning. Planning is also under way for playful opportunities in the summer.

Read on for all the news of InterPlay happenings locally, nationally and internationally.
 

12 Regions across Australia

Our regional leaders have provided us with updates about classes in their area.
Please check the website for all the details www.interplayaus.com.au/classes/

The following workshops are planned for coming months:
• Sydney (Glebe) – 4 Saturdays, 29th August, 26th September, 17th October and 28th November
• Canberra – Sunday 23rd August, Saturday 10th October and Sunday 15th November
• Central Tilba – Saturday, 19th September
• Melbourne – Saturday, 10th October
• Adelaide – Saturday, 7th November workshop and performance evening.

Further details available under News on the website Home Page: www.interplayaus.com.au

Summer Untensives 2010

Phil Porter, co-founder of InterPlay and Body Wisdom, Inc. will be visiting Australia again, along with some other special guest presenters.

Save the dates:
     Sydney – 13th to 16th January, 2010
     Adelaide – 20th to 23rd January, 2010
 

InterPlay in India - January 3-22, 2010

with Cynthia Winton-Henry, CathyAnn Beaty, Trish Watts, & Prashant Olalekar

We are inviting experienced and willing InterPlayers to come along on and help us create connections with other countries.

This is the third trip to India for Cynthia and the second for CathyAnn and Trish.

Become an InterPlay Ambassador!
• foster local and global cultural exchange
• empower people through artistic practices
• advance intergenerational learning
• strengthen and uplift women
• make peace through lasting friendships

“It felt like a blue print of communal life was reawakened in my blood and bones, with my muscles twitching a total YES in response! Some deep archetypal, indigenous pattern was invoked in my being & it screamed out: ‘Remember this? Remember this!
  Don’t forget to dance!
  Don’t forget to sing!
  Don’t forget to drum!
  Don’t forget to dream!
  Never ever forget!!!!

© Trish Watts January 2009 Bardi Pada Tribal Festival, India

For more information and itinerary, go to www.interplay.org
 

Weekly InterPlay Emails and Blogs

Many Aussies have already been featured in the new “Virtual Friday Morning InterPlay” blog created by Phil Porter and Cynthia Winton-Henry – Jockie Fairley (multiple times!), Lillian Rodrigues-Pang, Rod Pattenden and Denise Dunbar-Winton.

Anyone can participate. Check it out at: http://interplayfriday.wordpress.com/

You may also be interested in the many and varied topics on which InterPlay co-founder, Cynthia Winton-Henry, writes each Monday.

Subscribe to receive any of the weekly or general emails from InterPlay in the US by going to the "Sign up for email newsletter" on the homepage of www.interplay.org 
 

News from the regions

Community performance and shared meal evening on 1 August in Adelaide.

Our goal was community celebration and participation. The theme was “Winter - Shades and Light”. 25 people came along to enjoy mulled wine, a winter feast and witnessed Adelaide’s own Playing With Edges improvise 50 minutes of performance. There was an open mike section following and people stayed on and enjoyed another hour with music performances and InterPlay complete with generous helpings of audience participation and children friendly chaos. A lovely success and the first of many such events, we hope.

InterPlay in the Blue Mountains
– by Maryla Rose

Houses grow into homes.
Connections grow into community.
People belong where they are.
Who we are is Home.

Moved to the mountains. Built our mud brick house. Want to make it home. To belong here.
I need community.

InterPlay is a beautiful way to build community. To connect and allow the connection to grow organically. Incrementally. Like putting one mud brick on another. With care and presence. Taking time to leave our fingerprints - to appreciate the one and only imprinted on the moment. This moment. This meeting - precious, awkward, silly, joyful, stressful, easy.
Holy.

Getting to know each other. Slowly, step by step. And yet so much deeper than our usual social meeting would allow.

Warming up to the space and each other. Walking, stopping and running together. Stillness and shape moving into dance. Babbling growing into story. Breath into song. All of it into a full ripened body of dance - story - stillness - song. My body, your body, our body. Transformation in community happens through creativity and with ease.

I want more meetings like this, not only now and again, but ongoing, growing, alive.
Like trees.
Like the trees I see through the windows of our new house.

I missed it. Especially after being away for a year in Poland, my native country - and then finding myself in a new place again. In the beautiful, yet still foreign to me, Blue Mountains.

Life responded to my longing. Incrementally.
First step – Michael, my partner, meeting Trish in a petrol station in Blaxland. Then meeting her in Leura for coffee. Sharing our big stories at the small round coffee table in the tourist crowded cafe.
Why not interplay classes in the lower mountains? – suggests Trish. Blackheath will have one with Lindena.
Maybe in my new workplace?
I had started working at Springwood Uniting Church counselling centre.
Next step - meeting Janice, the minister.
And yes, a big generous yes, from her. We can use the church hall for our InterPlay classes – and for the cost of a donation.
Trish leads the class, I am stepping out into the co- leader role.
A year later, after finishing the leadership course I lead the class in Springwood.
The group is small, six sometimes five or even four people. Beautiful people.
I decided to hold the space and offer my skills. The rest will grow.

The acorn knows how to become an oak tree.
(Or rather the gumnut knows how to become a gum tree.)

Community grows into Home.
 

Feedback

You may subscribe or unsubscribe from receiving further emails at any time (especially if you happen to be receiving more than one copy), by using the links provided.

You can email this newsletter to a friend – again simply use the link provided.

If you have photos or a story you wish to share via the InterPlay Australia website or email newsletter, please forward them to Anne Bailey – admin@interplayaus.com.au

If you would like to contact Rod Pattenden or Trish Watts to discuss anything about InterPlay and its growth and development, or give feedback about the national newsletter, you can do so via enquiries@interplayaus.com.au

Keep in touch and keep playing,

Trish Watts & Rod Pattenden
Creative Directors,
InterPlay Australia, Inc.
www.interplayaus.com.au