Georgia Confluence InterPlay Icebreaker

Creativity Flowed Like Georgia Streams!

Written by Ruth Schowalter, Certified InterPlay Leader

On the evening of Friday, March 24^th, 2017, after dinner and the poster session, InterPlay Atlanta’s Ruth Schowalter “broke the ice” for a community of volunteers and environmental researchers who had come together across the state of Georgia for the annual Georgia Confluence. In collaboration with her husband Tony Martin, an Emory professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences, Ruth offered gentle but energetic steps bringing these people together who monitor the health of the water in streams near where they live in Georgia.  

The spacious community room at the Environmental & Heritage Center in Buford, Georgia, lent itself to expansive movement and storytelling that InterPlay provides. This almost 30-year-old improvisational system hailing from California is an active creative way to unlock the wisdom of the body. But how does the “science of monitoring streams” come together with the forms and principles of InterPlay? Great question!

First, there is the CONSULTATION. When applying InterPlay to a specific purpose, it is important to meet with the organizers to learn several things.

GOALS: What do they want to accomplish by engaging their participants in InterPlay?

PARTICIPANTS: Who are the participants regarding age, education, gender, race, geography, and anticipated desire to participate in a community building ice-breaker?

CONTENT: What specific content would they like explored during the InterPlay session?

OUTCOMES: How will they know if we have achieved their goals? What evidence do they need?

SPACE, TIME, EQUIPMENT: Depending on the number of participants, how much space is available? Is there room to move freely? Can chairs be put in a circle and then moved? Is there a sound system and is a microphone available if it is a large group? What is the minimum and maximum time available?

CONSULTATION BEFORE GEORGIA CONFLUENCE 2017

A few weeks before the 2017 Georgia Confluence gathering, we met with Meredith Whitten, a Department of Natural Resources employee (and former student of Tony’s) and her colleagues who were organizing Georgia Confluence 2017 to find the answers to the above questions. I find this kind of meeting an important time to familiarize “clients” with InterPlay, and how its forms and principles can be applied to meet their needs.

AN EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION. During the consultation, in addition to explaining some aspects about InterPlay, Tony and I learned about the conference schedule, determined what the organizers' expectations and goals for the event were, asked about musical preferences, expressed space and audio needs. 

Tony and I came away with an understanding of what they expected – for participants to have a comfortable way to meet one another and share information about their streams - and the following key words which read like poetry to me!:

KEY WORDS: watershed, oxygen, ripples, pollution (point and non-point), e. coli, temperature, conductivity, bedrock, baseline data, discharge, stream appearance, protection, awareness, education, partnership, and buffer zones

Below are some photos of the InterPlay Icebreaker:

TAKING TURNS TO TALK AND LISTEN. To break the ice, participants are asked to partner and re-partner at short intervals (1-2 minutes) taking turns talking on topics such as water, oxygen, and watershed, water monitoring. This kind of "stirring" the room allows everyone to feel like they have become acquainted. Shyness is reduced and a sense of community is forged.

DEMONSTRATING "EMBODYING" THE ANIMAL, PLANT, OR STREAM. Tony Martin "becomes" the raccoon, speaking from the raccoon's perspective. After incremental steps of warm up movement and short tellings on the key words, participants were invited to "become" their stream and speak from its perspective. They were also given the option of choosing a plant or animal that lives in the vicinity of their steam. 

ACTIVATING THE IMAGINATION. Participants were delighted to stand up and speak from the perspective of their stream, answering questions: What do you know? What do you see? What do you feel? What do you want? How is your health? 

NOTICING OR REFLECTING. Another layer of "breaking the ice" is achieved by InterPlay's practice of "noticing." After moving and doing short tellings, participants are asked to take turns "noticing" or observing what they are feeling. This practice allows for people to go underneath the surface of the topic of water monitoring to express their emotional or physical connection to that process.

BECOMING THE WATER. In a movement the InterPlay form, "Walk Stop Run," participants were asked to think about water and how it flows. We played the music, "Take Me to the River," and offered people the opportunity to "be the stream" and to connect other streams and to move together for a while. The results were electrifying. Everyone began to flow and merge and separate! The room was energized and the ice was definitely broken!

ICEBREAKER SUCCESS! Here we are pictured at the end of our icebreaker at Georgia Confluence 2017.

RESPONSES TO THE INTERPLAY ICEBREAKER

-Here are some of responses to our InterPlay Icebreaker from the survey, given Confluence participants, at the end of their conference weekend:

-Activity was goofy but fun.

-A great event. I really liked having an organized activity that was active and fun.

-Fun activity.

-I enjoyed the InterPlay activity; it demonstrated that we need to be dynamic to engage those we are trying to reach about water related issues.

-The group activities were new and provided a pleasant informal chance to meet and talk one-on-one to a lot of different people, all of whom were cool and fun. It was even more fun seeing them the next day. That was a really good idea; please keep that going.

RUTH SCHOWALTER and TONY MARTIN
at Georgia Confluence 2017.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I am thankful for the waterways here in Georgia and the people who volunteer their time to monitor them. Thanks to Georgia Confluence organizers who invited us to bring InterPlay to their event, especially Meredith Whitten. I’m grateful to have a scientist collaborator in my husband who understands the important of having fun and movement to learn from others and connect with them. As always, thanks to Phil Porter and Cynthia Winton-Henry, the InterPlay co-founders.