Our Mission
Who am I? What am I? What makes me who I am? What roles do I play out? What emotions fill me? What values guide me? Who do I become with you? What do I want? What do we want? What creates power? What shifts desire? What causes transformation? What is the purpose of my life? What does it mean to be in our world? What is truth, meaning, beauty, goodness, life, existence, reality?
These are some of the core questions of our existence. The Deep Play Institute’s mission is to use play to bring us into an open-hearted, curious process of discovery of what it means to exist. We do not aim to find answers to these questions; we aim to endlessly experiment and explore them. We use play to live the questions. We use play to try to deepen our connection and curiosity to all parts of ourselves, others, and world.
Our path towards joyful, existential, deep play is that of playing with the rules of our togetherness. The rules of how we come together make us into who we are, and shape how we think and act in this world. "Don’t be too loud", "take turns", "be polite", "don’t exaggerate", "speak up". To play with these rules is to play with who and what we are, and to re-imagine what we can be. We free associate, we notice what is here-and-now, we only ask questions, we pause, we speak using roles and voices, we break the rules and re-shape new ones. Every time we gather we enact inquiry which asks: how do I, we, and our worlds change when we we talk, think and feel differently? How can we be brought deeper into the infinite, playful inquiry of life? How can our togetherness make us more curious, more connected, more aware? How can this play make our lives more meaningful by turning the most challenging questions of life into a joyous process of discovery?
Practices that inspire us include: gestalt therapy, process work, psychodrama, internal family systems therapy, group relations conferences, psychoanalysis, community of philosophical inquiry, socratic dialogue, authentic relating, nonviolent communication, circling, coaching, facilitation, clowning, performance art, contact improvisation, social art practices, experimental theatre, LARPs, surrealism, fluxus, pataphysics.
The Deep Play Institute is a U.S. federal 501-c3 non-for-profit corporation. Our team members and advisory board are located across North America (Montreal, Portland, Nashville, Philadelphia, New York, Cleveland), Europe (Italy, UK), and South America (Brazil).
Note: DPI events are not therapy, nor should be considered a substitute for therapy. Some of the explorations we engage in have the potential to go rather deep. We at DPI believe that deep play lives on an edge between safe and dangerous. As such, we invite participants to play in this liminal space, and as facilitators we work to help participants stay on this edge. We see it as our responsibility to design a space that is trauma-informed, holds space for emotional processing, includes self-care, and normalizes opting out at any time. We ask participants to gauge when their experience has crossed into territory that they deem “too edgy” and take the steps necessary for their own emotional safety. Finally, we want to acknowledge that particularly insofar as we occupy privileged identities, we bring our personal limitations and biases into the space, and while we are working to educate ourselves and minimize harm, we recognize that we may cause harm and for that we apologize.
These are some of the core questions of our existence. The Deep Play Institute’s mission is to use play to bring us into an open-hearted, curious process of discovery of what it means to exist. We do not aim to find answers to these questions; we aim to endlessly experiment and explore them. We use play to live the questions. We use play to try to deepen our connection and curiosity to all parts of ourselves, others, and world.
Our path towards joyful, existential, deep play is that of playing with the rules of our togetherness. The rules of how we come together make us into who we are, and shape how we think and act in this world. "Don’t be too loud", "take turns", "be polite", "don’t exaggerate", "speak up". To play with these rules is to play with who and what we are, and to re-imagine what we can be. We free associate, we notice what is here-and-now, we only ask questions, we pause, we speak using roles and voices, we break the rules and re-shape new ones. Every time we gather we enact inquiry which asks: how do I, we, and our worlds change when we we talk, think and feel differently? How can we be brought deeper into the infinite, playful inquiry of life? How can our togetherness make us more curious, more connected, more aware? How can this play make our lives more meaningful by turning the most challenging questions of life into a joyous process of discovery?
Practices that inspire us include: gestalt therapy, process work, psychodrama, internal family systems therapy, group relations conferences, psychoanalysis, community of philosophical inquiry, socratic dialogue, authentic relating, nonviolent communication, circling, coaching, facilitation, clowning, performance art, contact improvisation, social art practices, experimental theatre, LARPs, surrealism, fluxus, pataphysics.
The Deep Play Institute is a U.S. federal 501-c3 non-for-profit corporation. Our team members and advisory board are located across North America (Montreal, Portland, Nashville, Philadelphia, New York, Cleveland), Europe (Italy, UK), and South America (Brazil).
Note: DPI events are not therapy, nor should be considered a substitute for therapy. Some of the explorations we engage in have the potential to go rather deep. We at DPI believe that deep play lives on an edge between safe and dangerous. As such, we invite participants to play in this liminal space, and as facilitators we work to help participants stay on this edge. We see it as our responsibility to design a space that is trauma-informed, holds space for emotional processing, includes self-care, and normalizes opting out at any time. We ask participants to gauge when their experience has crossed into territory that they deem “too edgy” and take the steps necessary for their own emotional safety. Finally, we want to acknowledge that particularly insofar as we occupy privileged identities, we bring our personal limitations and biases into the space, and while we are working to educate ourselves and minimize harm, we recognize that we may cause harm and for that we apologize.
Founder & Director
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Aaron Finbloom, Executive Director of Big Questions
Aaron Finbloom is a philosopher, artist and pedagogue. He is the co-founder of The School of Making Thinking (SMT) and the founder & director of The Deep Play Institute (DPI). His practice involves expanding transformative inquiry through games, performance art and structured play. With training in Circling, Authentic Relating, and Psychodrama, he also facilitates experimental individual and group sessions inspired by these practices. Finbloom has presented works internationally at venues which include: The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Gallery 151 (New York), Maschinenhaus Kulturbrauerei (Berlin), UNAM (Mexico City), and MainLine Theatre (Montreal). He holds a PhD in Interdisciplinary Humanities & Fine Arts from Concordia University in Montreal, and is currently teaching Philosophy at the City College of New York and The University of Portland. finblooming.com |
Assistant Director
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Netta Sadovsky, Relational Experimentation Specialist
Netta Sadovsky, MFA, LSW (she/they) is an artist and therapist living in Philadelphia, PA, and the assistant director at The Deep Play Institute (DPI). They provide individual and relationship therapy specializing in Internal Family Systems (IFS), working with kink, polyamory, the hardships of artmaking, and healing from relational trauma at West Philly Therapy Center. They also provide Psychedelic Psychotherapy at Voyage Healing in Philadelphia, with a specialty in using IFS with Ketamine Assisted Therapy. Netta is level 1 trained in Internal Family Systems, small group consultancy trained in Tavistock Group Relations, and is a student of Relational Psychodynamic Therapy, Mindful Facilitation, Theater of the Oppressed, and Psychodrama. They make artwork that borrows from and experiments with these practices under the moniker Suso Phizer. |
Team Members
The Deep Play Institute's Team Members are deep play professionals responsible for curating innovative content and programming
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Indigo Esmonde, Destructive Director
Indigo Esmonde is an artist and songwriter living in Montreal. Currently, they are doing a performance art series about how to destroy your own ego. You can find their work at daydreamsandassociates.com and realitycalibration.com. Indigo has been described as 'brilliant and terrifying,' 'naive,' 'an acquired taste,' 'a bit overbearing,' 'the best at throwing online parties' and 'lives on their own planet.' |
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Julia Gladstone, Team Member
Julia Gladstone is an artist and social worker. In her artistic practice, she operates within the expanded field of choreography to figure socialities. Forms take shape through performance, sculpture, video, relational encounters, and experimental pedagogy. Her work has been presented in France, Belgium, Israel, and across the U.S. She is a recipient of the DAAD Fellowship in Performing Arts, organizes Clouds Gathering performance festival, and is a certified facilitator of Deep Listening. She is currently providing therapy to elementary school students at Smedley Charter School. She received an MFA from University of Pennsylvania, and is in the process of completing her MSW from Simmons University. |
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Khuyen Bui, Director of Paradox
Khuyen Bui is an author, speaker and well sought after guide who specifically works with purpose-driven leaders, community builders and coaches to level up their impact. Graduated cum laude from Tufts University studying Computer Science and Philosophy, he thrives in bringing analytical rigor into his fascination with human messiness. Khuyen enjoys writing & storytelling and has won several awards, notably Peter Drucker Challenge and The Moth Boston. His first book, Not Being - The Art of Self-Transformation, is about how our sense of self shifts from a separate entity into a wider sense of togetherness. He is currently based in Vietnam, pioneering this new yet ancient way of living, working and playing together, incorporating many modalities such as writing, coaching, contact improvisation, poetry, meditation and circling. His eyes lit up upon beautiful questions. Find him at khuyenbui.com |
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Natalia Stroika, Vice President of Existential Games
Natalia Stroika (she/her +/-) is an Existential Game Maker/Destroyer. She is the creator of Ludic Liberation, a practice of collective play aimed at revealing & releasing our internalized limitations. You can read more about the Ludic Liberation philosophy at www.ludicliberation.com, join a monthly Ludic Liberation Lab to help R&D new liberatory game mechanics, read The Lab Report of past experimental results and existential game theory, or work with Natalia directly on tuning up or redesigning your Personal Existential Game (PEG). Natalia has a Doctorate in Learning Sciences and training in Transformational Social Therapy and the Warm Data Lab process. Natalia lives in so-called South Philadelphia and as mummer with the Vaudevillains New Years Brigade, she has been a hoagie, a tree, a rainbow, a butterfly, a feral cat mother, a fish, a planet, and a pterodactyl. |
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Sarah Ledbetter, Embodied Hospitality Director
Sarah is a dancing writer and a body-based psychotherapist whose work has been presented or published nationally and internationally at such cool spots and publications as the Sans Souci Festival of Dance Film, the Berlin Black Film Festival, Earthdance E|Merge Interdisciplinary Arts Residency, the Body Mind Centering Conference, floromancy, Fourth River, Right Hand Pointing, and R and R Literary Magazine. Her main interest is how the fiesta of being in a body flows reciprocally into creative, social, site-specific, and therapeutic process. She is currently based in Nashville, Tennessee and Skull Valley, Arizona where her body-based creative and psychotherapeutic practice is anchored and winged. |
Advisory Board
The Deep Play Institute's Advisory board is a volunteer panel of experts in the field who provide organizational and programming advice and support
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Aviva Avnisan
Aviva Avnisan is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is situated at the intersection of image, text and code. Using a host of emerging technologies including 3D scanning, augmented reality and virtual reality, she creates applications for mobile devices, interactive installations and technologically mediated performances that seek to subvert dominant narratives through embodied encounters with language. Aviva is an Assistant Professor of Emerging Media & Technology and Media & Journalism at Kent State University. |
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Anique Vered
Anique Vered is an interdisciplinary researcher, curator and development practitioner renowned for the capacity to connect unexpected partners on unprecedented projects to mobilise impact. Through research-creation, public programming and participatory development innovations, I work at the intersection of community and network building, spaces of experimental learning and co-creation, decolonisation, and social innovation to unleash a new kind of networked agency. With fifteen years experience in communities and organisations across Australia, North America, Asia, the Middle East & North Africa, and Europe; recent projects include co-curating a Forum on Egalitarian, Sustainable Communtarian Organization for Art and Culture with Filipino artists and activists, as well as research and content for Diversity Arts Australia's Creative Equity Toolkit. |
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Lina Moreno
Lina is a Latin American artist and educator based in Montreal. Currently, they are dedicated to providing project management support to strengthen the design of emergent processes within organizations. Lina holds an MA in Art Education from Concordia University and currently works as Head of Organizational Process Design at inPath. |
Donate
The Deep Play Institute is a registered United States federal non-for-profit corporation.
We gratefully accept donations and appreciate your support.
We gratefully accept donations and appreciate your support.
Contact
Email: thedeepplayinstitute [at] gmail [dot] com
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