EVENTS
The Deep Play Institute offers a variety of programs predominantly in: New York City, Portland (OR), Philly and virtually (over zoom).
Occasionally we hold workshops in other locations such as: Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, Montreal, and Devon (UK).
Occasionally we hold workshops in other locations such as: Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, Montreal, and Devon (UK).
UPCOMING VIRTUAL EVENTS
EXISTENTIAL PLAYGROUND
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EXISTENTIAL PLAYGROUNDS [Free, Virtual, Monthly]
A monthly free virtual event dedicated to playfully experimenting with the essential questions of our existence Next Existential Playgrounds is April 30, 2025 Our existence is fluid. What it is to be, is to be in relation to others, and the embedded rules that define our togetherness. In Existential Playgrounds we play with those rules, by breaking them, questioning them, and re-making them. Each playground creates an immersive container around a particular theme, technique or practice. Existential Playgrounds are free! This is an opportunity to come together and play without financial exchanges — a time to gather, connect, play deeply, and converse. This is also a great opportunity for people to explore what The Deep Play Institute is about, to get to know us, and feel into what we do, and how we do it. Think of it like recess!
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UPCOMING QUEBEC EVENTS
DEEP PLAY LAB
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DEEP PLAY LAB [Montreal, QC 05/09 - 05/11, 2025]
Co-Creating Practice & Performance Join The Deep Play Institute for an immersive weekend of relational play as we move from established practices into collective creation. The intention of our weekend lab is to experiment with deep play practices and co-create playful transformative encounters. Our intentions are liberatory, as we hope the weekend provides deep and playful transformation for the participants, their community, and hopefully the world. The lab also aims to re-shape and re-frame psychological and relational transformation as an artistic act - one that is deeply democratic, imaginative, playful and contextual.
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FLUID CARTOGRAPHIES
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FLUID CARTOGRAPHIES [Montreal, QC 05/16 - 05/19, 2025]
An Exploration of Body, Voice, Psyche & Performance Ritual This intensive will investigate the space between somatic-transformative practice and performance, offering a bridge between radical expression, psychological inquiry, and collective art-making. The workshop will begin on Friday morning with an opening circle and agreements, and then transition into “Aquasoma”, a practice of working through the fluid intelligence of breath, movement and voice, centered around spinal energy. Saturday will be devoted to “Clearing”, a practice that focusing on group choreographed constellations of inner parts. On Sunday these two practices will become raw material to create a performance ritual for a wider audience.
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UPCOMING PORTLAND (OREGON) EVENTS
WILDNESS LAB
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WILDNESS LAB [Portland, OR Tuesday 05/13, 7-9pm, 2025]
A Laboratory Dedicated to The Exploration of the Uninhibited The intention of WILDNESS LABS is to explore wildness, spontaneity and full uninhibited expression of all of our parts. What this means is to allow energies and expressions to pour out of you without pushing them down or restricting them. It is to allow expressions that typically aren’t allowed in social space, or at all. Whatever emerges, we will let it out. Whatever comes, we will express it. For this container expression includes: sound, movement, gestures and words.
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ORDER OF THE AMETHYST HEART
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ORDER OF THE AMETHYST HEART [Near Portland OR, July 24-27 or July 31-Aug 1, 2025]
A live action role play of a cult's journey towards transcendence Waitlist Applications Open The Order of the Amethyst Heart is a 4-day immersive experience modeled off of Nordic LARPs. You will play a member of the order in a near-future as society grows closer to the end-times. The chapter you are part of is located on a small farm 1.5 hours from Portland, Oregon. You will be given a rough outline of a character to play, and will be encouraged to fill in important details.
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UPCOMING PHILLY EVENTS
CIRCLING INTENSIVE
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CIRCLING INTENSIVE [Philly, 05/02-05/04, 2025]
A weekend intensive of Here-&-Now practice in Philadelphia, PA The aim of our weekend is twofold. The first is to deepen into the practice of Circling, which involves bringing more connection and authenticity in relation to each other within our group. This deepening will involve practicing multiple Circling modalities including: Large Group Circles, Small Group Circles, Birthday Circles, Kabuki Circles, and Coyote Circles. The second aim of our weekend intensive is for participants to co-create a new Circling modality. After each structure we will engage in a “There-and-Then” practice to discuss the experiment.
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PHANG
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PHANG [Philly, PA / Monthly]
Philly Here-and-Now Group A monthly, experimental, in-person “Here-and-Now” group in which we explore what’s emerging among us for two hours once per month. Anywhere between 3 and 12 people will gather on a given month to explore what is present through discussion, emotional and somatic exploration, movement, journaling, and meditation. The group will most closely resemble Psychodynamic Group Therapy, but this group is not therapy and the intent is community building and experimentation. The structure will riff on and borrow from practices including Tavistock Group Relations, Process Work, Authentic Movement, Authentic Relating, Psychodrama, Internal Family Systems, and Circling (you need not be familiar with any of these to participate, nor does the group require any special preparation).
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PAST EVENTS
GLOAM ENSEMBLE
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GLOAM ENSEMBLE [Brooklyn, NY Saturday 05/23 - 05/25, 2025]
A Live Action Role Play of a Cutting-Edge Psychosomatic Theatre Group Application Deadline: March 8th Gloam Ensemble is a 3-day immersive experience structured as a Nordic LARP. We will play a self described avant garde theater group that has decided it is ready to come out to the public. A little-known curator has contracted the group to do a single performance at PS1 for a hand selected audience, and we reluctantly decide that after 5 years of research and practice, we are ready to debut our unique style of psychological here-and-now theater. The LARP is set in the last few days of our rehearsal, struggling to design a small private showcase for friends that is meant as a practice round for the PS1 debut.
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PERFORMANCE TROUPE IMMERSION
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PERFORMANCE TROUPE WEEKEND IMMERSION [Portland, OR 04/05 - 04/06, 2025]
A weekend of immersive deep play and performance Come join The PDX Deep Play Performance Troupe and take part in an immersive deep dive into our December 2024 piece Thresholding. This is a chance to fully transition from audience-witness into participant, as we guide you through the improvisational structures and deep play methodologies of our piece (Saturday), and then give you an opportunity to perform with us (Sunday).
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UNDOING
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UNDOING [Portland, OR 04/06, 1-5pm 2025]
A Durational Performance UNDOING is a performance that blends ritual, play, and deep inquiry, as we explore what happens when we let the boundaries between selves, structures, language, and nonsense fall apart. Rather than descending into chaos, this unraveling aims to give way to something more fluid, open, and expansive – the duration of the piece itself becoming a force of undoing, pressing us to loosen these boundaries over time as we oscillate between exhilaration, boredom, fatigue, and exhaustion. The piece is structured around a central game of structured improvisation that shifts between psychodramatic encounters, vocal and gestural conducting, and exercises of somatic regulation and unbridled expression. Additionally, the stark boundary between audience and performer will be "undone," with a designated space for interested audience members to step into the piece and participate.
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ARCHE ARCANUM 2.0
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ARCHE/ARCANUM 2.0 [Portland, OR 03/29 6-10pm]
An Embodied Journey Through the Tarot's Major Arcana Taking inspiration from Jung, Hillman, Costa and Jodorowsky the 22 cards of the tarot’s major arcana can be seen as an archetypal map – a menu of ancestral image-meanings, patterned across human cultures with incredibly deep holdings on our souls. To embody a card of the tarot is to consciously enact the archetype and allow oneself to connect with the enlivening energies that it represents. Our journey will begin with the fool (boundless energy, chaos and total freedom) and end with the world (realization, totality, unification). We will physically, emotionally, sonically and spiritually move through this map of the soul.
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SPACESHIP: A GAME OF RELATING & FREEDOM
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SPACESHIP [Brooklyn, NY Saturday 3/15 6-8pm, 2025]
A Game of Relating & Freedom Spaceship is a relational game that uses sentence stems to blast a group off into outer space (i.e. strange and mysterious zones of connection). The game begins with a simple sentence stem “I want ____” as we go around in a circle and each person speaks aloud this sentence filling in the blank of what they want. Very quickly more sentence stems are added and you are invited to go into personas or speak with “honesty” to anyone in the circle. Eventually we find ourselves in a social setting where the rules of connection afford radical creativity and authenticity.
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SIGNAL AMPLIFICATION
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SIGNAL AMPLIFICATION [Portland, OR Saturday 03/08 10am-5pm, 2025]
Processwork as Deep Play This workshop will take you on a journey into one of the core techniques within process work called signal amplification. Processwork, developed by Arnold Mendel in the 1980s, is a collection of somatic techniques and awareness practices that integrates Jungian psychology with eastern and embodied paradigms. Our workshop will be held at the Process Work Institute (PWI) in Portland, OR – one of the international hubs of processwork.
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SPARKS, FLAMES, EMBERS, HEAT
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SPARKS, FLAME, EMBERS, HEAT [Portland, OR Sunday 02/16 6-9pm, 2025]
Exploring the Feral Fields of Eros This is a valentine’s day event! Think of it as an odd mixture of: neo-tantra, experimental speed dating, authentic relating and relational deep play. The shared intention for our event is to notice and explore the vast multiplicitous ways our hearts open (or close) to others.
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PLAYING WHEN THE PLAYING GETS HARD (WINTER 2025)
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Playing when the Playing gets Hard [Virtual, 7 Sundays, 1/12 - 2/23 2025]
A 7-week virtual journey through playful practices to help us find play in the most unplayful of moods At The Deep Play Institute we believe that play can be deep, profound, serious, heavy, challenging and intense. But sometimes, the weightiest of weights don’t want to be played with. It might feel like the last thing in the world you are able to do is reflect, let alone bring levity, creativity, or play. What do we do then? Join the DPI Team as we take you on a 7 week journey through a variety of playful practices that offer ways to find play in the most unplayful of moods.
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FLOCK
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FLOCK [Brooklyn, NY Sunday 1/19, 1-3pm 2025]
Playing with Spontaneous Synchronicity This workshop is an experiment in spontaneous movement, using the practice of Flocking as a way to explore witnessing, following, and supporting one another in social space. Flocking is a group improvisational movement practice. The group stands together, facing one direction. The primary score is to follow the movements of the person you see in front of you; as the group rotates and moves through space, the 'lead' role shifts from one person to the next. Over the course of two hours we'll play with shared movement and experiment with variations of Flocking, with and without music, and with various points of focus (loosely inspired by Mary Overlie's 6 Viewpoints). What happens when we play with variations in speed, distance, periphery, and focus? How do alternating and intertwined moments of leading and following develop a shared social reality?
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THRESHOLDING
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THRESHOLDING [Portland, OR 12/13, 12/14 & 12/15]
A Performance by the PDX Deep Play Performance Troupe Unfolding at the intersection of ritual, play, and inquiry, Thresholding is a performative exploration of liminality—the dynamic borderlands between order and chaos, art and therapy, sense and nonsense, performer and audience. At its core, the piece weaves together a series of structured improvisational games and ceremonies designed to engage the mysteries of presence, transformation, and collective imagination. This debut performance by the Deep Play Institute’s PDX Performance Troupe draws on psychodramatic techniques, surrealist language games, rule-based improvisational systems, conversation scores, and vocal experiments. The troupe operates as a living laboratory for "deep play," inhabiting the fluid space between safety and risk, individuality and collectivity, buoyancy and heaviness, centeredness and marginality.
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CENTER, MARGIN, EDGE
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CENTER, MARGIN, EDGE [Vancouver, BC 11/30-12/1]
A Deep Play Lab Join the Deep Play Institute as we practice and play with a curated selection of transformative techniques culminating in creative adaptations, experimentation, games and scores. Our weekend will be a relational choreography that moves from a more codified center of transformative practice into marginal edges of play. The weekend will be structured into four 3-hour blocks. Blocks 1-2 (Saturday) will introduce the group to Circling and Psychodrama - practices aimed at bringing about group awareness, cohesion, expression and enlivened embodiment. On Day 2 we will begin the day with creative modifications and alterations of these practices, and conclude the weekend with a score called Conductor which gives participant a chance to improvise with the tools and techniques learnt from the weekend.
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IDENTITY MASSAGE WORKSHOP
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IDENTITY MASSAGE WORKSHOP [Virtual, 11/13 8:30-10pm EST]
Playfully Unmasking the Holding Back Patterns Join us for a 90-minute immersive workshop where deep play meets gentle change. This isn’t just another personal development tool—it’s an experimental playground designed to help you, and those you work with, discover and unlearn the hidden identity patterns that keep you stuck. Using playful, psychodramatic techniques, we’ll uncover the stories that run the show behind the scenes, inviting new awareness and creative freedom. Whether you’re a seasoned coach, therapist, or a new playful practitioner, this method will add a vibrant new dimension to your toolkit. You’ll leave with a practical tool, a step-by-step guide, and the confidence to bring this deep play approach into your personal and professional practice.
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ARCHE/ARCANUM
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ARCHE/ARCANUM [Portland, OR 11/09 6-10pm]
An Embodied Journey Through the Tarot's Major Arcana Taking inspiration from Jung, Hillman, Costa and Jodorowsky the 22 cards of the tarot’s major arcana can be seen as an archetypal map – a menu of ancestral image-meanings, patterned across human cultures with incredibly deep holdings on our souls. To embody a card of the tarot is to consciously enact the archetype and allow oneself to connect with the enlivening energies that it represents. Our journey will begin with the fool (boundless energy, chaos and total freedom) and end with the world (realization, totality, unification). We will physically, emotionally, sonically and spiritually move through this map of the soul.
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CALL FOR CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK REPRESENTATIVES [Virtual, Ongoing]
DPI is launching a virtual correspondence project where representatives of various conceptual frameworks (e.g., queer theory, process philosophy, tantric buddhism) will respond to participant-submitted issues. Participants will select three frameworks (each thought of as a course to a gourmet meal) and the representatives will provide a unique written perspective on their problem. Application deadline Nov 8
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CALL FOR DEEP PLAY FACILITATORS [Virtual, Winter 2025]
The Deep Play Institute will be hosting a 6-week virtual series of workshops held over zoom during January-February 2025. DPI is seeking facilitators to lead a 2-hour workshop for the series. Application deadline Nov 8
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DEEP PLAY PERFORMANCE TROUPE
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DEEP PLAY PERFORMANCE TROUPE [Portland, OR / Fall 2024]
Seeking: curious, creative, open-hearted/minded, passionate, expressive, critical, reflective, playful, vulnerable, bold, wild persons to join a psycho-theatrical-artistic playground performance collective Delicious is our relationality and the many ways of being-with! What are we and what can we be? How big can we get? How small? How deranged? How majestic? Can we play with questions of our existence and constitution as we unfold ourselves? Can we question our play as we are made otherwise by it? Can we keep folding more and more of the layers of our selves, each other, our environment back into the cosmic game?
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CONDUCTOR
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CONDUCTOR [Brooklyn, NY 10/08 12-3pm, 2024]
A GAME OF AGENCY & ART, PLAY & POWER Conductor is a game played in a group of 5-20. The actions of choice are primarily sonic, musical, performative, conversational and relational. The conductor can conduct by giving commands verbally, or they can use gesture and sound to elicit changes in the group. Conducting usually lasts around 3-5 minutes, and then another conductor takes their place.
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PARTS PRACTICE 3: CIRCLING MEETINGS PSYCHODRAMA
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PARTS PRACTICE 3: CIRCLING MEETS PSYCHODRAMA [Philadelphia, PA 10/05-10/06, 2024]
A weekend intensive of teaching and playing with the practices of Psychodrama and Circling The Deep Play Institute (DPI) presents Parts Practice: Circling Meets Psychodrama, our third Parts Practice weekend intensive. We will be combining the practices of Circling and Psychodrama to offer participants a chance to intimately explore their psycho-social-political-spiritual selves, moving back and forth between the interpersonal and the intrapersonal, and interpreting the relationship between the two. These two practices each enable rapid depths and intimacies with oneself and others, and in combination, promise to broaden our understanding of how the personal shows up in the interpersonal and vice versa.
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VICTORIA PSYCHODRAMA IMMERSION
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PSYCHODRAMA IMMERSION [Victoria, BC 08/10, 2024]
A One-Day Deep Dive into Psychodramatic Practice in Victoria BC The focus of practice day will not be learning psychodrama theory, but rather jumping into practice. The goal of our practice will be to deepen and refine our expression of inner parts (ex- my inner critic), internalized others (ex- my mother), and archetypes (ex- the healer). The hope is that this practice day will provide participants with greater insight into our psyches (with their beautiful and dynamic breadth of images, voices, parts, internalized others, and archetypes) and provide renewed creative vitality and agency to play with these inner worlds together towards the collective goal of healing and self expression. This workshop is for all levels of experience: those who have never heard of psychodrama, those who are novices in dramatic-authentic expression, and those who are deeply familiar and experiences with these things. Please come ready with an open mind and heart.
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PSYCHODRAMA BEACH DAY!
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PSYCHODRAMA BEACH DAY! [Portland, OR 07/27, 2024]
A Psychodrama Practice Day at Rooster Rock (Portland, OR) Psychodrama is an action method (developed in the 1920s by Jacob Moreno in Vienna) in which participants use spontaneous dramatization, role playing, and dramatic self-presentation to engage a situation or encounter. It is an incredible performative practice for diving deeply and playful into intra/inter-subjective facets of self and other. Psychodrama is practiced in a group, whereby one participant volunteers to be the protagonist who then acts on their "drama" with the aid of other group members as auxiliaries. It is a highly structured technique with forms that establish safety, minimize projection, and create the capacity for extremely deep and transformative expression.
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PACIFIC NORTHWEST RETREAT
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PACIFIC NORTHWEST DEEP PLAY RETREAT [Elkenmist, 07/04-07/07, 2024]
A retreat for playing in and experimenting with relational deep play Our intention is to gather community who live in & around Portland, Oregon and who are deeply invested in exploring the healing, artistic, and revelatory potentials that can arise in group dynamics. This weekend is a space for what we call “deep relational play.” There are many examples of existing play structures like that, and we’d love to invite participants who have experience with or are interested in them, including: Contact Improv, Psychodrama, Voice Dialogues, Internal Family Systems, Circling, Authentic Relating, Experimental Theater, Family Constellations, Clowning, Core Energetics, Performance Art, Group Relations, Developmental Transformations, Processwork, and other related practices.
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FLOCK: playing with spontaneous synchronicity
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FLOCK [NYC 06/24, 7-9pm 2024]
Playing with Spontaneous Synchronicity This workshop is an experiment in spontaneous movement, using the practice of Flocking as a way to explore witnessing, following, and supporting one another in social space. Flocking is a group improvisational movement practice. The group stands together, facing one direction. The primary score is to follow the movements of the person you see in front of you; as the group rotates and moves through space, the 'lead' role shifts from one person to the next. Over the course of two hours we'll play with shared movement and experiment with variations of Flocking, with and without music, and with various points of focus (loosely inspired by Mary Overlie's 6 Viewpoints). What happens when we play with variations in speed, distance, periphery, and focus? How do alternating and intertwined moments of leading and following develop a shared social reality?
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MOVE TOWARDS WISDOM
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MOVE TOWARDS WISDOM [Virtual 06/23, 1-2:30pm EST 2024]
Intuitive, Playful Movement to Help you Become more "you" In this workshop, we invite you to embark on a journey of self-discovery through the language of the body. Throughout our lives, we unconsciously develop habitual responses that shape our interactions, behaviors, and self-perceptions. Yet, these patterns can sometimes leave us feeling trapped, yearning for change and new possibilities. How can we break free from the confines of our familiar selves and embrace the unknown? The answer could be found through movement. Movement serves as a profound and accessible gateway to exploring uncharted territories within ourselves. By welcoming new ways of moving, we open ourselves to a world of new potential. In this session, we'll engage in a movement practice designed to liberate us from habitual patterns and expand our range of physical and sensory experiences. Through the exploration of contraction and expansion, we'll discover new dimensions of ourselves beyond the confines of our everyday existence.
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CIRCLING INTENSIVE
CONDUCTOR
GUIDE ME
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CIRCLING INTENSIVE [West Philly, 04/12-14, 2024]
A weekend intensive of Here-&-Now practice in Philadelphia, PA Join The Deep Play Institute for a weekend intensive of Circling: a here-and-now practice of deepening connection, authenticity and presence. Circling, developed by Guy Sengstock in the 1990s, is one of many practices aimed at exploring the here-and-now in a group. Other such practices include Group Therapy, T-Group, Group Relations Conferences, Process Work. Please find more info about Circling here.
Conductor [NYC, 04/11, 2024]
A Game of Authenticity & Art, Power and Play Conductor is played in a group of 5-20. The group begins by standing in a semi-circular clump all facing one direction (like a choir). Then one person steps out in front of the group thereby electing to be the conductor. Once a person takes on the role of the conductor they then conduct the group to do anything really. The actions of choice are primarily sonic, musical, performative, conversational and relational. The conductor can conduct by giving commands verbally, or they can use gesture and sound to elicit changes in the group. Conducting usually lasts around 3-5 minutes, and then another conductor takes their place.
GUIDE ME [Portland, March 29, 7-10pm 2024]
An Experimental Journey Through Transformative Practice Join the Deep Play Institute for an incredible evening of guided deep play as 5 different facilitators will guide you (the group) through a series of immersive activities. Our collective journey will include: constellating astrology symbols in our bodies, deep dives into the world of sensory imagination, experimental sounding music-making and breathing, activating inner archetypes through role play, & action theatre playing with gazes and gestures.
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SPELLCASTING 101
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SPELL CASTING 101 [Portland, March 9th 1-5pm, 2024]
Playing in the Relational Field For this workshop we are invited to invoke the magician archetype and take seriously the image of ourselves as amateur spell-casters, wizards perhaps. What I mean by spell-casting is: to facilitate a technique that aims towards transformation – of self, other and world. Therapy, coaching, collective rituals like sound healing or dance, clowning, contact improvisation, authentic relating, meditation – these are just a few examples of practices that cast relational spells. The idea of this workshop is that transformative techniques need not remain isolated in their silos of practice; rather, we can concoct our own spells – through a kind of tinkering, trial, experimentation. The scientist-magician-artist in the laboratory, that is the playspace of our workshop. While spell-casting is vast in its scope (from alchemy’s alteration of metals, to meditation’s capacity to alter ones own mind and body), the spells that will be the focus of this workshops will be relational – we will trying out spells that are aimed at transforming one another. All of us will be playing the roles of both caster and casted.
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PLAYING WHEN THE PLAYING GETS HARD
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Playing when the Playing gets Hard [Virtual, 6 Sundays, 1/14 - 2/18 2024]
A 6-week virtual journey through playful practices to help us find play in the most unplayful of moods At The Deep Play Institute we believe that play can be deep, profound, serious, heavy, challenging and intense. But sometimes, the weightiest of weights don’t want to be played with. It might feel like the last thing in the world you are able to is reflect, let alone bring levity, creativity, or play. What do we do then? Join the DPI Team as we take you on a 6 week journey through a variety of playful practices that offer ways to find play in the most unplayful of moods.
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CONDUCTOR
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Conductor [Portland, 01/31, 2024]
A Game of Authenticity & Art, Power and Play Conductor is played in a group of 5-20. The group begins by standing in a semi-circular clump all facing one direction (like a choir). Then one person steps out in front of the group thereby electing to be the conductor. Once a person takes on the role of the conductor they then conduct the group to do anything really. The actions of choice are primarily sonic, musical, performative, conversational and relational. The conductor can conduct by giving commands verbally, or they can use gesture and sound to elicit changes in the group. Conducting usually lasts around 3-5 minutes, and then another conductor takes their place.
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PSYCHODRAMA INTENSIVE Jan 2024, Portland
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PSYCHODRAMA INTENSIVE [Portland, 01/27-01/28, 2024]
A Weekend Psychodrama Intensive in Portland, OR Psychodrama is an action method (developed in the 1920s by Jacob Moreno in Vienna) in which participants use spontaneous dramatization, role playing, and dramatic self-presentation to engage a situation or encounter. It is an incredible performative practice for diving deeply and playful into intra/inter-subjective facets of self and other. Psychodrama is practiced in a group, whereby one participant volunteers to be the protagonist who then acts on their "drama" with the aid of other group members as auxiliaries. It is a highly structured technique with forms that establish safety, minimize projection, and create the capacity for extremely deep and transformative expression.
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PARTS PRACTICE
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PARTS PRACTICE: INNER DRAMATURGY [New York, NY, 11/18-19 2023]
A weekend intensive of Psychodrama practice informed by inner parts-work. Join DPI for a weekend intensive to intimately explore our psyches in a nourishing and creative container through these two powerful therapy practices which, when put in combination, offer unbelievable depth in very little time. Psychodrama and parts-work can work together to breathe creative vitality into your ongoing contemplations, and we offer this workshop towards a goal of broadening our introspective toolkits and fostering collective healing.
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ALLIES & SHADOWS
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EXPLORING OUR ALLIES & SHADOWS THROUGH PSYCHODRAMA AND TAROT [Portland, OR]
Saturday November 4th, 2023 | 10am-6pm Come join us for a day of dialogue with our inner world. Which aspects of our self do we know well & rely on as allies, and which parts of self are unseen, rejected, unconscious or in shadow? Playing with these hidden parts of self can expand our strength and self-knowledge. We will invite our allies in as we welcome parts of our shadow into consciousness and integration.
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PLAYING WITH PARTS, PLAYING WITH POWER
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SUMMER 2023 RETREAT: PLAYING W/ PARTS, PLAYING W/ POWER [Finger Lakes, NY Aug, 2023]
A relational mindfulness retreat in the bucolic hills of the finger lakes region of upstate New York Join us for a rigorous, week-long relational mindfulness retreat. The goal of our work together will be to deepen our collective presence, curiosity, creativity, playfulness, and connection through edgy relational work in the here-and-now, as well as reflection about that work. The bulk of our time will be spent in experimental social mindfulness practice, with breaks in between for shared meals, and unstructured time for pond swimming, sauna-ing, hiking, playing, and resting. The main task will be to explore inter-, intra-, and trans- personal dynamics in the here-and-now in small groups, large group, and as witnesses to the facilitators. Included in these explorations are the various parts of our selves, as well as those of others, including nonhuman elements such as atmosphere, histories, ghosts, wildlife, projections, etc. Just as we learn together through mindful relational techniques, we will also play with those very techniques, moving from immersion to examination to critique to affirmation to play to immersion and so on.
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PACIFIC NORTHWEST RETREAT
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PACIFIC NORTHWEST DEEP PLAY RETREAT [Elkenmist, WA / July 27-30th, 2023]
A retreat for playing in and experimenting with relational deep play Our intention is to gather community who live in & around Portland, Oregon and who are deeply invested in exploring the healing, artistic, and revelatory potentials that can arise in group dynamics. We are particularly calling in those of us who feel tired, frustrated, or bored with the way healing arts culture tends to manifest in the pacific northwest (aka a yummy-pleasure-follow-your-bliss culture. You know what we mean? :)
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AN AGGREGATION
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AN AGGREGATION [Vox Populi, Philly / July 15th, 6pm-2am, 2023]
A parts-work durational performance piece Two friends, colleagues, therapists, artists - Netta and Aaron - will use a co-created method drawing from Circling, Psychodrama, and Internal Family Systems Therapy to concretize the fragmented and fragile nature of their friendship and collaboration. The process will excavate their relationship as it unfolds in the here-and-now in an eight-hour durational performance.
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RITUALS OF PLAY, FAILURE & LOVE
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RITUALS OF PLAY, FAILURE & LOVE [Devon, UK / June 23-26th, 2023]
An Inner-Parts Intensive discovering together new ways of relating to our inner selves with failure, play and love Join us for a four-day immersive adventure in the rolling hills of Devon, discovering together our inner parts and our group dynamics. The workshop will be rooted in parts work, a practice that involves tracing individual and collective selves through therapeutic methods, sensory experiments, mindfulness exercises, and social structures that invite creative imagining and courageous honesty with ourselves and one another. Our workshop hopes to bring us into deeper relationship with our parts and each other’s, and to do this we anticipate oscillating between intense interpersonal relating, including explorations of conflict, frustration, shame, sadness, and on the other hand, quiet and creative contemplation. We will use our personal explorations and those of the group to play with interpersonal dynamics that are patterned throughout larger communities and the world.
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ART LIFE PRACTICES
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Art Life Practices [Virtual, 02/27-03/08, 2023]
A Short Journey of Enchantment Much has been thought and written about how one’s life, experiences and autobiography can inform one’s art practice and creative processes. However, very rarely we turn this equation the other way around, and investigate how art practice, or an artistic way of seeing and positioning ourselves in the world might inform our life processes, challenges, and the creation of our day to day. This is a journey of enchantment. Together, we will be exploring new, strange and fun ways of looking at what is around us and our autobiographies, monsters and challenges as strategies of Autopoiesis. Guided by the artistic process of visual artists, performers, poets and filmmakers that have been exploring the boundaries between art and life, as well as by therapeutic techniques such as mindfulness, visualizations, contact-improvisation and the work of Willem Reich, we will be looking at our creative processes, traumas and stereotypes and opening up space for new forms of seeing and creating. Deautomatization, presence, a living body, attention, integration of feelings, finding stimuli beyond screens are some of the key words for this process.
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PSYCHODRAMA INTENSIVE
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Psychodrama Intensive [Portland, 02/10-12, 2023]
A Weekend Psychodrama Intensive in Portland, OR Psychodrama is an action method (developed in the 1920s by Jacob Moreno in Vienna) in which participants use spontaneous dramatization, role playing, and dramatic self-presentation to engage a situation or encounter. The weekend intensive will contain four 3-hour blocks during which the group will enhance somatic and dramatic expression, enact short vignettes and solo-plays, access allies and self-energy, and perform full psychodramas as well. Participants will learn tools for self-facilitating psychodramatic play, so that these resources can be practiced on one one's own outside of a group. This intensive hopes to give participants greater insight into their inner systems of parts or roles, and provide renewed creative vitality and agency to play with these inner worlds together towards the collective goal of healing and self expression.
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PARTS PRACTICE
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Parts Practice: A Weekend Intensive [Toronto, 11/5-11/6, 2022]
a weekend intensive of teaching and playing with the practices of Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Psychodrama. The Deep Play Institute (DPI) presents Parts Practice: A Weekend Intensive of teaching and playing with the practices of Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Psychodrama. Both practices are a form of parts work, which means they aim to provide transformation by working with a non-singular self that is made up of various inner parts. Day one of our intensive will introduce participants to IFS – a somatic therapy system for differentiating between parts of self, mediating among them, and putting them into contact with curiosity and compassion. Day two will introduce participants to Psychodrama – an action method in which participants use spontaneous dramatization, role playing, and dramatic self-presentation to engage a situation or encounter. Our hope is that not only will participants leave with practical skills from these two practices, but that participants will carry forward the open-heartedness and creativity that these practices help to cultivate.
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PLAYING WITH TRANSFORMATION
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Playing with Transformation – Improvising Healing Arts Practices & Techniques [virtual, Fall 2022]
a virtual workshop series for creative skill sharing and form-building in healing arts practices The Deep Play Institute presents Playing with Transformation - Improvising Healing Arts Practices & Techniques. This is a 1-month workshop series designed for creative skill sharing and form-building in healing arts practices. Our series contains two blocks. The first block offers experiential tastes of a handful of vibrant contemporary healing practices including: Internal Family Systems, Circling, Voice Dialogues, Developmental Transformations, Family Constellations, and Psychodrama. The second block offers more divergent and creative articulations of transformative techniques blending somatic practices, roleplay techniques, guided meditations, and dramatization methods.
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PSYCHODRAMA
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Psychodrama Group, Portland [bi-weekly, Fall 2022]
a bi-weekly drop-in psychodrama group in Portland, Oregon Psychodrama is an action method (developed in the 1920s by Jacob Moreno in Vienna) in which participants use spontaneous dramatization, role playing, and dramatic self-presentation to engage a situation or encounter. It is an incredible performative practice for diving deeply and playful into intra/inter-subjective facets of self and other. Psychodrama is practiced in a group, whereby one participant volunteers to be the protagonist who then acts on their "drama" with the aid of other group members as auxiliaries. It is a highly structured technique with forms that establish safety, minimize projection, and create the capacity for extremely deep and transformative expression.
more details
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RESET / RECESS
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RESET / RECESS, PHILADELPHIA [08/6-08/07, 2022]
a weekend of iterative exercises and games to question & reinvent our ways of being within and between our bodies Join The Deep Play Institute for a sensorial and relational weekend R*E*S*E*T. As we return to shared physical space, how are we leveraging the increased richness and interactivity of our environments and senses? What identities and relations are we bringing to our encounters? Could they be re-envisioned and improvised towards more playful, nourishing, and mutually liberating forms? Our facilitators will draw on their experience in: Internal Family Systems, Contact Improvisation, Circling, Authentic Relating, Nonviolent Communication, Psychodrama, Theater of the Oppressed, Existential Games, Somatic Awareness, Nancy Stark Smith’s Underscore and Pauline Oliveros's deep listening.
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SUMMER 2022 RETREAT
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SUMMER 2022 RETREAT, Rochester Folk Art Guild, NY [07/23-07/31, 2022]
GROWING EDGES IN RELATIONAL PRACTICE The Deep Play Institute’s Summer 2022 Retreat is an opportunity for artists, therapists, healing-arts practitioners, coaches, and facilitators to gather, share resources, build skills, grow, and relax in the beautiful setting of 300 acres of rolling hills in the Finger Lakes Region of New York State. This retreat is designed for anyone with a relational practice (i.e. a practice where you facilitate others in some capacity) who is interested in exploring the edges of this practice. Perhaps you are a therapist learning about somatic work, but you aren’t comfortable enough yet to try it with your clients. Perhaps you are a performance artist who wants to explore an intimacy practice for an upcoming performance. Perhaps you are a facilitator who has worked in conflict mediation, and you want to integrate a new therapeutic modality you are just starting to learn. This is an opportunity to experiment, to play with your practice, and to lean into an edge in support of growth.
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ECOLOGICAL GRIEF GROUP
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ECOLOGICAL GRIEF GROUP [Spring 2022]
a monthly virtual drop-in group to collectively process ongoing environmental collapse DPI’s Ecological Grief Group is a monthly virtual drop-in group designed for emotional and somatic exploration of what it is like to live through ongoing environmental collapse. The group will use Internal Family Systems therapy to explore the parts of ourselves that are reacting to climate change and its accompanying losses: past, present, and future. The intention is to make space for collective processing of anxiety, grief, anger, and other emotions that can be harder or impossible for people to hold in isolation. There is also an intention to support activist work, not through planning political actions, but by supporting our resilience by allowing for the expression of stuck feelings related to climate change. By doing this work, group members may find more energy and capacity to grow or maintain their activist practices.
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GROUP: PERSONA(S)
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GROUP PERSONA(S): [WINTER 2022]
a weekly committed group where members create a persona to assist in deep explorations of self and other Participants will construct a semi-fictional character which they will play for the entire duration of GROUP. This character will be modeled off of Internal Family Systems (IFS) 8 Cs of Self-Energy: Calm, Connection, Compassion, Creativity, Clarity, Curiosity, Confidence and Courage. The hope is that this fictional character will help participants to playfully investigate dark, shadowy or problematic aspects of themselves and others in a manner that allows for greater growth and transformation.
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SYMBIOSIS
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SYMBIOSIS [12/11/2021]
a live action role playing (LARP) that explores the quest for healthy coping and communication skills in relationships The characters in Symbiosis are an alien species on the planet Saturn who subsist on stardust. In this larp, a group of Saturnite adolescents are sequestered at a retreat. Their work is guided by the Gardener, a fully adult Symbiote, who facilitates their development through a series of structured exercises. In adolescence, Saturnites are Parasitic -- meaning that in order to acquire stardust, they can only extract it from their loved ones through dysfunctional strategies.
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QUESTION FESTIVAL
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QUESTION FESTIVAL [11/13/2021]
a virtual festival featuring immersive, interactive, embodied workshops about life's biggest questions Each workshop is led by a different facilitator who will use deep play to guide participants through one vital question. Our questions will include: Are we there yet? What is happiness? Is your love bad medicine? What choices do we have in this play? What if our shadows could dance? Who are my other selves? What is attention? What’s happening right now? What is a question?
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PLAYING WITH WHAT
WE LOVE MOST
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PLAYING WITH WHAT WE LOVE MOST [FALL 2021]
Finding your passion isn't a serious business. It really is a risky play. What do you love the most? Have you given yourself to it, and if not, why? What dampens that fire? What is possible when it is sparked more? In this brand new month-long series, we will be playing with what we love the most. We will court them, play with them and likely be enthralled by what we found.
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CONTACT (MORE OR LESS)
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CONTACT (MORE OR LESS) [FALL 2021]
An experiment and an exploration of contact wanting more, wanting less, and playing with what’s actually already here in our own breathable bubbles. This playful, immersive, and also restful workshop will accompany participants through embodied awareness practices, contact improvisation scores for beginners, and experiments with social space as it intersects with the imagination, on a mercurial quest to reclaim our very own kind of contact with the life that is already here.
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LOVE GAMES
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LOVE GAMES [FALL 2021]
a 10 week workshop exploring romantic love using a variety of therapeutic, somatic, meditation, and pedagogical practices to structure our time together. This workshop will draw from a series of practices to help us deepen our questions, including Psychodrama, Process Work, Internal Family Systems therapy, Contact Improvisation, Tavistock Group Relations, and Theater of the Oppressed. These methods will aid us to move beyond analytical conversation into more embodied and experiential ways of learning and knowing.
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GAMES WE PLAY WITH OURSELVES
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GAMES WE PLAY WITH OURSELVES [FALL 2021]
Reveal your secret adult gameplay dynamics and – if you desire – re-envision your existential playbooks using the methods of Ludic Liberation Whatever happened to those childhood games of ours? In this 6-week workshop series for adults, we’ll consider the possibility that we didn’t just outgrow imaginative solo play; rather, we’ve adultified it – made it complicated, work-like, self-important. In fact, we played our games so well into this next level that we forgot that we were even playing. In the process, we also lost the most important rule of childhood play–the one that says that you can always change the rules.
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LAYERS
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LAYERS [10/23/2021]
a performance piece that playfully investigates the hidden layers of reality contained within the present moment The 'here and now' will be endlessly questioned and explored using a series of techniques drawn from: surrealist word games, free association, psychodrama, parts work, circling and experimental vocalizations. While this performance piece will contain a pre-fabricated structure, the content itself will be entirely improvised – as performers feel into the unique qualities of a given moment.
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CAULDRON
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THE CAULDRON [WINTER & FALL 2021]
A free, 3-month long, weekly, one-on-one, virtual event for playing with creative facilitation The Deep Play Institute’s “The Cauldron” is an opportunity to engage in this kind of living experiment by creating a one-on-one practice between yourself and another. Perhaps you are an artist with a relational, somatic or performative practice; how would your practice look when shifted into a one-on-one container? Perhaps you are a coach, therapist, counselor or facilitator; what ways are you curious to expand or modify your practice that aren’t possible with a paying client in need of a trusted method?
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EXISTENTIAL PLAYGROUND THE ROOM
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EXISTENTIAL PLAYGROUND #4 THE ROOM [07/10/2021]
a structured exercise in collaborative imagination via a series of verbal scores – Action, Sensation, Space. You are in the real world, in a real room. I am in the real world, in a real room. We both close our eyes and enter another space. Together, we illustrate our surroundings. Everything in this room is built through our words. Together, we build something outside ourselves that belongs to both of us. It’s surprisingly intimate to create a world for each other. In this world, limitless creative potential is tethered by accountability. This world is both a dream and an ecosystem. Everything is available but all choices must coexist with those that came before them. Each moment is idiosyncratic, emerging from the relationality between you and the others crafting this imaginary scene.
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GROUP
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GROUP [SPRING 2021]
a 2-month play laboratory aimed at exploring the big questions of self and other – what am I, who are you, and how does our togetherness shape us? GROUP will be led by Aaron Finbloom, who will hold the group (organizing openings/closures and comings/goings) as 8 facilitators from vastly diverse backgrounds will guide the group through relational exercises and creative togethering. Throughout the 2 months there will also be one-on-one sessions to process, integrate and reflect on the content brought up in GROUP. Participants with curiosity, openness and compassion from all backgrounds and experience-levels are encouraged to apply.
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SYLLACRUM
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SYLLACRUM [06/06/2021]
an immersive event playfully exploring our inner parts inside of a fictional world Why is Syllacrum? To playfully explore the mysterious unknowns of self and other. To use fiction and fantasy to play with inner parts and relational interactions that might otherwise feel unsafe. To learn about the importance of our inner parts and how they might serve us. To identify what our parts need from us to feel welcome in our everyday lives, our groups, and as citizens of the world. To explore how emotional needs play into political and historical trajectories. To explore nuances of how groups function in personal, relational, and political spheres
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EXISENTIAL PLAYGROUND W/HOLES
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EXISTENTIAL PLAYGROUND #3 W/HOLES [05/07/2021]
four ~40 minutes w/holes, orchestrated by a facilitator who will divide their w/hole into a series of holes. For this existential playground we will explore holes and wholes. How are holes wholes? Where are the holes inside our holes? When do we feel a hole or a whole? How are holes and wholes mixed and intermixed? How does language make holes whole again? Are holes holy? We’re thinking about: shadow integration, holes in crocheted doilies making fractal patterns which reveal the whole, black holes (that which sucks in all things), and even arse holes (in the existential sense).
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DEVELOPMENTAL TRANSFORMATIONS
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DEVELOPMENTAL TRANSFORMATIONS WORKSHOPS [SPRING 2021]
a playful, embodied method that increases spontaneity and creativity as well as improving one's ability to relate with others. DvT is based on the principle that all life is unstable and instead of trying to create a false impression of stability, we practice going with the flow and embrace the instability of being. DvT can be used for both therapeutic and life practice purposes.
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EXISTENTIAL PLAYGROUND CHARACTERS
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EXISTENTIAL PLAYGROUND #2 CHARACTERS [03/06/2021]
a formidable adventure into our inner worlds through the construction of a character devised from a few of our inner parts. For our event the fictional world we will construct and enter into will be the following: You are one member of a group of participants who have been solicited by the United States government to brainstorm a brand new adult education program designed to increase emotional intelligence. This program will be mandatory for all adult citizens and so your participation is vital. Through a series of intimate structured encounters with the other participants you will help construct a world that makes more space for people like you.
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EXISTENTIAL PLAYGROUND PARTS
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EXISTENTIAL PLAYGROUND #1 PARTS [11/21/2020]
a 4-part playground devoted to the exploration of our inner parts After a short parts mapping introductory exercise, a handful of facilitators will offer workshops for us to participate in – as our parts. As we play, some of the questions that will most likely frame our playground are: What are my parts? What are your parts? Do they get along? Should they get along? How should they get along? What does that getting along look like? Is “getting along” an authentic mode of relating?
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