The Deep Play Institute Presents: Deep Play Immersion (Spring 2022). What are the hidden rules that govern our togetherness? How can we change these rules to make us more curious, more connected, more aware? How can changing these rules together bring us deeper into the infinite, playful inquiry of life? This 3-day intensive will guide participants through existential games, conversation scores, and immersive performances inspired by: psychodrama, internal family systems therapy, authentic relating, nonviolent communication, circling, social art practices, experimental theatre, LARPs, and surrealist and fluxus art. Our collective goal is to remap the rules of our togetherness, to play with new ways of being, and create new structures for being together that allow us to talk, think and feel differently – i.e. to play deeply with the rules of life.
Location: Burning Spirits Yoga, Portland, OR. Price: Sliding scale $200-400 | BIPOC $200 Max Number of Participants: 12 |
6-9pm
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Opening Circle, Container Setting, Agreements, Subtext Game
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10am-1pm
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Circling & [ ] We will learn and quickly dive into the authentic relating practice of Circling, often described as a group relational meditation. Then we will adapt the form using a method called Kabuki Circling, where participants are given guided dialogical instructions to deepen engagement. And finally we will create our own conversation rules, breaking and playing with the codified structures embedded into the practice of Circling.
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1pm-2pm
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LUNCH BREAK
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2pm-5pm
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Psychodrama & [ ] This segment will begin by performing a Psychodrama, an action therapy method developed by Jacob Moreno in the early 1920s that will involve using role play and embodiment to explore inter/intra-personal facets of one participant's reality using the entire group as auxiliaries. Then we will play with some of the components of psychodrama (including: doubling, mirroring, role reversals) in a more fluid structure of our own devising.
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10am-1pm
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Parts Work & [ ] We will begin with a guided audio meditation inspired by Richard Schwartz's Internal Family Systems Therapy. This will help us begin to map the landscape of our inner parts. After a more involved embodied warmup, where we delve deeper into a part of our choosing, we will then play a modified improv "freeze" game that brings us into rapid-fire dialogue with the group via our inner parts.
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1pm-2pm
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LUNCH BREAK
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2pm-5pm
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Playing with Forms (Conductor). Now having dipped our feet and toes into a handful of deep play practices, we will begin devising our own deep play structures inspired by these practices. The first method we will use to create these adaptations is a game called "Conductor" where participants take turns being the conductor of the group's experience, leading us through gestures, words, sounds, and dialogue.
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10am-1pm
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Playing with Forms (Re-re make) Inspired by Matthew Goulish's work with Goat Island Performance Group, we will break into two groups, and each group will devise a long form deep play structure. Then each group will revise the other group's structure changing aesthetic, stylistic and methodological components.
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1pm-2pm
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LUNCH BREAK
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2pm-5pm
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Closing Circle, Dreaming-Visioning, Gratitude
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Aaron Finbloom (Director)
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. finblooming.com |