BIPOC RETREAT: a BIPOC centered space where we celebrate our Ancestors + each other

Cosmic InterPlay: A BIPOC Family ReUnion

Come for connection, renewal, celebration and play!
Kira Allen, Ade Anifowose, Masankho Banda, Coke Tani, Marla Durden, Janice Eng, Wai-Chin Matsuoka, Theresa Cunningham, Monisha Mittal, Maria Garcia, Leah Mann, and Carolyn Renée

ONLINE

Friday, June 10 - Sunday, June 12, 2022

Hey BIPOC InterPlay Fam!

You are cordially invited to join us for a Cosmic InterPlay BIPOC Family ReUnion!

Join us for a weekend of play, story, learning and connection as we celebrate our birthright practices, ancestors and each other.

We’ll start by remembering our birthrights; continue by reclaiming & celebrating the power of our connections; and complete by connecting & sharing our Soul’s gifts with InterPlay.

And, expect some of the usual fun things we enjoy at a family reunion… stories of the good ole’ days and wisdom-sharing from our elders; Saturday night party w/ talent show, sharing of recipes… for delicious food, InterPlay, a happy life + more.

Grab your BIPOC InterPlay friends, bring your favorite dish and join us for some truly cosmic play, connection + BIPOC family love.

  • Remembering Our Birthrights w/Theresa Cunningham + Monisha Mittal
  • Reclaiming + Celebrating the Power of Our Connections w/ Leah Mann + Carolyn Renèe
  • Connecting + Sharing Our Soul’s Gifts with InterPlay w/ Darius Burroughs, Wai-Chin Matsuoka + Maria Garcia

GATHERING INCLUDES:

  • Guided InterPlay Sessions
  • Group Focus Sessions
  • Daily Trauma/Emotion Monitors
  • Elder's Table and Wisdom Sharing
  • Honoring of the Ancestors + each other
  • WORKSHOPS + open space
  • Dinner Party w/ show + tell
  • Talent Show + Celebration

PLUS MORE TO COME!

Take a look at the tentative schedule here...



Retreat Directors: Marla Durden + Kira Allen

Registration/Payment

The payment button will also get you registered.


Pay What You Can: $75 - $150

*scholarships + payment plans available. Email Marla for options.

Registration Options
Note for office?

Cost: $75-$150 sliding scal / No one turned away for lack of funds

Registration/Information: Body Wisdom (510/465-2797) or info@interplay.org

Venue

Online Untensives

ONLINE
Leaders
Kira Allen
This Certified InterPlay leader is an author, collage artist, activist, advocate, and facilitator who specializes in working with Black, Indigenous, People of Color and Queer communities. She holds an M.A. in Transformative Arts from John F. Kennedy University, and a B.A. in English/Creative Writing from Mills College. Bearing witness to her own traumas and triumphs through a wide variety of modalities inspires her work with participants of all ages in: classrooms, homeless shelters, churches, non-profits and intimate circles inside people’s homes. Ms. Kira cultivates sacred creative spaces invoking all her experiences to empower marginalized communities. Her poetic memoir, Write This Second, was republished in April of 2019 and can be ordered through any local independent bookstore.
Ade Anifowose

Ade is a Certified InterPlay Leader, Mindset Coach. Intuitive Healer and Podcaster. For over 25 years, Ade has devoted his life to being both a student and teacher of ancient wisdom. He is known for his optimism and ability to put people at ease while tapping into the inner wisdom of the soul. His unique approach opens the minds of his clients so they can more easily and effectively approach life head-on and find the help and answers they seek.

Ade is a lover of humanity who is passionate about creating outstanding new and unique gifts of healing for the world. Grounded in universal principles and healing arts, he uses his podcast, interactive playshops, storytelling, the arts, sacred drumming, and social media, to supports people in shifting their consciousness. Ade has a deep passion for helping people to connect with their unique sense of self and is dedicated to inspiring people to live from the confidence of their truest self.

Masankho Banda

Masankho is a multi - disciplinary Performing Artist, Certified InterPlay Leader, Educator and PeaceBuilder. He brings many unique perspectives to his work around the world. He learned the fine arts of storytelling and dance from his Malawian culture spending many long days and nights listening to stories and dancing to music that captivated his mind, shaped his being, nourished his soul and strengthened his spirit. Using performing arts Masankho motivates and inspires people of all ages to work together to bring about peace, social justice and cultural understanding. In 1997, he started UCanDanc—African Healing Arts to bring his passion for dance and storytelling to communities around the world. Masankho has been a Certified InterPlay Leader since 1999.

Masankho can also be reached at these phone numbers: +265 99 255 5338 or 88 113 8655 (available on Whatsapp / FaceTime)

Also: Skype : kamsisi
Facebook / Twitter: storytelling4u

Coke Tani
Coke is a body memoirist, dancer, soul care provider, and teacher/facilitator. Coke has co-led InterPlay's Life Practice and Leader Training Programs, and served as InterPlay's Liaison to Leaders of Color. Currently, she leads InterPlay in a variety of in-person and online settings, and mentors leaders-in-training. She also offers private 1:1 focus sessions (aka embodied spiritual direction), valuing all the ways this practice decolonizes the ways we know and live. She serves InterPlay's Racial Equity & Transformation efforts through its Culture & Curriculum Pod and its Advisory Council. In former years, Coke was a community-based therapist, solo performer, and Wing It! ensemble member.
Marla Durden
Marla came to InterPlay at the end of 2016 and has never stopped playing. She immediately began performing and was certified as a leader in May 2021. Marla is an alchemist, artist, energy shaman and coach who uses her gifts to create experiences that support personal empowerment, healing and transformation.
Janice Eng
As a massage therapist for over 30 years, Janice became aware of the stories, emotions, unexpressed truths, and trauma that people can store in their bodies. When she was introduced to Interplay, she found it to be a unique, fun and empowering way for people to unravel and access these stories the body's wisdom. We are bodies in motion, bodies in relationship, and bodies in community. We have a spatial and kinesthetic intelligence that informs our inner knowing. Interplay is a creative, un-intrusive, and affirming way to process and explore what is true for oneself and for what is possible. Janice has taught Nonviolent Communication in the community for over 20 years, 10 of which she also taught in Washington State prisons, through an organization she helped found, the Freedom Project. She facilitates restorative circles in organizations through A Center for Restorative Solutions. Janice has a passion for racial equity and transformation and served as part of the Interplay Racial Equity Team for two years and the Conflict Resolution team for one year. For the last two years Janice has been working with substance use disorders and uses Interplay practices in all of her workshops.
Wai-Chin Matsuoka

Wai-Chin is Singaporean Chinese, who was transplanted to the U.S.A. 35 years ago when she came to do her graduate studies, and met her American-Japanese husband.


She’s a spiritual director who comes alive whenever there’s an opportunity to midwife what’s ready to be birthed. She’s particularly experienced in bringing forth new life from the ashes of change and transition. Mentored and credentialed as an Ensoulment Coach, and a certified InterPlay leader, Wai-Chin loves to weave spirituality, somatic practices, soul-tending and InterPlay tools and forms into a tapestry of Love and Play. She especially enjoys shaping these tapestries into retreats, ongoing Body Wisdom Playgroup, and soul care workshops specifically for social reform activists.

Theresa Cunningham
Theresa Cunningham is an award-winning actor, singer, dancer, director, and teaching artist who does math for fun. A Certified Interplay Leader, she believes in the power of play as a tool for exploration, healing, and community.
Monisha Mittal
Monisha Mittal is Certfied Leader (CL) and Life Practice Program Leader (LPL) in the Washington DC region. Since 2018, InterPlay and a regular Dance Chapel practice has been an integral part of her Being and Becoming. She proudly served as a Dance Chaplain for four years since the pandemic which turned her into a poetry addict and spawned her Poetic Revelations writing series (now named: The (tiny) Voice of Big Love). Now a Somatic Coach and Play Architect, she holds sacred space for others to tune into their Body Wisdom in one-on-one sessions, classes, and courses through her Center for Somatic Leadership and Communication. She is grateful to InterPlay for awakening her authenticity, for the exponential connection and laughter its given her, and for supporting her daily recovery as a recovering overachiever.
Maria Garcia
Leah Mann

Leah Mann (she, they) is a dancer, choreographer, somatic practitioner, and arts educator, focusing on embodied social justice. They are Co-Director of Lelavision", a performance and production company based on Vashon Island, WA, that combines kinetic sculpture, dance and music. Leah is Artistic Director Emeritus of Moving in the Spirit, a youth mentorship, urban outreach program, utilizing the praxis of dance to develop life skills (Atlanta, GA). Through their kinetic learning style, they work to cultivate community through the common denominators of the human experience.   Most recently they have been facilitating movement, music, and play with medically fragile youth, Muslim immigrants, and pregnant people in recovery. They are in an ongoing science-art collaboration with Morehouse College / Andrew Young Center for Global Leadership focusing on wellness and healthy ecosystems micro to macro.  Leah has been InterPlaying since its inception!!

Carolyn Renée
Carolyn Renée Morris, also known as “Carolyn Renée,” is a Naturopathic Wellness Practitioner and former faculty member at A Life Of Peace Wellness Education Institute, an accredited school by the American Association of Drugless Practitioners. As a Certified InterPlay Leader, Yoga Instructor, and Teaching Artist, she part-time teaches yoga at the YMCA and co-directs an InterPlay performance group. Through her work, she aims to unite communities at the intersection of the healing and creative arts, finding fulfillment in collaborating globally on art-infused projects that incorporate healing modalities.

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