Move with InterPlay: An Interview with Cynthia Winton-Henry
August 19th, 2009
This week I had the honor of speaking with Cynthia Winton-Henry, co-founder of InterPlay. I was introduced to Cynthia and InterPlay by the lovely Gretchen Wegner, and I was immediately fascinated by the process.
InterPlay fits so well with the Creative Every Day Challenge theme of move this month because it's all about unlocking the wisdom of your body through movement, stories, and interacting with community. Plus, it involves some of my favorite things: play and permission.
I spoke with Cynthia about how movement impacts creativity, what an InterPlay class is like, and she shared a simple InterPlay exercise we can all try during this month of movement! You can listen into the conversation below or right-click and save it to listen to later.
You can find out more about Cynthia, InterPlay, and find an InterPlay class near you right here.
Did you try out the exercise Cynthia suggested? What did you think of it? To learn more and see someone else do it, check out this post and video over at Gretchen's blog.
How does consciously moving your body impact your creativity?
9 Responses
Great interview, Leah! I first encountered Cynthia years ago when she came to do a workshop for the TCU dance department. Then, I took a workshop from her a few years ago in Dallas. Being an old modern dancer, I love all things related to MOVING and PLAYING! There is so much wisdom our bodies can express to us.
Posted by: Silky Hart | Aug 19, 2009 at 12:52 pm |
Leah,
I recently “discovered” Gretchen and am a subscriber to her blog. Loved the hand dance.
xoxo
Posted by: Vicki | Aug 19, 2009 at 3:17 pm |
Am enjoying listening to your conversation with Cynthia. I had the pleasure of meeting her here in Oakland at InterPlayce. Very cool stuff!
Posted by: Jennifer Lee | Aug 19, 2009 at 6:58 pm |
Leah, I loved listening to your interview with Cynthia……. what a lovely engaged and natural sounding interview style you have…enjoy that very much.
I’m fascinated by the whole physical thing and how it affects creativity.
And also thank you for the link to Gretchen.
I neglect my body so much and laughed out loud at Gretchen’s post where her body is trying to persuade her to stretch it. My body doesn’t make requests of me and so I almost entirely put it’s needs last.
If I saw the link more clearly to it serving the creative side I might just listen to it and find it’s hoarse with asking but I’d not been listening.
Posted by: Pauline Esson | Aug 20, 2009 at 8:34 am |
Creativity and the physical activity aspect is fascinating stuff. So glad to see this coming into focus!
Posted by: Barbara Martin (@Reptitude) | Aug 20, 2009 at 3:20 pm |
Thanks for this awesome interview Leah. And thanks for introducing me to Cynthia and her work, because I completely dig it. I want to go to one of her events!
The connection between movement and creativity is one that’s become increasingly clear to me over the last few years. One of the things I’ve learned from hanging out with indigenous people is that they keep their energy flowing by moving – dancing, clapping, jumping up and down, running around.
So if I’m feeling stuck – with a painting, with a conversation, with life – I try to remember to get up and move. It’s crazy helpful and it gets everything moving for me.
My nature is to sit and think when I’m stuck, which is rarely as helpful as dancing like a kooky pook for a few minutes. So I’m trying to learn new habits. Slowly, slowly.
Thanks again for this interview!
Posted by: Fabeku | Aug 21, 2009 at 3:28 pm |
Hi Leah,
We are all drawn to simple – if someone can just provide the structure and let us modify it from there. That’s me, I love to learn structure!
I am definitely learning more about me – through you Leah, and I can’t thank you enough.
I loved the exercise, I’ll be implementing that! As soon as I opened my arms, I felt like I was inviting inspiration into my life. I could actually hear music when I did the last exercise – smooth, rapid, jerky. (oops, was that the month of sound intruding?)
Gosh, I love this. I love you. Thanks for sharing this with us.
Kerry.
Posted by: Kerry | Aug 22, 2009 at 4:20 am |
Another fascinating interview….there is so much to learn about fostering creativity! Thank you for opening my eyes to all these possibilities.
Posted by: Gina | Aug 24, 2009 at 1:11 am |
[...] MuseCubes Ease You From Constriction to Spaciousness The way we are in our bodies moves us from constriction to openness and spaciousness. If I want to have an open mind, it is helpful to start from a place of movement. It’s the fastest way to do it. … This is one of the reasons I love Gretchen’s MuseCubes. I find that I have to roll the dice three times to get myself over the hump of being self conscious about it. That self consciousness is a constricted, narrow, self evaluating (and other evaluating) way of being. (Listen to the whole interview with Leah Piken Kolidas here). [...]
Posted by: MuseCubes in the Blogosphere « Gretchen Wegner | Aug 28, 2009 at 3:13 pm |