Root to the Bone - May 2025 Online

InterPlay BIPOC Untensive 2025
Masankho Banda, Natalie Abdou, Carolyn Renée, Sacil Armstrong, and Josefina V Gabuya

ONLINE

May 16-18, 2025

Since 2017, the InterPlay BIPOC Community has been hosting bi-annual retreats. In 2021, we began hosting BIPOC Untensives online in the in-betweens. This year being a between year, we are excited to announce an online InterPlay BIPOC Untensive - Root to the Bone. We are excited to be in community and play together as siblings between May 16-18, 2025.

Root to the Bone will be a chance to re-connect, re-affirm & re-source our body spirits personally and collectively. As playmate natty has stated, “source and fill our cups from the various lineages of body wisdom that make up our collective cosmology. We are in a potent time for guidance from our diverse, powerful collective root systems.”

We now stand at the turning point of two eras, behind us is a past for which we can never re-turn.There’s no going back and no super s/hero coming to save the day. We truly are the ones we have been waiting for, as June Jordan invokes. It’s up to each of us to be present, receptive to meaningful signs and move with kindness, compassion, courage and forgiveness. The little things that we do now - from the inside-out within ourselves, our families and communities - are going to add up to the big sweeping positive social transformations we seek. What a wild and blessed time to be alive and emboldened!

Come root down to the bone and re-fresh, re-new, re-determine the re-evolution. This year’s Untensive is grounded in an ethos of “less is more” with focused online time in balance with offline invitations and explorations. We know that attuning to our ancestral, ancient and indigenous way of knowing asks for time to connect to earth, ether and elders. So with this in mind and heart, we will play online and offline, coming back together to share and harvest from our wider adventuring and sensing.


Registration

We would LOVE for you to join us and bring your genius for the sharing. This gathering is “come as you can” and pay what you can. Your participation is a gift. (Register with one of the Pay Now buttons below.)


Connect With Us

Your eager and excited hosting team includes Masankho Banda, Carolyn Renée, Sacil Armstrong, Jojo Gabuya & natty abdou. Please feel free to reach out to natalie.abdou@gmail.com or carolynrenee1@gmail.com with any questions, suggestions or requests!


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Cost: $300 value - Pay what you can!

Registration/Information: natalie.abdou@gmail.com or carolynrenee1@gmail.com

Venue

Online Classes

ONLINE
Leaders
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

Natalie Abdou
I have been on a life-long journey of curiosity and creativity, and have spent the last 10+ years connecting and collaborating with diverse communities, in North America and the Middle East, by co-creating learning environments that are founded upon shared values of diversity, love, respect and self-empowerment - embracing a vision of solidarity, social justice and change from the inside-out. I weave in elements of embodied wisdom, Theatre of the Oppressed and other visual/movement/story arts into my practice and see/feel the arts as portals for personal and collective transformation, providing space for our souls to dance, breathe, heal and unleash the deep wisdom that resides within. That is why my heart exploded with resonance and childlike joy when I came into connection with Interplay in 2015 - since then I have had the gift of mentorship and leadership within the Arts & Social Change program, of mentoring alongside Cathy Ann in the Life Practice Program, and co-creating with Interplay POC community as we explore and better understand the ways in which this diverse unique group body plays. I feel deep gratitude for the way in which InterPlay has danced its way into my life bringing with it so many quirks and magic.
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.
Sacil Armstrong

For nearly thirty years, Sacil (Suh-SEEL) Armstrong has combined facts, self-care, respect, and embodied practices to guide people through tough discussions on topics like racism and oppression, so InterPlay was a natural fit. Her focus on mental/emotional wellness first helps clients get out of their heads and into their bodies so they can actively listen, accept facts they might otherwise avoid, and embrace personal change to support human rights.

Her roles in marketing for a regional science museum, public relations and adult programming for a library system, and leading a grassroots movement to reduce violent crime in a low-income, high crime “neighborhood” of 30,000 people prepared her for her current deep community and one-on-one engagements. As an award-winning facilitator, community program creator, Certified InterPlay Leader, and InterPlay’s Racial Equity and Transformation Director, she supports clients as they learn to connect with themselves, one another, and information in ways that reshape their thinking, beliefs, and behavior.

Sacil loves music, art, and laughter to set the mood for learning and transformation. She is a Certified Zentangle Teacher, and often combines abstract art as meditation with her social justice work.

Sacil is the founder of the Everyday Activism Habit, a membership community designed to heal with self-care, build confidence with knowledge, and stretch your comfort zone to stand against oppression. Learning and growing in community reminds us we’re not alone.

IG, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook: @TheRealSacil
Josefina V Gabuya
Rev. Jojo V. Gabuya (they, them, their), MA, MDiv, is a Pastoral Care Provider, Campus Minister, Certified InterPlay Leader, Social Justice Activist, Happiness and Well-being Coach, and Gluten-free & Vegan Chef. They has been immersing their passion for InterPlay into their life and work. Last Fall Semester 2024, Rev. Jojo wrote a paper, Empowering and Healing Formerly Incarcerated Melanin-Dominant Women Through InterPlay, for their Liberation Psychology class. Rev. Jojo is a member of the Trans Faith and Action Network (TFAAN) where they used InterPlay and other mindfulness practices in facilitating workshops, such as Transforming Oneself and Society: A Holistic Approach (Durham, NC; 2024), Integrating Body, Heart, Mind, and Spirit Through InterPlay (Durham, NC; 2023), and Loving Yourself, Living Life Fully, and Finding Your Rhythm of Compassion (Charlotte, NC; 2018). And in 2023, Rev. Jojo co-facilitated Body Wisdom’s Elemental Magic: To Amplify BIPOC Body Wisdom.

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