This is an exciting four day workshop culminating in an improvisational performance with workshop participants & invited guests. This retreat provides a method & venue for persons of diverse ages, races, cultural background and religious orientation to connect and collaborate using movement, rhythm, song, story and stillness.

Using the improvisational forms and principles of InterPlay, participants have an opportunity to access their own creativity, celebrate and affirm each person’s uniqueness, while creating communal pieces of folk art. Participants will learn to create stories, sing songs and move to music in solo''s, duets and in group pieces.

InterPlay is a set of forms, principles and practices for exploring individual and collective creativity. Created by Cynthia Winton-Henry and Phil Porter through their 25 year collaboration, InterPlay is practiced in over 40 cities on four continents. InterPlay is used in classrooms, churches, prisons, corporate boardrooms, clinics and rehabilitation centers with people of all ages.

Your guide, Masankho Banda is originally from Malawi Africa, and now lives in Oakland CA. He is a member of the Wing It Performance Ensemble, and travels internationally using African dance and story telling and InterPlay with refugee children in war zones and detention centers, at peace conferences in Barcelona and Bali, and throughout the U.S. He is on the faculty of Holy Names College and JF Kennedy University in Oakland. He is a recipient of a peacemaker award from the Dali Lama for his work internationally towards the cause of peace.

For more information about Masankho please visit http://www.ucandanc.org