At The Deep Play Institute we believe that play can be deep, profound, serious, heavy, challenging and intense. But sometimes, the weightiest of weights don’t want to be played with. It might feel like the last thing in the world you are able to is reflect, let alone bring levity, creativity, or play. What do we do then? Join the DPI Team as we take you on a 6 week journey through a variety of playful practices that offer ways to find play in the most unplayful of moods. 

Classes will meet Jan 14th until Feb 18th on zoom, on Sundays from 2-4pm EST (or 11am-1pm PST, or 7-9pm GMT). Participants must sign up for the entire series. Classes will be recorded, so if you can’t attend one you can still watch the recording. See below for our list of classes and facilitators. ​ 

Cost is by donation, taking inspiration from the dana practice in Buddhist monastic settings. We believe that this play is deeply important and liberatory, and offer the series as an act of service towards collective healing and transcendence. Please give what you can and find appropriate to support our organization and skillful facilitators, and we welcome you regardless of that number.

SCHEDULE OF CLASSES

1/14

Introductions: Grab Bags of Technique Party Favors

Aaron Finbloom

Welcome to our series! We’ll introduce ourselves, Aaron will say some words about the series and its guiding philosophies and methods, we’ll go over some agreements and do some more ice-breaker party games together. The bulk of our time during this first session will then be a kind of grab bag of different techniques to help with play and lightness. These include: breathing exercises, movement exercises, free association games, and psychodramatic roleplay. The underlying ethos is that any given technique doesn’t work all the time, and so we have to play around with which technique within a given context will yield lightness and play.

Bio: Aaron Finbloom is a philosopher, artist and pedagogue. He is the co-founder of The School of Making Thinking (SMT) and the director of The Deep Play Institute (DPI). His life work (and play) involves expanding transformative inquiry practice through games, performance art and conversation scores. Aaron has training in Circling, Psychodrama, and Processwork and holds a PhD in relational practice from Concordia University in Montreal.

1/21

Cartoon Assistance for Inner Landscape Travel

Christie Animas

Our inner experiences and our relationships to the world are impacted by layers of ideas and automatic responses. These have the potential to create tensions, stickiness and separation. In this workshop, Christie will lead the participant through a step by step exploration of their inner dynamics in challenging situations to help undo these automatic tensions and stucknesses. This exploration will involve subtle tracking of sensory changes in the body and playing with those sensations alongside natural images or childhood cartoons characters.

Bio: Christie is a playful human researcher exploring consciousness through embodiment, parts work and play. She is a Voice Dialogue therapist and Fool Expression Workshop Facilitator, trained in Body Informed Leadership. She works 1:1 with clients and offers group workshop in the UK and Europe.

1/28

The Not-Okay Interview: a Psychodramatic Game for When You DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT

Netta Sadovsky

Parts or sides of you that are struggling and Not Okay; DON’T WANT TO TALK!; perhaps LIVID! or despondent; will have a chance to speak to an interlocutor of their choice: maybe a clueless father, an indifferent stone, a well meaning toddler. These conversations will take place privately, between you and you, and you will be guided through each step. We will spend the bulk of our time in these private interviews, either through journaling or speaking/embodiment. We will warm up with meditation and movement, and will end with time for collective reflection and questions.

Bio: Netta (they/she) is a therapist and artist living in Philadelphia. They organize gatherings at the intersections of therapeutic, meditative, and creative practices through their role as Assistant Director at the Deep Play Institute. Netta has a Master’s in Social Work and Social Practice from Bryn Mawr, Level 1 training in Internal Family Systems, and an MFA in visual art from Tyler School of Art.

2/4

Inviting our monsters to dance

Anna Costa e Silva

“Inviting our monsters to dance” is a workshop in which we will get in contact with our shadows and fears in a playful way. Starting as a big group and then moving on to one on one connection, this workshop will exercise an empathic feel towards our monsters, our parts and one another. Drawing, fictionalizing and dancing will be our paths to lighter and ludic ways of looking at some of our masks. This is a profound work that happens in a playful manner.

Bio: Anna Costa e Silva (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) is a visual artist, performer, teacher and therapist. Her practice derives from constructed situations between people and exists in a hybrid space between art, life and clinic. Has shown her work in museums, galleries and film festivals, among them the 13th Mercosul Biennial, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival and Art in odd places, NY. Teaches ArtLife Practices at Parque Lage Visual Arts School.

2/11

Playing with Falling in Love

Indigo Esmonde

For some of us, falling in love is difficult and terrifying. I spent the fall of 2023 trying to fall in love with as many people as possible, with mixed success. In this workshop, I'll share some of my strategies and experiments, and we'll practice on each other. Please come to this workshop if you're open to falling in love with a zoom room of strangers.

Bio: Indigo Esmonde is an artist and songwriter living in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. In their most recent project, Indigo tried to become the god of their local karaoke night. You can find their work at daydreamsandassociates.com. Indigo has been described as 'brilliant and terrifying,' 'naive,' 'an acquired taste,' 'a bit overbearing,' 'the best at throwing online parties' and 'lives on their own planet.'

2/18

Hold On Tightly, Let Go Lightly*

Natalia Stroika

Nothing is permanent yet we grow attached. Attachment is the root of all suffering, yet losing what we love causes us terrible pain. Can bravely playing with holding on and letting go help us tolerate loss and change with more courage and grace? In this session, we will use guided meditation, playful ritual, and original ludic liberation games to explore when an attachment is ready to be released, how to integrate its lesson and to welcome the opportunity it leaves in its wake.

Bio: Natalia Stroika is an Existential Game Maker/Destroyer. She is the creator of Ludic Liberation, a practice of collective play aimed at revealing & releasing our internalized limitations. You can join a monthly Ludic Liberation Lab to help R&D new liberatory game mechanics, read The Lab Report of past experimental results and existential game theory, or work with Natalia directly on tuning up or redesigning your Personal Existential Game (PEG).

*This class will not be recorded