Leaders

Ingrid has been InterPlaying since 1994 and has been a Certified InterPlay Leader since 1997. She co-created and led the InterPlay Seattle community with Krista Harris for many years. She re-located to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2013, where she has been a Creative Dance & Music teacher for young children and families and a loving caregiver/support for a number of babies and their families. When the coronavirus descended upon the world in mid-March 2020, her work as a teacher and caregiver abruptly ended and she has had the time to reflect, explore visual art and continue to InterPlay with colleagues online on Zoom!

Sharie Bowman, MA, LMHC is a Mental Health Counselor and also InterPlay's Regional Coordinator for the Pacific Northwest.  In 2006, Sharie completed her training as an InterPlay leader and also received her degree in mental health counseling, so InterPlay and counseling have been woven together in her bodyspirit from the start.  She finds InterPlay to be foundational in building and maintaining her personal resilience, as well supporting her work with clients.  In her private practice she regularly weaves InterPlay’s life-enhancing forms and philosophies with counseling wisdom to help individuals and families thrive.

Prior to 2006, Sharie worked as a high school math teacher and found InterPlay to be the best Teacher Training she ever received.  The improvisational skills that she developed immediately brought more play, creativity, and expression to her teaching as well as to classroom management.

Now Sharie finds great joy in bringing her organizational and instructional skills to the InterPlay classroom, and she often leads the foundational InterPlay Life Practice Program and mentors new leaders. She relishes sharing the joy of InterPlay far and wide, and supporting each participant in integrating InterPlay into their own lives!

Deanna Murray discovered more than ten years ago the value of InterPlay in her life as a woman, as a minister, and as a spiritual director. Deanna began participating in a weekly playgroup in Minneapolis. Since that time, she moved to the Seattle area and is now a graduate of the Seattle-based InterPlay Leadership Program. She says, "InterPlay is a life giving spiritual practice which brings me into the 'moment', opens me to a playful approach to life, and grounds me in my own body wisdom." Deanna has been playing with the tools of InterPlay since 1995, leading small and large groups, introducing movement and play in retreat settings, and inviting embodiment in worship. She is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, a spiritual director and a local pastor of a renewing congregation on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Often Deanna leads play groups at WomanSpirit, a lovely retreat center on Cougar Mountain in Issaquah, Washington.

Ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ in 1988 Laurie served as Pastor of Queen Anne Christian Church in Seattle from July 1991 through February 2017.

In 1995 she began leading InterPlay classes in Seattle. In 1997 she created SpiritPlay (melding InterPlay with worship forms and spiritual practice) for clergy, spiritual leaders and seekers. Since then she has taught Secrets of InterPlay and the InterPlay Leadership Program.

Laurie loves to write, weave, knit, sing, weed, sketch, read, and participate in Modern Western Square Dancing with the Puddletown Squares.

Now in retirement Laurie serves on the Board for the Grunewald Guild in Leavenworth, Washington, a center for the exploration of art, faith, and community. In addition to serving on the Board for the Guild she co-facilitates worship and a class for their Sacred Arts Week.

Kim is a licensed social worker who made it through grad school thanks to the support of an InterPlay group in Pennsylvania. She uses InterPlay forms in her work with clients, especially exformation between sessions! Exformation after a long day at work is life-saving for her, and a One Hand Dance is especially satisfying when she can't be with a group of InterPlayers. Kim is developing an InterPlay group on the North Olympic Peninsula.

Betsey Beckman, MM travels internationally and brings the tools of InterPlay wherever she goes - as dancer, storyteller, and spiritual director, as well as retreat, workshop and pilgrimage leader. With her extensive background in performance, movement therapy, ministry and InterPlay, she has often been featured as artist/presenter at national conventions as well as local churches. Betsey’s storydance series of DVDs feature riveting performances and include participatory InterPlay workshops to break open the scriptural stories with embodiment. She's become a fabulous video editor with four collections of dance prayer DVDs available through her collaboration with Abbey of the Arts. Betsey's co-authored book, Awakening the Creative Spirit: Bringing the Arts to Spiritual Direction, offers numerous InterPlay exercises for integrating into soul-care ministries. She has been leading SpiritPlay classes in the Seattle community for the past 20 plus years, and has been a member of the local InterPlay Sounding Board for most of those years as well. Betsey offers the gift of playful improvisation whenever possible!

Rev. Kawika (Ka-Vee-ka) Harold Costa first joined InterPlay in 2018 and loved it. As of Feb. 2024 he became a certified InterPlay Leader. He is also a licentiate minister with the Center for Spiritual Living and the President and Co-Artistic Director of Playback Theater Northwest since 1994. He rebuilt the entire troupe in 1996. He was born and raised in Hawaii and is a graduate of the University of Washington in Business Administration. He has been involved with theater since 1975 and his acting credits include many stage plays, movies and TV extra roles for Paramount, Warner Brothers, FOX and NBC. Kawika now lives in the Sandpoint area of Seattle and is known for his warm heart and Polynesian smile. Kawika is grateful to have two incredible children, two stepchildren and four grandchildren. He loves to build community and has a deep inclusive spiritual background. Kawika has already lead InterPlay in his travels to Hawaii and Egypt (Kemet). He plans to continue to combine both InterPlay and Playback in performances and private contract shows. He is also on the InterPlay Sounding Circle in Seattle and the Winkles in Time performance group. He also hopes to work with senior centers and wherever else Spirit leads him. In May, Kawika will be leading a Sunday InterPlay group online called “Awakening The Master Within” on the first Sunday of the month at 10:30 am PST. The first session will be on Sunday, May 5th. Contact him for Zoom link details at: RevKawika@gmail.com

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.

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.

Alive to the interconnectivity of all beings, I am humbled to play my part in the name of LOVE. YAY for INTERPLAY!! An InterPlayer since 2006, Joy Fry has been facilitating and teaching since 2011. Her practice is informed by her enjoyment of the visual arts and by her decades of work with children, both of which convinced her of the centrality of play in self-expression and self-knowledge. She particularly appreciates InterPlay's capacity to promote individual growth and community-building at the same time, deepening participants' understandings of themselves while connecting them to one another in truly meaningful ways. She looks forward to sharing new perspectives, fresh possibilities and the sheer sensory delight that InterPlay offers.

Krista loves moving and playing with people. She is a gifted teacher and master InterPlay leader who has a long history of inspiring people to find more joy, ease, and wisdom in being bodies. Krista has been leading InterPlay since 1993. She is one of the original InterPlay pioneers who helped create InterPlay communities and Life Practice Programs outside the Bay area. Krista has an M.F.A. in Dance and is certified in both Laban Movement Analysis and InterPlay. Authentic Movement, Insight Meditation and Shibashi QiGong also inform and enrich her life and work. Krista has been an advocate for both deepening the experience of stillness in InterPlay and for bringing more playfulness into her meditation communities. Along with other InterPlayers, Krista is beginning to explore how the InterPlay tools and forms can be used to support social action education and change. 2131 NW 93rd St Seattle, WA 98117 United States Email: kristaharris@comcast.net 206/784-8030

Elizabeth Mendana, MFA, is a member of the InterPlay-based Wing It! Performance Ensemble in Oakland, CA and is an international InterPlay leader and performer. She is versed in dance, theatre, and stage wisdom with a special gift for caring about people and art at the same time. The San Francisco Chronicle has called her dancing "Stunning" and "Hypnotic". She has performed with several San Francisco choreographers as well as presenting her own creative work with her company Mendana Productions. She has recently relocated to Seattle where she hopes to continue creating performance art, teach Pilates, and make a home.

Rev. Harriet Platts, MS, MDiv, MA is committed to nurturing relationships and spaces for curiosity, play, and reflection! She trained as an IP leader in Seattle with Krista Gemmell Harris and Rev. Laurie Rudel, in 2003 – 2004. She has co-led cohorts of the Seattle Life Practice program in 2013-2014, 2015-2016, and taught/led multiple InterPlay Class Playshops. Harriet brings a depth of life experience as a chaplain (Protestant), group facilitator, artist, and teacher. By applying the InterPlay forms in diverse settings like team meetings and faith-based retreats, she continues to witness unfolding gifts of connection to the natural landscape of body, voice and spirit. She is a QUEST-ioning soul, always venturing aloud with her ‘wonderings,’ and generously offers an attentive, steadied, vivid presence with whomever she’s connected.

Diana is a freelance theatre artist based in Seattle WA. An award-winning director, Diana specializes in InterPlay for Performance, and has taught classes and workshops in Performance Techniques, InterPlay Storytelling and Speech-making, and InterPlay for Personal Discovery. She is a gifted InterPlay story-teller who performs Big Body Stories wherever the opportunity presents itself.

Lori VanderBilt enjoys the way Interplay helps her be more playful and lighthearted. As a leader, she finds that Interplay’s engaging improvisational forms, using movement, storytelling, and voice, and its body wisdom tools help people explore new ways of being and of connecting more deeply with their own wisdom. This inspires people to have more of the life they want. Lori is excited about offering other therapists and helping professionals the opportunity to unlock the wisdom of their bodies while supporting them in their personal and professional lives. Lori also enjoys teaching SpiritPlay--a playing with liturgical seasons, forms of worship and prayer, and spiritual practice. For 20 years, Lori worked as a counselor integrating spirituality into the work with her clients. Lori also loves to walk, and has practiced yoga for many years.

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!!

Theron has been involved with InterPlay since about 2003, first in Seattle, WA and later in Oakland, CA as a member of the WingIt! Performance Ensemble. Back in the day, he performed as a modern dancer, aerialist, musician, actor and improviser. Now he occasionally plays one of his flutes with his toddler son Solomon.

Theron serves as Director of Development for InterPlay, coordinating fundraising and friendraising efforts throughout the InterPlay community. He loves fundraising because it’s a place where head, heart, community and action all intersect. He has worked in non-profit administration and fundraising since 1995, holds a Master’s degree in Public Affairs, and is a Certified Fundraising Executive.

Theron Shaw is also founder and principal of Theron Shaw Fundraising, where he helps non-profits with fundraising strategy and major gifts.

He lives with his wife Elizabeth, his son Solomon and their dog Bear on Vashon Island, near Seattle, Washington.