Dallas, Texas October 2019

Hello My Friends,

We are holding our Texas DCFacilitators Playshop in the Choral Hall at the Owen Arts Center in the heart of the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas. The hall has great acoustics for our drum circle, and with eight professional musicians and a healthy number of Challenge Graduates in our Playshop population, the musicality of this program has been exceptional.

John Yost from Chicago and Matthew Kline from Dallas were my two Train-The-Trainers (TTT), Protégé scheduled for this particular 3-day DCFacilitators Playshop held in Dallas Texas. Matthew put this one together, and his hosting of the program was flawless. Having us eat at the venue saved hours of time that we put to use in facilitation practice. Jamie Artman & Jenny Hainen were our logistical people who took care of a hundred things that we did not have to worry about.

Just like in a drum circle, we three trainers started out as individual facilitators, moved quickly into a group of trainers and evolved smoothly into a training ensemble. We three “Facilities” had a lot of fun sharing the responsibility of this Playshop training, and we learned equally from each other as much as the Playshop students learned from us. As a result of this successful event, I will see both John and Matthew in our VMC Playshop Trainer Certification at Prescott Arizona, with Jim Boneau in February, just before the DCFG Conference.

Our fantastic group of Playshop Graduates; John Currie - San Antonio, Mike Deaton - Harrisonburg Virginia, John Fitzgerald - Los Angels, Jamie Artman - Dearborn Michigan, Mary Oliver - Austin Texas, and Jenny Hainen - Kirby Arkansas, did the “Challenge” part of the course. By playing at the edge of their knowledge and experience, they taught the Basic students new and sophisticated ways to use the simple facilitation techniques they had just learned.

The Playshop program moved through the VMC teaching protocol so fast that we had extra time to hold “Rhythm Church” at the end of our Saturday night late night. AND we topped the night off with a Gong sound bath given to us by Sabrina Walker. We all had nice dreams afterwards!

As usual, Sunday was dedicated to Musicality, drum circle games, critiqued DCFacilitation practice, and preparation for the community drum circle.

Our closing family-friendly drum circle was fat and juicy, with lots of volume dynamics, as well as creative and entertaining facilitation sequences.

Matthew had brought his diverse rhythm community together for this. The event lasted its full hour and a half, with enough time for the Playshop students to roady, clean up, and have a circle sit-down to process our DC learning experiences.

My Playshop tour ball is almost too big to fit into my luggage, (I don’t want to crowd out Totoro’s living space). But this is my last Americas Train-The-Trainers program this year. So I will take the ball of - LA, San Fransisco, Denver, Virginia, and Dallas Playshops string home, and put it in the “BIG” ball in Jeannie’s office. Then I will initiate a new string ball as I start my second China Playshop tour this year - Hong Kong, Nov 8th (Cantonese) - Hangzhou, Nov 15th, and Xiamen, Nov 22nd = (Mandarin). See you there? {]]’;-)

See you all next year in February at the Tampa Florida Playshop with Steve Turner and/or at the DCFG Conference in Prescott Arizona.

Life’s a Dance…    Uncle Arthur

Here is the list of job descriptions from our Texas Playshop participants.

DEMOGRAPHICS

6 School Teachers

6 Music Teachers

4 Drum Teachers

1 Music Therapist

1 Elderly related Professionals

1 Adults At Risk Professionals

4 Kids at Risk Professionals

4 Special Needs Professionals

4 Corporate Facilitators

1 Psychotherapist

4 Infant- Toddler Facilitators

3 Medical related, Doctors, Nurses and Health care Professionals

6 School Rhythm Event Facilitators

7 Community Drum Circles Facilitators

2 Drum Makers

8 Professional Musicians

5 Culturally specific drummers

11 Therapeutic sound partitioner

Al Recreational Drummers

6 People Connected to nonprofit organizations

Share your Spirit   Arthur