The Mental Health Ensemble is Back
The Mental Health Ensemble is Back
Picture this: a Zoom room where someone is being kept awake by a cat named Nico who apparently wants her playtime at 3 AM. Where strangers from Kenya, India, USA, Australia, and beyond are nodding along to each other's stories as if they've known each other for years. That was the latest GPB Mental Health Ensemble meet-and-greet.
Last year, we launched a new ensemble, the Mental Health Ensemble. It’s a sort of incubator, as our Executive Director Emeritus Rita Ezenwa-Okoro describes it, "where people come together at the intersection of play and mental health, to see what we can co-create."
The Ensemble has already begun to make its mark globally. Through collaborations with leaders such as Ishita Sanyal of Turning Point in India and Lambert Oigara in Kenya, Ensemble members have helped create developmental spaces where people are supported to perform beyond stigma, diagnosis, and isolation. The Ensemble's contribution to Open the Door, the annual celebration of specially abled performers co-hosted by Turning Point and GPB (read more about it below!), has helped bring a growing international audience into relationship with the creativity, courage, and artistry of participants across India.
That same spirit informed Heart and Power, the GPB global playshop in which participants explored how play, performance, and collective activity can help people grow stronger together. In this way, the Mental Health Ensemble is helping to bring the world closer to wellness—not by offering a program to people, but by creating opportunities for people to create wellness together."
And most recently, we have been gathering Brigadiers who want to explore some new ways of thinking about and playing with mental health and wellbeing. With Nico the cat and other humans around the world, we played games (of course) and also played with important questions, such as: What happens when children get to play in a center, and then go home to an environment where no one plays with them? How do we reach the parents, too? We explored this. Nobody had a full answer. That’s okay. We’re creating a space where the questions and concerns that people have can be shared and explored in some new ways.
The Ensemble is gathering again soon. We’d love to see you there!
