The Graduate Research written in this document contains Dance Candidate Amber Daniels’ investigation of the word play in artistic practice. Daniels is an artist who focuses her movement research on the unpredictable nature of improvisational play and the structural familiarity of narrative movement. Using improvisational, theatrical, and choreographic tactics, she creates small formulas and rules for the movement and collaborating artists to follow. To reevaluate the importance of play in her practice, Taking Back the Playground walks through the investigations of this tactic in multiple strategies of experimentation: movement, direction, teaching, and writing.