The Improvisator's artistry serves those in need!
Keeping imagination alive in schools, helping to heal post traumatic stress, soothing the suffering of illness.
NOTE: David Auerbach gratefully acknowledges the project's original fiscal sponsor, the Arts Council of Napa Valley, which has had to reduce its activities due to staffing cuts.... thank you for having been there!
Since July 15, 2012, the nonprofit fiscal sponsor of this project, everywhere, is the Solano County Arts Council. Mail contributions to:
Solano County Arts Council
(Include "Sound in Mind and Body" on the memo line of your check.)
FOR CHILD CREATIVITY, POST TRAUMATIC STRESS, HEALTH & HEALING AUGMENTATION:
Healing assistance for post traumatic stress. For combat vets and other people with lingering suffering due to stressful experiences, rhythmic sound that targets the low frequency range of hearing can have profoundly relaxing effects. Drum playing in a supportive group does this. A gentle and steady rhythm shared around a single, large, community drum provides a heartbeat of safety, and this may be augmented with individual solo drums and other instruments for participants to express their individual feelings. As people become accustomed to the exercise, vocal recitation and creative movement are gradually introduced, with an emphasis on freedom and spontaneity. One net result over time is that the repressed memories and emotions become more accessible for therapy, and the rigidity of defensive brain patterns and body tension lessens.
Salutory sounds for the soothing of illness. Music's ability to reduce pain sensitivity and to speed recovery are finally being taken more seriously by modern science. It's about time. Different wavelengths of sound appear to have different effects on us. Ancient cultures have known about this for thousands of years! We all know that unpleasant sounds make us tense and pleasing ones quiet our thinking and relax our bodies. The right kinds of sounds accelerate healing when we are sick or injured, by raising spirits, lowering pain, improving rest and sleep. It takes no effort to get the benefits; just listening delivers them. That's because a happier and more relaxed brain does a better job of regulating the body's processes.
Free music enjoyment for children.
These participatory adventures combine music with other arts to encourage imagination, cooperation, and individual expression. Music, the universal language, is simply the artist's way of communicating love to young people. Students of all ages, backgrounds and personal circumstances derive benefit and enjoyment. The man in the feathered hat is big on fun. The young learn and grow through fun; without it they cannot. This artist is experienced at establishing rapport with severely emotionally disturbed and otherwise disadvantaged children. After-school enrichment programs are another specialty, with energetic activities that not only are creative but also relieve boredom and release pent-up energy.
His "Tall Tale Conversations" story game transports students into the mind's playground. All that is required is a room with a couple of tables and space for a class to sit in a half circle. Several groups per day can each have a turn at the exercise, which lasts about an hour.
"Your instruments were lovely. The sound felt magical. I felt like I was in a different world." - Amaya The artist uses as many as three dozen world instruments to facilitate and enhance a fantasy story which the children themselves make up together. Each child invents a piece of the story and gets to be the musician's boss, picking the instrument he plays to illustrate the story with sound. Depending on age, students may also use acting, dancing, drawing and vocal or instrumental improvising to illustrate each other's story lines. Multi-day whole school residencies end with assembly shows featuring other instruments, bringing the total to about fifty unusual international sounds that even most adults have never experienced!
"I loved your instruments. They were strange but very enjoying. My favorite was the water instrument. Oh, and I loved the steel drums. I have never seen such drums. That was the best assembly ever!" - Sucre For older students (4th grade and up) the added element of improv acting has proven to be wildly popular, doubling the fun, as everyone gets to do both storytelling and acting. In this fast-moving, dynamic exercise, the results are frequently hilarious as class members challenge and top one another's creativity. Sometimes students collaborate to craft group ensemble scenes. All the while, The Improvisator provides a fluid musical mood, moving from instrument to instrument as he matches sounds to the mental gymnastics of the storytellers and the physicality of the actors.
"I had a blast acting out all of the animals and people. You are the best music teacher I ever had... That was one of the best times I've had at school." - Daren
"Tall Tale Conversations" story games are also a natural fit for fine and performing arts classes. The Improvisator's students practice spontaneity within their chosen elective arts: using improv acting in drama classes, free form movement in dance classes, lightning drawing in fine arts classes, and instrumental or vocal improvisation in band and choir. This encourages being in the moment, doing art for its own sake, and loosening up the creative spirit in each young artist. Youth's sensitive life issues can also be comfortably, playfully explored in the process. "Sound Explorations" are particularly well suited for teens. These workshops use instruments to investigate nonverbal communication and rhythm. A school's own band or percussion instruments may be employed, or the artist can bring his own extensive array of international drums and shakers. Drumming harmonizes mind and body, and melodic instruments and voices can also become exploratory. Every person may learn to shine as a valued part of the interwoven whole community, and to support the contributions of fellow players. Other expressive arts may be blended into the exercise along with the music, depending upon the group's learning pace.
(how it came to be, and the first residency at Donaldson Way School in American Canyon, Napa County) Napa Valley Register story, November 9, 2010 Written by City Editor Kevin Courtney of the Napa Valley Register.
(at Napa's Porter Family Vineyards and Shearer Elementary School) ABC-7 television story December 8, 2010 Sensitively produced by veteran reporter Don Sanchez of ABC7.
(at Jean Callison Elementary School in Vacaville, Solano County) Fairfield Daily Republic story October 16, 2011 Written by Amy Maginnis-Honey of the Fairfield Daily Republic. Vacaville Reporter story October 15, 2011 Written by Richard Bammer of the Vacaville Reporter.
NOTE: David Auerbach gratefully acknowledges the project's original fiscal sponsor, the Arts Council of Napa Valley, which has had to reduce its activities due to staffing cuts.... thank you for having been there!
Since July 15, 2012, the nonprofit fiscal sponsor of this project, everywhere, is the Solano County Arts Council. Mail contributions to:
Solano County Arts Council
(Include "Sound in Mind and Body" on the memo line of your check.)
|
