Life
"I want to be a musician because playing the xylophone is a gift from God. Without music, there would be no life."
Dominic, War Dance
If you get a chance, watch War Dance. It's won awards at 15 film festivals, and was nominated for an Oscar for best documentary. (http://www.wardancethemovie.com/)
Last week, I went to DC to attend a symposium and to lobby for continued US support for peace and reconstruction of Northern Uganda. The first night they showed War Dance, a film about a school from one of the internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Northern Uganda. Uganda has a national music competition every year for schools. No one thought this school was going to do well because they were from the conflict zone and incredibly poor. Yet they won best tribal dance, and Dominic won best musician of the whole competition and got a new xylophone. Maybe b/c I'm a percussionist, but this movie went straight to my heart...the look on Dominic's face when he realized he was getting a new xylophone was priceless.
I started thinking about how many schools in the US have unused or old instruments lying around.
The next day, I attended a session on a project called Voices of Uganda (movie coming out when they get enough funding to finish editing). Melissa Fitzgerald (of the West Wing) and some of her friends run a theater project for at-risk kids in LA, and they did a summer theater program for a group of kids in Uganda last summer. One of the clips we saw showed one of the girls talking about how when she went home at the end of those several weeks, her family told her she was such a stronger person and so much happier than she had been. Another boy participating had been a former child soldier I think, and had been injured so he couldn't really use his arm. He was really shy and hesitant, but by the end, he was performing in front of the whole camp. The kids also designed their own plays to talk about issues that mattered to them, such as HIV/AIDS and the prospect of peace.
These two experiences really drove home to me how huge a role music and dance and other forms of artistic expression have in healing, for anyone, but particularly for these kids who have grown up knowing nothing but war...who have lost parents, siblings, friends, who have been forced to kill, raped, and all kinds of other terrible things.
I want to start an organization to work with educational programs and incorporate music and art as therapy. For a while, although I know that being here at Pitt is where I'm supposed to be in my life, I've felt very lost and lacking direction. This would bring together my love of art & music, my background and interest in psychology, and my current studies in international development.
I talked briefly with Melissa Fitzgerald, and she recommended partnering with an existing organization because starting a new organization is an incredibly amount of work and you end up bogged down in administrative work rather than what you really want to be doing. It's a lot for me to think through, and I don't really have free brain time right now with school and everything.
If anyone knows anyone involved in anything at all related to this, I'd love for you to pass along my contact info or give me theirs. I'm learning the importance of networking :) This is huge, and I'm struggling a lot with doubting myself. Everyday I tell myself that I can do this. It may take several years, but I can. And then there's the part of me that's like "you change your mind and have all kinds of ideas all the time, what makes this one any different?" I don't know. Right now, I'm excited about this. I hope I remain excited about this. I'm praying about it. I'm talking to people about it. We'll see what happens.
Dominic, War Dance
If you get a chance, watch War Dance. It's won awards at 15 film festivals, and was nominated for an Oscar for best documentary. (http://www.wardancethemovie.com/)
Last week, I went to DC to attend a symposium and to lobby for continued US support for peace and reconstruction of Northern Uganda. The first night they showed War Dance, a film about a school from one of the internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Northern Uganda. Uganda has a national music competition every year for schools. No one thought this school was going to do well because they were from the conflict zone and incredibly poor. Yet they won best tribal dance, and Dominic won best musician of the whole competition and got a new xylophone. Maybe b/c I'm a percussionist, but this movie went straight to my heart...the look on Dominic's face when he realized he was getting a new xylophone was priceless.
I started thinking about how many schools in the US have unused or old instruments lying around.
The next day, I attended a session on a project called Voices of Uganda (movie coming out when they get enough funding to finish editing). Melissa Fitzgerald (of the West Wing) and some of her friends run a theater project for at-risk kids in LA, and they did a summer theater program for a group of kids in Uganda last summer. One of the clips we saw showed one of the girls talking about how when she went home at the end of those several weeks, her family told her she was such a stronger person and so much happier than she had been. Another boy participating had been a former child soldier I think, and had been injured so he couldn't really use his arm. He was really shy and hesitant, but by the end, he was performing in front of the whole camp. The kids also designed their own plays to talk about issues that mattered to them, such as HIV/AIDS and the prospect of peace.
These two experiences really drove home to me how huge a role music and dance and other forms of artistic expression have in healing, for anyone, but particularly for these kids who have grown up knowing nothing but war...who have lost parents, siblings, friends, who have been forced to kill, raped, and all kinds of other terrible things.
I want to start an organization to work with educational programs and incorporate music and art as therapy. For a while, although I know that being here at Pitt is where I'm supposed to be in my life, I've felt very lost and lacking direction. This would bring together my love of art & music, my background and interest in psychology, and my current studies in international development.
I talked briefly with Melissa Fitzgerald, and she recommended partnering with an existing organization because starting a new organization is an incredibly amount of work and you end up bogged down in administrative work rather than what you really want to be doing. It's a lot for me to think through, and I don't really have free brain time right now with school and everything.
If anyone knows anyone involved in anything at all related to this, I'd love for you to pass along my contact info or give me theirs. I'm learning the importance of networking :) This is huge, and I'm struggling a lot with doubting myself. Everyday I tell myself that I can do this. It may take several years, but I can. And then there's the part of me that's like "you change your mind and have all kinds of ideas all the time, what makes this one any different?" I don't know. Right now, I'm excited about this. I hope I remain excited about this. I'm praying about it. I'm talking to people about it. We'll see what happens.