Convergences: Possibilities for Therapeutic Intervention in a Large Scale Community Performance

By Nicola Oddy

Editors note: This article was originally published in Canadian Journal of Music Therapy, vol. 8(1), 2001, and is republished here with the kind permission from the author and the publisher.

Abstract

This article describes a small community from the perspective of a musical celebration that encompasses the nature of the community into an expression of commitment, coordination, cooperation and fulfillment. This celebration of youth and community, called "Convergences" will be analysed from a systems perspective considering the perspective of health promotion and prevention that can be offered through the participation of a music therapist in the design and implementation of this type of community event.

Resume

Cet article refl�te une toute petite communaute de banlieue a partir d'une célébration musicale qui relie la nature de la communauté dans une expression d'engagernent, de coordination, de cooperation, et de plénitude. La convergeance qui est une célébration de la jeunesse et de la communauté sera analysée systématiquement tout en considérant la sante et la prévention. Cette célébration est offerte avec la participation d'un musicothérapeute qui s'intéresse au désign et a I'implémentation de ce genre d'événement communautaire.

Introduction

What if we were educated to nurture awareness of our inseparable relatedness? In effect, young children would be allowed to continue their natural perception of the world as a realm of inherent relatedness instead of suffering through the educational process of displacing holism with [...] the notion that mind is totally discrete in each of us rather than being immanent in the larger biological network. (Spretnak, C. 1993, p. 188)

Eighteen months ago, I was invited to join a team of two musicians and two theatrical directors to create a performance that would include children and would celebrate the millenium in our town. The town council itself had decided to launch this project and was even providing a budget for it. It was with great animation that we began talking about what we would do together. We knew what we wanted within one hour of brainstorming. All of us were familiar with the performances of R. Murray Schafer and I had often dreamed of staging an environmental extravaganza at an outdoor venue known as the Tay Basin. It is a river that widens to create a small port in the centre of town.

From this port one can access the entire Rideau canal system of eastern Ontario. There is a river bridge and on the far side a grassy bank - a natural amphitheatre. We planned an outdoor event that would include instrumental and choral music, contemporary, swing, break dance and much more. The town's theme for this celebration "Living History" and our production would reflect this by drawing on historical events and the passage of time. We wanted an inclusive experience for the young people who would be performing. We wanted to celebrate the people of the past and the present. Particularly, we wanted to celebrate the people of the future who are the children of today. By the time our first meeting was over, we knew that it would be entitled Convergences. It was a natural title that explained all that we hoped it would be. In this paper, I will examine convergences from the perspective of community, creation of the choral and choral music and music therapy. I will also reflect on Convergences as an expression of two systems theories.

The Community of Convergences

Convergences was a part of a larger town celebration called Our Living History. The Living History committee of the town of Perth was in charge of creating a week long celebration for the new millennium. Convergences was just one piece of the event. The Living History/Convergences community was a network of participants in which people worked toward a whole by focusing on their own small piece of the puzzle. This perspective of the whole is an important factor when looking at community. But as Convergences will illustrate, the pieces are vital as well. Music in community events is often used to draw or please audiences as an organizational strategy in celebrations. Convergences was different from many offerings of community music in that it was a ritualistic event using the environment and was performed on a very large scale. Our goals were not to simply entertain a crowd but to have a larger more profound effect on the ambience and on the individuals who were involved.

Such performances are rare but not unheard of in a community setting. R. Murray Schafer is a great proponent of such events. Two examples of his work are 'The Spirit Garden' and 'Princess of the Stars'. Both use the environment, are ritualistic and have an intended effect that is beyond entertainment. As stated in the program notes for Spirit Garden by stage director, Barry Karp (Schafer, 1997) "It is our hope that you [...] will take home impressions that may influence the decisions you make in daily life and challenge you into seeing the world in new and refreshing ways." In the past I have always been interested in how events that I have produced effect the whole community of participants. Approaching these events in terms of specific goals and with a therapist's intent was a new concept for me. While working in my role as choir director, I found the music therapist in me taking a very active role.

Edith Boxill established a precedent for approaching community events from the perspective of a music therapist. She actively led the 'Music Therapists for peace' movement and in her article from the 1988 conference proceedings for the Canadian Association for Music Therapy, she states:

The concept, Music Therapy for Living, embodies a humanistic, holistic perspective that encompasses the enhancement of mind-body living skills from the simplest to the most complex, through the use of music as a therapeutic agent of growth and positive change. The range of these skills can extend from intimate personal relations and functioning on individual bases to far-reaching interpersonal relations and functioning on global bases. (p.20)

Elevator music, music in supermarkets and film music have proven that music can be used to subliminally influence people on a large scale. Convergences led me to muse further on the possibilities of in influencing people and intentionally reaching for a positive change or growth on the community level, or as Boxill previously suggests, the global level.

The Convergences team sought to influence as much of the community as possible. This influence was enabled through the ritualistic and inclusive nature of the project. As Kenny (1982) points out, "One of the original purposes of ritual in ancient civilizations was to order the life of the community in harmony with the forces of nature. We presently need this type of ritual in our daily lives." (p. 85) Bringing events such as Convergences into a community on a regular basis wouldn't provide the day-to-day ritual described by Kenny, but if it were a regular, expected, even yearly event, the anticipation of ritual could have a similar effect. As Spretnak (1993) writes,

Ritual is whole-body communing that evokes personal emergence within the palpable whole. Ritual process often expands the awareness of one's bodily presence, along with all the other bodily presences within the circle; participants may experience their presence and form, becoming merged with the circle or the ritual space it encloses. One's sense of group-being becomes as large as the whole, yet one is not lost in diffusion. On the contrary, the expansion of self to the larger group-body intensifies one's unique sense of capability and energized subjectivity. (p. 145)

Although Spretnak is speaking of ritual within a small group of people, possibilities for attaining cohesiveness in a community on a larger scale calls out for such an approach. Ritual that intensifies the individual sense of capability can strengthen the community in which the individual is a part.

Another point to consider is that ritual has an aesthetic nature. In a piece such as Convergences, aesthetics are important as they influence the town council, the producer and every participant through out the chain of events. In order to fulfill the purpose of "celebration", an aesthetic was considered which in turn invited ritual. This process led to change. As a therapist, change is what I find intriguing.

Ritual was created to bring the aesthetic to life. The effects of ritual then became a bonus - an agent of change which was not considered in the town's original concept. Woodward (1999) states that "Aesthetic experiences give meaning to our lives and motivate us to connect to our environment." (p. 38) In the case of Convergences, the community was our environment. As well, the aesthetic experience connected us to each other.

A Burning Question

The question that confronts me each time I participate in a large scale performance as a performer or audience member is the following: How, can a music therapist create outcomes in this type of event? In this case, there was an event that was initially created for its aesthetic influence by organizers who were hoping for an end product that would serve to celebrate a community. They had a specific purpose in mind. A therapeutic effect of the event on the group and on individuals was not a part of the overall conception, which is usually the case. Parades, performances, firework displays, sporting events and music festivals all have a therapeutic effect. But how often is there discussion to determine possibilities raised by these effects? What if music therapists were employed to be a part of the teams that organize these events? Could these events then be directed to achieve a greater good beyond the celebration through the music therapist's ability to secure outcomes through intentionality? An intended effect through music is something that a music therapist is accustomed to. Music is used with intention to evoke an evolution in our clients and this doesn't have to change when work is done on a larger scale. Kenny (1985) reinforces the fact that music therapists are by nature concerned with change and innovation. "We are concerned with rehabilitating and reforming, adapting and learning. We are concerned with people becoming the most of who they can be, given the circumstances of their lives" (Kenny, 1985, p.2)

The clinical perspective of Convergences will be discussed later in the section concerning the choir. Although the team as a whole had goals regarding the desired outcome for sections and groups of people, this is the segment of the piece that I influenced as a music therapist. In order to fully understand the possibilities for therapeutic outcome or to understand convergences as a system, it is necessary to understand the process of creation. It would be useful for the reader to attempt to visualize the event.

A Description of the Overall Event

In its final form, the performance involved approximately 200 people. They were primarily young people under the age of 20. Approximately 10 of these were adults. As music therapist and choral director, I led the choral element. A gifted high school music teacher led the instrumental elements. An artistic director, who is an excellent teacher of theatre, worked with the theatrical element of the piece. The fourth co-ordinator, also a highly talented theatrical director, directed and produced the whole.

Our decision to include young people in coordinating roles led to the following delegations. It was decided that the dance would be choreographed by a dance student, the drumming would be coordinated by a drummer who was also a student, scratching would be included and coordinated by a student who is an avid raver, the break dance would be coordinated by another young person who is an avid break dancer. Aside from these coordinators, there would be a small crew of adults. Everyone would work independently, with a minimal number of meetings, and we would build it as a whole within the final hour. The creative process was very much an organic evolution within a framework. We included music in the following genres: contemporary swing and breakdance, drumming, jazz, rock, scratching, choir and flute trio. We also included a theatrical element.

The whole town was a backdrop for the event as a way to celebrate the history and beauty of the town. Theatrical vignettes were performed in the streets, and there was a singing procession through town led by the choir members dressed in costume carrying banners to announce the event. At the 'basin', the site of the final performance, there is a glass pavilion on one side of the water where the audience was situated, and the performance took place on the grassy bank opposite and surrounding spaces. A barge was also used as a stage on which the jazz band and some of the dancing would take place. The performance was a very intense and forward moving event of about 40 minutes.

The main body of the performance began with the ringing of a bell. The dancers emerged from a forest on the bank of the river opposite to the audience. They were accompanied by the drummers in a contemporary/African style dance. The solo singer emerged from the forest and became immersed in the dance. She began to sing as they finished. The duet singer joined her and then the rest of the older singers. On cue, the children who were waiting on the bridge, stage right, joined the older children for their segment of the performance. -There was a bright and optimistic effect.

As the singers exited stage right, the flute players began to play on a dock stage left. As they played, canoes came down the river paddled by young people in period dress. As this section finished, the barge appeared with a jazz band aboard. They began to play independently, but as the barge transporting the jazz musicians crossed the basin, the music converged so that the jazz musicians were joined by the rock band, situated on the dock, stage left. When the barge reached the dock the jazz musicians joined the rock band on shore and were replaced by the dancers who then danced in swing style. The music transformed from swing to break dance. The jazz dancers were replaced by the breakdancers, the music changed into scratching, and contemporary rave arts took over.

Meanwhile, a young singer was escorted up river, to a waiting canoe. When the rave group finished, this music transformed into a flute trio version of the choral piece sung at the beginning, which then transformed into 'Zachary's song'. This is a piece written by Joi Freed-Garod, a colleague from Vancouver. On cue, the young singer floated down the river singing Zachary's song. The instrumental music stopped at this point, and all that was heard was a single nine year old voice singing, "I know that a River Runs through you, clear and strong and deep as a memory, I know that a River Runs through you, flowing from what was to what will be"(Freed-Garod 1994). Thus it was finished. Each part had been prepared independently of the others to create this whole with no possible rehearsal of the entire piece.

The surrounding community was very involved in the final hour. Canoes were borrowed from neighbors on the river. Docking was provided by neighbors on the river. The campground management upriver offered their docks as a launch for the barge. Inhabitants of surrounding buildings provided access and electricity. The Living History committee as a whole were present and involved, offering encouragement and gifts for the participants. The system was poetically open as members of the community offered assistance and support.

The following section outlines the process that determines therapeutic thought and outcomes.

The Choir

Before I could begin with my task of leading a choir, I had to create a choir. The local newspaper was very helpful by advertising for singers. A letter was written and distributed to the schools. School staff distributed them to interested children. When the time came for our first rehearsal, we had a respectable group of 20. It still wasn't enough and the group was very young. In order to spark interest for older students, I went to some schools and did a small workshop which helped in the recruitment of older teenagers. By the time we were rolling, we had 40 voices, eight of whom were older teenagers.

The age of the group still posed a problem because the music that I had written for the choir was for an older group and more complex than this group could handle. With the varied age groups came varied ability levels. Despite all the planning, preparing and composing, it was all for naught until the specifics of the group were determined. It took three weeks to establish which changes were necessary. Once the concept had solidified, any number of participants could join and it wouldn't change the face of the musical segment. The manipulation of the initial musical ideas was very important so that group and individual success could be insured.

By the fourth practise the final music was presented and was well received.

Figure 1. The first four measures of the Choral segment of Convergences.

One strong voice would begin as a solo entity - the mythological mother. (See Figure 1) This is the top staff. A second strong voice would join the first in duet, which is the second staff. The rest of the older group would join them as ladies in waiting or additional elements of the myth. The young participants would join in by singing the bottom line to the words, "We are only part of all you see. All are here together. All make something new." The third staff was not included in the final performance due to time constraints and because it stretched the abilities of the group. The contrapuntal nature of the piece meant that its omission did not affect the quality of the final outcome.

Once I began working with my group, I realized what a large scale music therapy event the creation and preparation of the choir was becoming. We weren't just singing. The children all came for different reasons. Some came because they love to sing, others because they were shy and their parents thought that it might improve their self esteem, others for the newness of the experience and others for the comaraderie. As I came to know the children I saw the shy ones and the leaders and the myriad of good that this project was capable of doing. The process of preparing became the reason for doing what we were doing. The performance began to look like' icing on the cake'.

After the third rehearsal the group was divided into two entities which naturally were the younger and the older. The older participants were given roles of assistants and co-leaders. These positions of leadership were offered with the hope that it would give them experience, responsibility and a feeling of self worth. It was also important to nurture the commitment and feeling of importance among this older group. They had good ideas for warm ups and "getting to know you games" that helped with the dynamics tremendously.

Once the choir and music was in place and after some time getting to know the group, I began to perceive my goals. They were as follows.

That the children experience the feeling of spirit and joy that singing together can bring.
That team leaders in the choir experience increased self esteem from their roles.
That choir members become aware of their own strengths and possibilities.
That the children feel proud and appreciate an awareness of the depth of their contribution in relation to the whole.

As rehearsals progressed, the outcomes of the established goals became apparent. The following is a summary:

Team leaders led the group through movement and vocalisation exercises each week which congealed the group. The children were remarkable in their attendance. This was a focused and intent group of youngsters. They were very proud of the choral sound that resulted in practising. They expressed this verbally and in their facial expressions while singing.
The team leaders were older children who may have felt out of place in a group of so many younger ones. Their rule as co-leaders served to increase their self esteem and their sense of responsibility lo the group.
This goal was established particularly for members of the group who were very shy and withdrawn. They became aware of the strength of their voices and possibilities for projection within a team. Singing outside is not an easy task. The fact that each and every member of the choir was a vital support was instilled from the onset. Individual strengths were recognized and rewarded.
The whole event was built upon pride for the community and the importance of their contribution to the event. The children in this performance were indeed aware that their part was a "part of all you see." They were aware of the holism of the event and were excited to watch the unfolding of it in its final inception.

Reflections on Convergences as a System

According to the Webster's New World Dictionary, to converge is "to come or bring together at a point." It is a combination of the Latin con - together, and vergere, to turn. To turn together. This definition works perfectly for what took place. We did indeed turn together. Right from the beginning the town council, town newspaper and four principle co-ordinators each took on a vital piece of the puzzle. We were to work independently and yet interdependently. The image that 1 envision is one of a spiral, with many elements, turning together and yet apart but striving toward one common goal. (See Figure 2)

As Klein (1990) states in Woodward (1998, p.96), "the opening and closing of boundaries is how living systems exchange energy and information with other systems and the environment at intrapsychic, interpersonal and group levels." This describes the ebb and flow and the many levels of depth of experience that a piece such as Convergences can create.

There were two systems working in Convergences - cybernetics and field theory. The two complement each other. Convergences is a large system that can be viewed as a whole or field, it also begs to be observed from the perspective of the individual and the ideas, a perspective represented by cybernetics.

A cybernetic system includes four elements:

Inputs are the materials that are included in the system.
The transformation of the materials.
The output that is the result of the transformation.
The fourth element is the feedback that monitors progress compared to what is desired, and the process is adjusted. (Hutchison, 1991).

The cybernetic system looks at the influence of individuals and their behaviour. It is an evolutionary process. Since this is a shortcoming in field theory (Hutchison, 1991) the two couple well. Field theory takes a look at the project from a different perspective - that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts (Kenny 1985). It does not deal with the individual but looks for patterns and forces in systems (Hutchison 1991). Field theory analyses the intent. The two become blended and seemingly integrated unless the individual is the field, a possibility explored by Kenny in 1989 and subsequent work. The following diagram outlines my perception of Convergences. It illustrates the many different factions which are separate and yet connected by way of the final goal. (See Figure 2)

Figure 2. The field of convergences

The field of Convergences is depicted as a spiral which is surrounded by a penetrable border. It is an open system in which participants spiral to the goal. The work of each group occurs independently and turns together until the convergence at the performance. The town, production team, team leaders, performers, community members, volunteers and audience approach the goal at different times. The spiral demonstrates how, although the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, without the parts the whole is nothing.

A time line turning together. The involvement of different elements is represented as the spiral winds in toward the convergence.

Discussion

The way that cybernetics and field theory become intertwined is reflected in the following two perspectives of convergences that emerged during reflective thinking. They were:

The intended effect.
The effect of evolution.

One might think that these are opposing ideas. In fact they work together within a rich framework in the same way that the two systems theories work together. This creates a complete picture of the functioning of the event.

The Intended Effect

I call the intended effect that which is preconceived or planned - much in the way that a music therapist plans a session or sets goals for a client. It can also be the retrospective vision of the intention (I believe that we often do not know of our own intentions until after the fact). In the case of Convergences, intention of effect was at an ebb and flow as the process developed. When the whole was conceived the intended effect was on a community level, namely, to create an aesthetic and a ritualized event that would evoke pride and a feeling of community in the town. When the groups were formed, the intended effect was set in place for the benefit of the group leaders, for example, the teenage co-ordinators would experience heightened self esteem, self confidence and acceptance in a world of adults. When the groups began to form and practise their segment, the intended effect contracted once again to include the individuals in the groups, and the group process as a whole. From a systems perspective, one could call this the field of intention (Woodward, 1999) in which one is looking for the patterns and forces in the system. There was also the field of community, the field of ritual (Kenny, 1989) and the field of aesthetic (Woodward, 1999). All of this relates back to the initial intended effect which was to take the event beyond entertainment and to a place where growth and change was possible for anyone involved who chose to seize the opportunity. The music affected the participants from the perspective of each of these fields, within each of the groups, for each individual and for the community.

Convergences and other performances like it have the potential to evoke change and growth on the personal level as well as on the community level. As Schafer (1997) states:

What is the purpose of art? [...] The change that occurs when we are lifted out of the tight little cages of our daily realities [...] everything becomes new [...] And if we return to our daily routines, they are no longer routines, but scintillate and have become magnificent by our sensing them with fresh eyes and noses and minds and bodies [...] to affect a change in our existential condition. This is the first purpose. To change us. (program notes for Spirit Garden)

In Convergences, the first purpose was indeed to change us and to give us fertilizer for growth. The whole process emerged from that factor. It was indeed, the initial intended effect.

The Effect of Evolution

Even where there was so much intention, there was also so much that evolved spontaneously. This flexibility and change is characteristic of any artistic endeavor. A music therapist is as familiar with this concept as the concept of intent. Evolution is an inherent process when improvising and when working with ever changing, ever evolving human beings. Evolution changes the intention and the intention has an effect on the evolution - hopefully not so much that evolution is restricted. They work together tipping the scales this way and that until a balance is obtained. Cybernetics works in this way as the input, output, feedback and adjustments take place.

The Convergences experience demonstrates the evolutionary nature of the process. The four elements of cybernetics are clearly present. -The input, transformation, output and feedback continuum were at work as the creative process took place and in my own case, as the choir evolved.

In Convergences I see the relationship as follows: The ideas as the input. These go through a creative transformation to create the overall concept, which is the output. We receive feedback from our experience and the process is adjusted. A concrete example of this is the development of the choral material. The initial choral ideas were not adequate once put into practise with the group at hand and so they had to change. The choral idea is the input. There was a result (the output) which was unsatisfactory (the feedback). The music was rewritten (adjustment of process), until a satisfactory result was created.

According to Hutchison, there are environmental pressures which affect the whole system. This was true in our case in that many environmental pressures influenced the project - too numerous to site in the context of this paper. Each individual and each idea was affected in some way by the cybernetic or as I see it - the evolutionary process.

Figure 3.

Outcomes

Convergences was a celebration of youth from the perspective of local history. The choice to use young people in a co-ordination role was a great success. As a team we were happy with the outcome of the goal of converging generations. We felt that this piece of the puzzle was crucial for the building of community. The young man who did the scratching, which is traditionally an underground art seen only at raves, came out of the closet as a result of Convergences and began performing at local venues wherever possible, thus sharing this creative art form to the outside world. His counterparts - the breakdancers, also revelled in the acceptance and in the fact that they were sought out by older counterparts who treated them as artists on equal footing. Part of our goal was to do just this. We felt that we must appreciate each other for that which each of us produced. This approach harboured a sense of mutual respect between the adults and youth. The young lady who choreographed the contemporary and swing dance was likewise a part of the artistic circle. Her experience validated her talent and she has moved on to study dance in university. Many choir members urged me to start an ongoing children's choir in the town of Perth. Parents and participants have approached me many times to express their gratitude and to speak about their enjoyment of the event.

Convergences fulfilled the goal of the town by providing a celebration for a new millenium. We fulfilled the team goal of providing something creative and ritualistic that would create a broader change of attitude toward youth. It fulfilled my personal goal of giving the choir participants a meaningful and joyful experience. It fulfilled the overall purpose of offering the opportunity for change to all who were involved.

I carried an umbrella though throughout the building and implementation of Convergences. In a town of 6,000, a piece like convergences that includes town council, volunteers, performers and audience, involves about 1,000 people altogether who are working toward a common goal. -That's 1/6th of the population. The potential for encouraging positive change or healing on a community level is palpable. It has reinforced the feeling in me that it's important for music therapists to see possibilities that work on a larger scale than we are accustomed to. In some ways I see it as our responsibility. We are people who are trained to use music with an intended effect, and with the evolutionary nature of musical creation. Imagine the potential of the power of good in that...

That's the power of it. The evil and hurt in the world can be dissolved by beauty. There's more to it than that. Anyone can sing in a choir and make something beautiful. Such a simple truth it makes you wonder that the whole world isn't in a choir (from 'Martin's Story', Rush 2000).

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