"Along the Streets of Stress": A Musical Experience with Transit Policemen in Bogotá
Scene 1
On a cold afternoon, so typical of Bogotá, in the middle of the hustle and bustle of big cities, we heard – first of all - steps, voices, laughter and guffaw producing an echo in crescendo that invaded the space. We were on the verge of starting our first music therapy session with a group of traffic policemen. The participants came in small groups, looked for a seat in a room which once was the old chapel of a hospital that is now abandoned, but also in the lucky process of reopening its doors.
Our men stop laughing the moment they get seated and it is understandable that they cannot hide that bored look on their faces: we know they have had a long day with an uninterrupted first aid course. One can feel expectation in the atmosphere. We can tell what they wonder: What is music therapy? Although they do not have an answer to this tacit question, some express their preconception when they say to their companions: We came here to relax!
We decided to accept the challenge of carrying out sessions of music therapy for the traffic policemen of the city, aiming at contributing to the opening program of the new hospital of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá. We talk about challenge because this was a complex intervention: Three sessions for each policemen group, and each group composed by 37 to 40 participants for every session, for a total group of 1200 traffic policemen; all of this with insufficient materials and musical instruments, necessary to cover such demand. We decided to design a proposal with a workshop pedagogy in which teaching/learning, communicative and introspective moments were included, in the light of a preventive approach. Situations in which problems are accompanied by scarce resources are not unusual in Latin America. In the particular case of music therapy, the reality of the clinical practice exceeds the learned theory taught in Europe and the USA, where the role of music therapists is professionally recognized, and where they count with the necessary resources that enables them to work adequately, and build framing structures in order to facilitate the development of proposals.
Nevertheless, what at the start seemed to be a long list of obstacles turned eventually to an opportunity to propose alternative visions for music therapy practice. In Latin America we have an ample population diversity and a cultural wealth which evolves in unstable socio-political contexts, a circumstance that demands for the music therapists constant reflections and practices, that must be appropriate to the reality they are confronted with, and that at the same time influence them in their practice.
Bearing in mind the characteristics of the population we worked with, it was established that the factors that mainly affect their health are stress due to their permanent work in the streets, and the security situation of the city, Bogotá. Therefore, the workshop Musicoterapia para la autorregulación del estrés [Music Therapy for Self-Regulation of Stress] – was proposed. The sessions were structured on the basis of two main axes:
- Self-Care (Self-Consciousness).
- Interaction (Consciousness of the other).
In our very first session we established three stages that comprised each session:
- Preparation.
- Central experience.
- Closing.
Preparation
The Preparation Stages were developed with the help of different breathing, self-observation and body consciousness exercises, through which the tension-release experience was facilitated. This encounter with the self through breathing and extending enabled them to connect with the tempo of the others, until a uniform group breathing sound was achieved. We also used in this stage recorded music[1] as a motivational vehicle for movement, for the conscious body activation, as well as for the shared use of space and interaction. These are indispensable aspects for contributing to relax the assumed stiffness due to their role as policemen, a problem which became evident in their notorious difficulty to move freely while interacting and in verbal or bodily communication.
Scene II
In the main hall of the hospital, the radios of the building guards and the TV are switched on, a group of muscular men walk impetuously but looking to the floor, they stand in a circle and in a low voice they say: "no more noise", "no more violence", "no more bosses", "no more insults", "no more pollution".
Central Experiences
In the first encounter we carried out vocal improvisations which facilitated making audible that which mainly causes their stress: noise, pollution, the long days of work, violence in the streets, mistreatment by some of the superiors and by citizens: precisely the people they have to bring to enforce law and norms. We proposed an improvisation with voice and body we called The Protest Rap. This created a space for policemen – who often have to confront groups of demonstrators – to have their own opportunity of, and their own right to protest. During the improvisation difficulties about interactions were revealed, as well as problems in expressing emotions and daring to say "No more!!": a motto that served as ostinato to frame the improvisation of each group. At the end, they reflected about becoming conscious of the aspects common to all of them and the citizens, and the ones that were different, with the help of an exercise that aimed at encouraging a flow of emotions in the group.
Scene III
In a conference room one can hear moaning, wailing and cursing due to the pain caused by the eutonic exercises on the contracted muscles of feet that are constantly exposed to mistreatment.
For the second encounter we resort to the control positions proposed by Moshe Feldenkrais (1980), by Gerda Alexander (1979), and also to a series of massages with rubber balls with the purpose of developing body consciousness. Their levels of body amnesia and muscle contracture were considerable. On one hand, the sensorial-motive amnesia constitutes a way of psychological escape used by them in order to stand the daily burden: denying the pain produced by the injuries caused by multiple factors: falling from the motorcycles, standing up for long hours in a day; imperfections in the design and quality of the endowment boots that prevents them from maintaining their feet in a natural position what, in turn, causes foot malformations; the weight of the equipment they must carry; and the repetitive arm movements of traffic directing. This, in turn, produces dorsalgia, bursitis and foot injuries.
Music was not used at this stage of the process because, in order to focus attention on the body, and to develop body consciousness, the Feldenkrais technique recommends working in absolute silence, so that no distractions can arouse. However, this activity was connected with the exercise of walking in the same place, with eyes closed and with recorded music[2]. This experience invited them to connect with a wish by visualizing its realization. The movement then became a metaphor, a possibility that everybody has to approach nearer and nearer to his/her own desires.
The music increased progressively in tempo and intensity, it also changed its tonality in an ascendant form. Considerable changes in the pacing were noticed, the stiffness started to lessen gradually; more consciousness of the natural supports was perceived; they started to walk involving their whole bodies (from head to toe), as a whole and not divided into parts; moreover; some of them started to move in different ways in the space, even when the music had stopped playing. At the end of the exercise they expressed that they had connected with pleasurable experiences connected with life projects: getting married or buying a lot for a house in the countryside for living with their families, among others. Some of them, in their minds, went back to their places of origin; they met there with their parents and friends. Moments for encounters and a space for individuality were achieved.
The role the recorded background music played was to suggest moments for the elaboration of significant events. According to Frohne Hagemann (2005), these moments bring about positive results since, through music, a place for associations is opened within the experience in which body sensations, scenes, images, memories of high emotional significance take place. This activity makes a vitality effect possible, because what is really heard is not the passing from the adagio to the presto, but an increase, [it is] what disappears, what expands and connects with music: dynamics that resonate in our corporality, that resound with our needs, our desires, our ideas, our forms of relating with the world and with our ways of feeling.
Scene IV
One hears a musical instrument that asks, and another one that answers...We see a group of men in a circle, looking face to face with the one in front, without exchanging words, one of the participants tries to express an emotion with a musical instrument so that the other one identifies it and answers, in turn, in the same way. To the verbal question "How do you feel?" there was only silence...
In the third encounter the musical instrument was used as a communication tool. By means of two instruments, a gogo, the participants carried out a question-answer dynamic. For this activity everybody had to choose one of the emotions they normally feel when in a stress situation. Once the emotion has been chosen, they had to use a rhythmic formula with a question format (a musical metaphor for asking the mate: Have you felt this emotion when you are stressed?). Besides, they also had to accompany this sound format with the facial and bodily representations of the emotion. The mate had then to try to read the other one’s emotion and, in a format of rhythmic reply, answer "yes" or "no". In this exploration they expressed emotions like sadness, anguish and, most of the times, anger.
When we passed to verbalization, situations of loneliness, impotence and chains of mistreatment arose. Also personality features came to light, as well as roles and belief systems that influence the way we deal with emotionality, and that are present in expressions like: "men don’t cry", "we have to be strong", "our duty is to enforce the law, no matter how we do it", "for most of the people we are the bad guys, nobody considers us human beings." They talked about their needs, their troubles, and also about the importance of expressing their own feelings, of sharing with collegues, of learning how to deal with emotions, in order to create ties of confidence and widen their body consciousness.
Finale
After listening to a piece of music, with closed eyes, one of the participants comes near to us and says: "I couldn’t close my eyes, I got afraid... I remembered a guerrilla assault". But another one approaches and tells us: "It has been a long time since I last felt so calm".
Closing
Ending sessions, the closing ups were proposed in various forms, always directed to a progressive relaxation: a collective audition of a piece of music[3], with closed eyes, including an exchange of images, associations, sensations, emotions, spiritual experiences, as well as verbal exchanges about the lived experiences.
Along these encounters they recognized the difficulties and needs brought forth in their lived experiences, another factor they noticed that decreased was their difficulty of looking to each other to recognize their own deficiencies, as well as of asking for help.
As an evaluation instrument we used a written survey which the participants had to fill out before the first encounter, as well as after finishing the last one. Examples of reflections written in the surveys:
- "... I found a stage of my life that was unconcluded, a part of a personality that is stirring and that I have ignored, but I found it again and I want to let it appear."
- "...I found that I can look into my interior and regulate myself."
- "...I want to let the aggressiveness go."
- "...I realized that I can relax, find internal peace, control myself and deal with my impulses so that I can achieve a complete peace of mind."
Finally they leave the room and we wonder if we will see them again. They, the policemen, and us, the therapists, get out and traverse the streets of Bogotá, in the middle of the sounds of horning, sirens and tempos ranging from allegro, to vivace and prestissimo. A few days later, we actually see them, some of them next to a semaphore, others in the middle of a traffic jam. Our look upon them has changed, now we know that they are not only agents representing authority, they are also human beings with dreams, needs and city voices!
Notes
[1] Guem & Zaka, Percussion (1978), La nuit peur du Soleil.
[2] Nuñez, Carlos (2000), Marcha do entrelazado de Allariz.
[3] Gurdjieff/Hartmann (2000), Canto das pescadoras.
References
Alexander, Gerda (1979), La eutonía. Un camino hacia la experiencia del cuerpo. [Eutony: the holistic discovery of the whole person]. Buenos Aires: Paidós.
Frohne-Hagemann, Isabelle (2005), Zur Frage der Indikation von Musiktherapie bei Menschen mit Behinderung [On Indication of Music Therapy in Disabled], http://www.frohne-hagemann.de/.
Feldenkrais, Moshe (1980). Autoconciencia por el movimiento – Ejercicios para el desarrollo personal. [Awareness Through Movement: Health Exercises for Personal Growth] Buenos Aires: Paidós.
Music
Amaral, R. & Andrés, A. & Rodríguez, M. (2000). Cantos e Ritmos do Oriente: "Canto das pescadoras". [Song of the fisherwomen]. Gurdjieff /Hartmann,
Guem & Zaka, Percusión (1978). La nuit peur du Soleil [The Night Fright of the Sun].
Nuñez, Carlos (2000). Marcha do entrelazado de Allariz [March of the Interwoven].
