March 05, 2021
Today marks the end of an amazing first week of the Artful Recovery ECS. This morning we all prepared to give our presentations to the class by working all morning researching and practicing for our presentations that we would give to the class later in the day. Thanks to the amount of time we got, we all were able to finish our presentation about art therapy and were ready to go. After lunch, we met with guest speakers who were professionals in the field of music therapy. First, they introduced themselves and started asking questions around the circle to see our knowledge about music therapy. After they talked, we formed a circle in the grass and everyone received percussion instruments such as egg shakers, bongos, and more. We played a game where each person played their instrument once, followed by the person next to them and so on around the circle. We continued to add different rules to the game, such as if you touch your instrument 2 times, the direction of the circle changed or another rule was that if you raised your instrument, you skipped your turn. This game is great to develop skills such as teamwork and putting more attention on your surroundings. After this activity, we formed a circle, and the music therapists played a song for us. Through this experience, we all felt the power that music has in building skills and emotional connections between people. Later in the day, it was finally time for our presentations. Almost everyone shared their presentations about their different topics related to art therapy. Among the topics were Art in wars, protest, disabilities, mental health problems, and more. Some students even shared their personal experiences with art therapy and explained how art has helped them through rough times. Every presentation was amazing, and it showed that each student’s hard work as well as what a powerful role art has played in many stressful and even tragic events of the past and present.
