JONES: . . . How do you see the relationships between the different histories â the USA tradition and the Nigerian? What are the positive elements of this relationship and what are the challenges for music therapists?
ALUEDE: . . . The history of music therapy in America is relatively recent compared to that of Africa: in terms of nature, scope and competence, it is currently slim. Important, too, is the fact that the current practice of music therapy is restricted in general hospitals, schools, prisons, health centres, training institutions, psychiatric facilities, private practices and universities, whereas it is boundless in Africa. Obviously, there is a general consensus that music is therapeutic. And that people across different climes have musical practices geared towards healing. Beyond healing, music has been acclaimed to have many more attributes. For example, Levitin (2010: 50â1) claims that in Africa, music is not an art form as much as it is a means of communication. Singing together releases oxytocin, a neurochemical now known to be involved in establishing bonds of trust between people.
In chapter 8 Aluede offers an account of the development and presence of the interconnections between healing and music in Nigeria, and the work of Li introduces practices in Shaanxi province, China, such as Yin Kang Shi Dancing, described by LĂŒ in 239 BC, where it was a âmethodâ to stimulate blood circulation and enhance immunity. An influential strand of the way history is understood, the emergence of the arts as therapy in Europe and North America, is also encountered in this chapter: through analysis of developments in art, theatre, dance and music at the end of the nineteenth century and early years of the twentieth century. These movements are widespread and vary enormously. They include the Surrealists, the revolt in theatre in the Soviet Union and Germany, from Diaghilevâs and Nijinskyâs productions such as the Rite of Spring through to developments in jazz. Part III, âBackgrounds, histories and encounters: from the first happening to the shadow of logicâ, describes and analyses initiatives from this period. It focuses on two specific examples, as a way of sampling many other similar occurrences. Chapter 8 looks at Black Mountain College in the USA, a place of experimentation and interdisciplinary discovery. Chapter 9 looks at one of the early meetings between those involved in the arts therapies, on 30 April 1960 in London.
The movements and experiments referred to above resulted in particular ways of viewing creativity, the imagination, the roles of the artist and of the art form. These arts movements examined areas of expression and experience which had hitherto been seen to be outside the range of what was considered âsuitableâ for artistic attention. Lyotard presents this as the central tenet of modern representation: âTo make visible that there is something which can be conceived and which can neither be seen nor made visibleâ (Lyotard, 1983: 16). The movements often included an interest in artistic products of people with mental health problems, for example, and the use of techniques devised to free the imagination and to increase spontaneity. the first performance in 1896 of Albert Jarryâs play Ubu Roi is an example of such work, reflecting these concerns in its conception and realisation. It was met by an audience uproar â almost bringing the production to a halt. The audience was in such a state of disruption that violence nearly erupted (Innes, 1993). Riotous arguments in the audience almost drowned out the players. This performance has been described as a seminal moment in modern culture, a formative influence on the twentieth-century avant-garde. What was so disturbing? What caused people to revolt? A key to this lies in both the content and form of the performance. The plays in this cycle can be seen to be in line with Jarryâs âPataphysicsâ, which he defined as a system devoted to unreason, âa science of imaginary solutionsâ (Jarry, cited in Innes, 1993: 26). On a theatre stage in Paris he was trying to break down the relationship between everyday perception and hallucination:
You will see doors open onto snow-covered plains under blue skies, mantelpieces with clocks on them swinging open to turn into doorways, and palm trees flourishing at the foot of beds so that little elephants perching on book shelves can graze on them.
(Jarry, 1965: 77)
This concern was echoed within other experimental art forms of the time. These involved attempts to reach beyond surface reality, to explore through the arts what was thought of as âinnerâ nature: dreams, the subliminal, the unconscious. The stage or gallery becomes a place for dreams to become concrete, for the mind to reveal previously hidden thoughts and experiences, for the concerns of the unconscious, rather than the rational, to be played out. Taylor could have been referring to Jarryâs work when he draws parallels between the avant-garde in twentieth-century art and the kind of work produced in the arts therapies, âDuring this period avant garde artists became able to do through the activity of painting what therapists today do with their patients â namely explore aspects of feeling that are often not accessible by other meansâ (Taylor, 1998: 21).
As this book will demonstrate, the arts therapies are much more than such a process of exploration. However, Taylorâs reference indicates one of the connections that created the context for the arts therapies to emerge: that of the fascination of the experimental arts with emerging ideas of the unconscious and extreme states of mind. As we will see later in this book, the work of groups such as the Surrealists, or the experiments at places such as Black Mountain college, described in Chapter 8, âThe first happeningâ, were all part of this upheaval or experimentation. Such challenging of boundaries between different disciplines, such as psychology and the arts, would enable the arts therapies to emerge. Arts therapist McNiff has said that Surrealism may be the clearest link between the arts and arts therapy: âDuring the surrealist era many of the values that currently guide art as medicine began to take shapeâ (McNiff, 1992: 44).
The development of arts practices with children in schools and the emer gence of arts work from behind asylum walls in many continents, from Asia to Europe, Africa to South America, have also been credited with helping to challenge and widen the notion of what can be described as the âartsâ. Chapter 9 tr...