WEBVTT

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[music]

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Folks living with chronic illness
and disabilities face unique

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challenges every day and
overcome amazing hurtles.

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Many are isolated, have trouble
communicating, and traditional therapies and

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medications are not enough. For them,
the arts can serve as a lifeline

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a new pathway to health.

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Hey Francis!

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Glad you brought your sketchbook today.
At the Vermont Arts Exchange,

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our mission is to provide people like Francis with the highest quality
Arts. So why don\'t you try to find a red, find the color of your

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form. The healing arts initiate is a
regional project where we use the

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arts to improve the health of people living with
chronic illness and disabilities. Folks living in the

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community as well as institutions.

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We utilize all the disciplines.

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Drumming, theater,

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music and technology,

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dance, so we can reach everyone.

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[music]

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It\'s doctors, arts organizations, health
care staff and artist working together.

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[sil.]

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With these multi-disciplinary
teams we can attract due

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resources, and see positive impact in each
of the participating health care sites

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that joins with us to advance this work.
Such as Tewksbury Hospital.

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[sil.]

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The patients who come here have conditions for the most
part that modern medicine does not know how to cure.

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But it\'s not so much as medical science

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have a cure to offer as
does society have a cure.

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They\'re here because this
is society\'s solution

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to their problem. Debbie talk to you
about the hockey game Monday night?

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You\'re buying the hot dogs. I\'m not buyin\'
anymore, you\'re buyin\' the hot dogs. Okay?

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[sil.]

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I don\'t think

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so. Oh yeah I do! I don\'t think so.

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I don\'t think so. I think so.

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Danny actually was born six weeks late. It
took them 45 minutes to get him breathing on

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his own. They finally put a label on it,
which was cerebral palsy, which is just

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brain injury. When he was about
five months old. I will always have

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cerebral palsy. There is no cure. When Danny
was growing up, he had a lot of the same

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interests and wants that children without

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disabilities have.

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He loved bowling, he also loved
wrestling, he loved music. When Dan was

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young, it was very hard for him to
communicate. It would be pointing at things,

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saying is this it, no, is
this is, no, until finally

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actually sometimes he would just wanna
quit. My life got much, much better

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because of people here at this hospital
taught me how to use my communication

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device.

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[sil.]

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Music give someone who might not be able
to communicate verbally another way

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to really put, um, themselves out there.
You ready?

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Let\'s see if they line up. I created Hyperscore
because there\'s a terrible division, especially

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in music, between the
experts and everybody else.

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I think that just is not healthy thing.
That\'s not good for music, it\'s not

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good for our society. I wanted to make
Hyperscore so that we could close that

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gap. I started thinking that
Hyperscore might be useful in

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a clinical context, and in one of those funny
synergies that\'s when the Mass Cultural Counsel

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got in touch not knowing I was interested in this at
all, said, would you like to do something in healing

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arts, and I said you know as a matter of
fact, that\'s exactly what we wanna do.

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Tod came in with his
Hyperscore program, and

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set up weekly sessions with
patients writing music. What color

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would you like to start with? Hyperscore works
purely by using lines and color. They\'re two

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modes in Hyperscore, the first is to make basic
material, you can think of them as melodies,

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you make these melodies by manipulating things that kinda
look like little eggplants. You move them up and down for

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higher or lower, uh, you make them bigger or smaller, for short
notes or longer notes. If there\'s a space between notes,

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it\'s a rest.

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Once you

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then make a melody, you can draw
with that melody. As simple as that.

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[music]

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It seems to allow people with
many different backgrounds

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to conceptually see this, imagine
it, imagine something they wanna

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communicate, and get it out. So first lets pick
out the melody that you want the saxophone

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to be on. When the idea of doing Hyperscore at
the hospital was first introduced, there was

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a lotta skepticism about the
technology, as well as the purpose.

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Okay, can I hear a little bit of that part?
Now Hyperscore is being

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requested as part of people\'s treatment.
Dale is like many

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adults who have mental illness, she is a very
bright young woman. She is out living on her own,

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doing very well and then one day she came home and said
she had lost her apartment. She became increasingly

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reclusive, we were eventually
able to get a diagnosis of

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paranoid schizophrenia. While she\'s been involved
in this program, I\'ve seen continual progress.

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Working with Hyperscore has helped
her deal with hearing voices because

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it keeps her mind focused on things that prevents the
voices from intruding into her everyday thoughts.

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What do you think, a
little syncopated there?

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You wanna keep drawing and then
change the instrument? Okay.

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There\'re all kinds of ways that music
seems to integrate parts of our minds,

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seems to short circuit certain habits that we have, that allow
us to do things that may have been lost because of various

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illnesses or disabilities. But nobody
really knows why that happens.

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We\'re at the beginning of something major,
and we need to turn this into a real

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science.

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My first Hyperscore composition
is called Our Musically.

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Dan is able to form ideas in his
head and really put it out on the

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computer. Everyone acknowledges that
he\'s a great composer, he\'s known as the

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composer now in the hospital. After
people compose pieces in Hyperscore,

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we transcribe them into
notation for musicians to play.

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Tewskbury Hospital, um, is thrilled to present
a performance by the local Harmonic Orchestra-

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We rehearsed like crazy,
we brought in a few

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extra players, actually brought my cello.
Dan picked the

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harmony of fourths, so instead of being a normal
chords that you\'d hear in classical or rock music,

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it\'s, um, dum, bum, bum.

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[music]

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It\'s a very kind of open
kind of positive sound.

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Different sections of the orchestra keep
coming in and layering on top of each other.

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[music]

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It\'s got this counterpoint. Dum, pum.

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Dum pum pum.

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[music]

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All of a sudden it winds up back into synchrosity
and the whole orchestra kinda winds up.

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[sil.]

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After the concert everybody came over

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and asked me how did you do it.

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I felt extremely proud of myself.

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It was like being hit with

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a lightning bolt, it was so overpowering
to realize that these friends

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had written pieces that were so fanta-,
they were just terrific pieces of music.

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What was so special

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really was that this was a community coming
to a hospital, because when this hospital was

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built in 1850, it wasn\'t
in the center of Boston,

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it was built out here because whoever
was out there, they didn\'t wanna see

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again. And that feeling still carries.

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And so, having people come to performances,

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that\'s fantastic. They\'ll see who\'s
here and who\'s providing care,

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and get a better understanding that
they\'re not Martians or strange people or

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non-people.

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[music]

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Our programs enhance the existing
rehabilitative services at each

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health care site. Such as at
Union Hospital where we\'ve

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placed the writer Peggy Rambach

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I\'m here to teach people how to write.

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When people say, oh you do therapeutic writing, I say, no, I do not
do therapeutic writing, I teach people how to write in memoir.

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And that\'s what I do.

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The story is there, it\'s dramatizing
the story that is the writer\'s job.

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Real story is in

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the subtle moments of life, that\'s
where we derive our life\'s meaning

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in a glance, or in the touch or the feel of
something, that\'s how we take in the world.

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We talked a lot about using point of
view, and doing all that other stuff

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that has to go around a situation to make us feel
like it\'s happening. I tell my students this is not

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a class for journaling or free writing,
this is a class where you\'re going to

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write for others. I had tried several
times to teach my husband Fred how to

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buy groceries. He was the one with several
serious medical conditions, and I was reasonably

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healthy. Now I really had to press
on to ready him to be alone,

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or so I thought. Inside the store, both of
us took a carriage. I had made the list

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so he had his own section to start with.
This is what I see.

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I listed bananas, he got plantains, I told
him cherry tomatoes, he got cherries.

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Instead of red onions, he got red potatoes.

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Fred has learned that the double rolls
of toilet paper are better to buy than

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singled. He does read dates now, so that
was successful. The cancer has been a

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treatment for over a year now, nine
blood transfusions later, I am back

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doing my own shopping and sometimes
Fred comes too. If you want to be cured

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of cancer in 2006, you
will very likely need

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chemotherapy and or radiation and or surgery. How did
it-, why did it work for so many of you? But it\'s

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clear that we come with self-healing
mechanisms, even if our DNA has

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self-healing mechanisms. So why don\'t we
want to foster people\'s self-healing, to

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go in concert with all this stuff we\'re
giving them? Instead of like, well these are

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all the things that happened to me, and he still can\'t
find the bananas! You know. I mean, after all of this,

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I- Underneath the humor there is that sense of, probably he
doesn\'t wanna get it right. He doesn\'t want you to be sick,

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he wants everything to be the way it was. You know,
and it can still be funny, but I still think

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if you dramatize your tension,
that\'s, that\'s going to

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help out a little bit more. Peggy
Rambach is an absolute gift.

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And I say that both as an observer, and as
one of the writer\'s in the medical center.

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I\'m glad you\'re here today. I\'m still
struggling with this, so-I have the same

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standards whether I\'m teaching people
with cancer or mentally ill patients, or

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caregivers. What you struggle with so much with
in the beginning is your own agenda. It was

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Hypocrites in 380BC who said if you want good
health care you take care of the caregivers.

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And we have spent approximately
2000 years forgetting that.

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At this point I think we\'re just kind of still
trying to find the focus-What I teach is

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form, and form is really art. What is it you\'re
really writing about? And where to begin,

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and how to shape the pace-I\'m teaching
people how to make experience into a shape.

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I hate funeral homes. They are

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rotten places. We can wander
around for years after

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having had a devastating experience,
and what I can help people do is

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make sense of it, and it is the form that helps
you make sense of it. That actually gives

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closure to the writer. They start to
understand what that experience meant

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even if it meant you can\'t understand why these awful
things happen. At the front desk I was impersonally handed

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a phone over the high counter. It
was my mother. Dad died, she said.

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I felt nothing. Everything
stopped and ceased to exist,

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when my wife and I said goodbye to my parents
after the holiday, my father was emotional,

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and seemed to be crying as we
pulled out of the driveway.

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I never called him.

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I never called him during the three weeks

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after Christmas. I didn\'t ask or
inquire to how he was feeling.

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Too caught in trying to
finish up my training,

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so that I could be a quote, better doctor.
I never gave it another thought,

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until dad died. And there\'s a
lot of tears in my classes.

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And yet, the focus is on the work, it doesn\'t become
a therapy group. I\'m gonna be the nasty practical

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one here. One thing that\'s still
not in this essay is your father,

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really. Your relationship with your father.
Yeah, that\'s coming. Well I think,

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I think you need to kind of put this material
aside for a minute and just start anew.

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And then go from, what is pulling you
emotionally-Chris began writing about

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the death of his father. He\'s moving
with it in a new direction now.

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His son has Turret\'s syndrome, and
he\'s writing about needing the

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example of his father, and not having it.
It may be about something else.

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Well that\'s, that\'s true actually, there\'s-, I don\'t know where
this is going. The end of every workshop is a culminating

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event. I am deeply grateful for having
had this experience with all of you.

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Both the caregivers and the
patients read at the same time.

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I call it kind of the great leveler. It
allows everyone to see everyone as a whole

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person. My piece is titled Perfect.
I transform

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even into my laboratory. He was no
longer my little boy, but my patient.

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I saw Ethan go up and down.
And my wife Lisa became

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angry. He\'s your son, stop trying to
fix him. I\'m just trying to help him,

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I hollered back. But she was right.

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That night, up in Ethan\'s room I sat on the
edge of his bed, leaned on Simba, his stuffed

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Lion and asked, honey, can you
try to stop it, or hold it in?

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My questions alone triggered
several blinks and a head roll.

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Before he would answer.
No, I can\'t dad, he said.

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It was a half an hour before he was asleep.
But when he was asleep it was gone.

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No ticks. I leaned against the
door and thought about him and me.

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There was nothing wrong with him. He
was perfect, just the way he was.

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When we go through traumas and loss

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and sudden misfortune in our lives,

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a great gift that we have is the
ability to make something out of it.

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And that ability keeps us in this world,
and keeps us connected to others.

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It\'s so easy to wanna fix them.
It\'s a process that is part of

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living. The continuation of healing, like a
way a tree kinda moves around an obstacle

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as it grows in order to keep growing.
I think that\'s perhaps what

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I help people do.

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[music]

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Artists can\'t do this alone,
health care sites can\'t

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nor can a single arts organization. So we\'ve
created a community partnership model

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where everyone contributes.

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Michelle Pearson is a dancer choreographer
who works as a lead teacher

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and trainer for the initiative. At the Vermont
Veterans Home, she uses dance to help

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residents and their family members
discover new ways to communicate.

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I think dance is my way of

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participating in the world. I danced in the

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Joyce Theater, I danced at the Kennedy
Center, I danced, uh, in prison,

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behind locked bars. You know I\'ve danced on graveyards.
One is not more important than the other. One is not more

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valuable than the other.
I dance with people.

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All kinds of people. I think that
every single human body is unique.

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The way the effort that
someone who can barely

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move their fingers takes. To let me
see a movement that is meaningful

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to them is very powerful.

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The Veteran\'s home is a long-term care
facility, so we\'re in the same category

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as other nursing homes.
We\'re taking care of people

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spouses, people\'s fathers, people\'s

00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
brothers. Staff really come to feel that

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
the residents are a part
of the extended family.

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
When I begin a residency,
I don\'t assume anything.

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
I don\'t assume that they know who I am, or why I\'m
there. I don\'t assume that they know why they\'re there.

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
What\'s your name? Elmer. Elmer! I do
remember you. I try to make physical contact

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
Touch is an amazing thing.

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
It opens up all kinds of doors.

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
Then we warm up the senses. I\'m gonna
put my hands on your face and you tell

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
me what you notice. Warmth. Warmth.

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
Sometimes people think because they can\'t stand,
they can\'t dance. And I love the way Ruth

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
is bringing her fingers kinda like
playing the piano. And I say to them,

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
there is no movement that is too small
to be noticed. To be celebrated.

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
Oh he\'s doing his eyebrows, I love
that, great. Do your eyebrows. Woo!

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
We begin to ask stories,
and we begin to find

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
um, what matters to this group of people.

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
Think about a time in your life
when you were nearly broken.

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
But you came back from it. There are
many bodies down there in those

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
I think the number was in excess
of 1500 when I was there.

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
I guess in a sense I\'m a military
grand-brat. Both of my grandfathers

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
were Marines. Their stories I
didn\'t really get from them.

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
And now when I\'m with veterans, I ask
them what do you want not to be forgotten

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
but you can\'t bear to talk about.
And oil is oozing

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
up through the water. And I understand
they can\'t tell those stories.

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
These are all really big thoughts, you
know. What can we do for that movement

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
wise. It was difficult, it was hard. But,

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
you were able to come out of it. So I allow

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
them to find a movement. It\'s kind of a
beautiful movement. Yet the thought of it

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
is-, it\'s a very sad thing. And
these are the stories I wish I had

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
asked my grandfather. And maybe I\'m
hearing them from these other people,

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
and, um, that means a lot.

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
We work with the family members,
support groups, no one is

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
excluded. To me, that\'s a beautiful dance.

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
That I wouldn\'t have gotten
in the ballet studio. That\'s

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
why I come here. For many of
our family members, putting

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
their loved one in a nursing home, has been one
of the most difficult decisions they\'ve ever

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
made. Close your eyes if you would
like, Warren. I wanna see what\'s gonna

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
happen! You wanna see what\'s gonna happen! Well here\'s
what\'s gonna happen. I\'m gonna take you around.

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
I\'m just gonna take you-Having Michelle work with the
family members is time just for them. No, that\'s where

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
I\'m goin\'. Okay, eventually

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
without talking, I will find a way to say

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
stop.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
A lot of the family members are
extremely tired. You know, they\'re

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
hurt, they\'re confused, and
they\'ve put everything

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
they have into just giving
to their loved one. I try to

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
come every Wednesday. Helen
my sister tries to come

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
every Sunday, so we see
our brother twice a week.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
[sil.]

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
A lot of our

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
residents in our dementia program look healthy,
look well, but they have a brain disease

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
the person as they progress becomes
more and more difficult to reach.

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
One thing that we can learn from
people with memory loss is they

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
really live in the moment. So many times

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
you think about the big things in
your life. I was wondering, though,

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
if there weren\'t some other

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
ordinary things, things you do every day.

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
Hug a friend. What kind of
movement can I do for hugging?

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
Can you show me a movement? Bring it in, oh
that\'s lovely. I might say okay let your arm

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
float up in the air, and then, you know,
I look around and someone\'s you know

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
got their arm floating underneath their
leg. Gerome what kinda movement can I do

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
for, for doin\' dishes. Can you show
me a movement that might look like.

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
Wash-, I love it!

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
Did you see that? It\'s exquisite.
And I would never

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
be able to find that. And I can\'t even, you
know I\'m a professional dancer, and I can\'t

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
do it that way. But I can appreciate it. And
you bow up high, and you go all around.

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
If we only store our memories
in our brain, what happens when

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
we forget? I see it time and time again.
When we awaken

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
the story not from the brain, but from
the body-Feel that water, it\'s great!

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
Isn\'t it?- Then people can
reclaim that emotion,

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
you know the joy or the elation,
or even the discomfort.

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
I\'m gonna kinda dancify
it, so maybe the hug

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
circles. I created a dance out

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
of those images. And maybe
the dishes are on the floor.

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
It was a gift to me from them to have the movement,
and then it\'s, in return, a gift back to them so they

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
can see how powerful their stories are.
This is the dance you made.

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
[music]

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
Sand and water. At the beach.

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
[music]

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
A hug. My arms are flailing

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
with the emotion from the stories that they
told me, the tears that are coming down

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
their face.

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:28.000
[music]

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
These people are old,

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
they\'re frail, their bodies are run down.
Why bother dancing?

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
You know you\'re a human being.

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
Does it matter to feel happy? Does it

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
matter to discover something
new when you\'re 93?

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
Does it matter to get
excited to feel alive?

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
I think that\'s what healing
is about, it\'s an ongoing

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
quest to be not just okay, but a little

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
better, a little healthier.

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:23.000
[music]

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
You like seeing your new work up there? See
the frame we put on it? Nice black frame.

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
Got the bank in there, and the
variety store, it\'s great.

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:30.000
[music]