Yesterday we travelled to Donald E. Long Juvenile Detention Hall in partnership with PNCA to facilitate their first ever Open Mic Poetry Slam. As an ice-breaker we ran an activity where the inmates, staff, guests, and PNCA students were asked to sing separate harmony lines all at once.  The goal was to illustrate that we are all one, connected, each breathing in air and exhaling into the same space.  Each person has the power to change that space, no matter what it is, through our intentions.   Indeed, the participants turned a locked and guarded gymnasium into place of worship as their voices filled the room and echoed off the walls.  It was beautiful.  Music is transformative, we see it everyday.

My Voice Music is blessed to work with a diverse community of youth, schools, teachers and organizations.  We travel to over 20 schools and youth organizations and work with about 1,000 youth each year.  In each place we find different faces, but the same stories.  Music, poetry, visual arts, allow us to see ourselves, our peers and our community in new ways.  This process allows us to open up, to be vulnerable, to be seen.  Yesterday is a clear example of this.  A group of incarcerated young men became a spontaneous choir.  They blessed me and they inspired their staff and their peers by sharing their voices.  Music is not a cure-all, but sometimes it is the magic needed to help someone begin to see themselves in a different light.

Special thanks to Michael O’Malley, the PNCA instructor, for putting this whole thing together and inviting us to participate!

– Here is a fantastic video of a similar activity that was facilitated with a crowd of people. However, instead of a gymnasium filled with incarcerated youth it is a conference of neuroscientists, and instead of beatboxing and playing guitar while the inmates and staff sang, Bobby McFerrin is scatting and jumping.