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The Role of Music and Dancing in Healing

El Rol de la Msica y la Danza en la Sanacin
By Carlo Brescia
August 12, 2011 Lima, Peru

BACKGROUND / ANTECEDENTES

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VIDEO h-p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_uz_-YnauM

Joachim Koester TaranGsm (2007) 16 mm black and white lm installaGon (6.31 min)

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Joachim Koester TaranGsm (2007) 16 mm black and white lm installaGon (6.31 min)

Joachim Koester TaranGsm (2007) 16 mm black and white lm installaGon (6.31 min)

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Joachim Koester TaranGsm (2007) 16 mm black and white lm installaGon (6.31 min)

What is Tarantism?

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VIDEO h-p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igUTPVPdA-E

Why an article about the Role of Dance and Music in Healing?

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CONTENT / CONTENIDO Definitions / Definiciones Case Study / Estudio de Caso Discussion / Discusin Conclusions / Conclusiones

DEFINITIONS / DEFINICIONES

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CULTURE / CULTURA general framework of beliefs, norms and values shared in common between groups of people mediates and influences behaviour inherited, adopted or created symbolic, societal and technological dimensions

HEALTH.- a state of complete physical, social and mental well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity SALUD.- un estado de completo bienestar fsico, social y mental, y no simplemente la ausencia de enfermedad o debilidad WHO / OMS , 2000

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HEALTH SYSTEMS / SISTEMAS DE SALUD

Health systems use the symbolic, societal and technological dimensions of a given culture in order to treat disease and illness.

MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY / ANTROPOLOGA MDICA studies health systems in their cultural contexts 3 premises:
- Illness and healing are best understood holistically - Disease is influenced by human behaviour and requires biocultural adaptations - Culture of health systems have pragmatic consequences for the acceptability, effectiveness, and improvement of health

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HEALING / SANACIN
disease versus illness diseases and illnesses are part of human societies people filter their biological manifestations through culturally constructed beliefs

Biomedicine in this context, becomes one type of ethnomedicine amongst many others, it is not culturally free although it is technologically sophisticated, professionalized and dominant.

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Culture provides rules of social action without which it will be very difficult for persons to understand each other.

The patient must act its illness in a way that the healer will be familiar with, and the healer must act its healing practices in a way that the patient will also be familiar with.

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In non-western tradition or technologically simple societies, health systems tend to be more holistic in their approach to the nonhealthy.

RITUALS / RITUALES
overt cultural practices activities with a high degree of formality non utilitarian purpose 2 main types: rites of passage and healing ceremonies

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DANCE AND MUSIC/ DANZA Y MSICA

characterize human societies their roles are varied their roles depend on the culture where they exist are overt forms of culture

DANCE AND MUSIC/ DANZA Y MSICA

a means to reinforce communal sentiments an occasion for the release of social conflict and tension more efficient in transmitting feelings rather than intellectual ideas body is both an object and a subject

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DANCE / DANZA
the creative use of the human body in time and space within culturally specific systems of movement structure and meaning.

MUSIC / MSICA
is the art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition, as through melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre.

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Dance, Music, Illness and Healing Practices are cultural constructions. To understand them, they must be analysed in their own cultural contexts.

CASE STUDY / ESTUDIO DE CASO

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Crapanzano, V. (1939 - ) The Hamadsha. (1973). Berkeley: University of California Press. Ethnographic research in Morocco 1967-1968.

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THE HAMADSHA Religious brotherhood Loosely and diversely organized Cult of Saints Essentially arabs Orthodox Muslim Patrilocal and patrilineal

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THE HAMADSHA eni Rachids saint: Sidi Ali ben Hamdush B 500 inhabitants, 60% eni Ouarads saint: Sidi Ahmed Dghughi B 604 inhabitants, 30%

Beni Ouarad

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Beni Rachid

ORGANISATION mizwar (political leader) muqaddim (team leader) foqra (adepts) muhibbin (devotees) ghiyyata (oboe players) zawiyas (religious centers) madina vs shantytowns

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Muqaddim

HAMADSHA CULT ACTIVITIES Musem (annual pilgrimage) Muslim Sabbath (ceremony every Friday afternoon) Name-day ceremony (7 days after birth) Lila (healing ceremony)

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Musem at Beni Rachid, 1968

HAMADSHA HEALTH SYSTEM Goal: the cure of the devil-struck and the devil-possessed, instead of communion with god.

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HsADSHA THERAPY is one of many therapies available: Biomedicine Koranic Teachers (amulets and talismans) Herbalists Aguza (magical brews) Barber (lets blood) Traditional Arab Medicine Other brotherhoods

HAMADSHA HEALTH SYSTEM Asha Qandisha: female jnun, opposed to Saints

Responsible of paralysis of the limbs, pinching bones, sudden deafness, blindness, and mutism accompanied by organic lesions, childrens diseases, menstrual difficulties, and barrenness

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LILA CEREMONY
Bath Fatha by Muqaddim (short prayer) Mint tea, mild and dates are offered Hizb/Wanasa by Muqaddim and adepts (invocation to Allah) Dikr by adepts (rapid invocations) Hadra (hot part) more Fathas Hadra (cold part) Closing Meal

Recitation of Dikr (rapid invocations)

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Ghiyyata and Ghiyyat (Oboe)

Guwwala warming up the gwal (hourglass-shaped pottery drum)

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Hadra, hot part, forming line

VIDEO h-p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h19IXdLHQ7g

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Hadra, hot part, woman in jidba

Hadra at Beni Ouarad

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Hadra, cold part, man slashing his head

ELEMENTS OF THE THERAPY Group support Patient participation Insight and suggestion Cult membership Trance, abreation and catharsis

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INTERPRETATION BY CRAPANZANO
Illness caused by psychodynamic problems in the family constellation Patient enters dissociative state with extreme suggestibility Undergoes erasure or partial erasure of previously learned behavioural patterns and beliefs Therapy is a socially sanctioned opportunity to discharge tensions

The cure involves a two-fold process. First, a conflict originally existing on an emotional level or in the unconscious is made explicit. Second, an opportunity for the working out or resolution of conflicts thereby made explicit is offered. The Efficacy of Symbols (1963a) Claude Lvi-Strauss

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The patient receives from the outside a social myth which does not correspond to his former personal state. The Efficacy of Symbols (1963a) Claude Lvi-Strauss

MUSIC auditory overstimulation rihs chanted correspond to brain rhythms DANCE fatigue and overexertion reduces blood sugar, increases the adrenalin hyperventilation

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INTERPRETATION BY CRAPANZANO Dance, music and chanting are seen as a way to induce trance only. They foster the reduction of ideational stimuli generating ideational deprivation.

Conditions that contribute to the dissociative state: incense (olfactory overstimulation) group excitement overcrowding permissive atmosphere heightened expectation presence of strong models for trance

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DISCUSSION / DISCUSIN

Hamadsha illnesses and healing are seen by Crapanzano as inscribed in the body as an object- in terms of the culture of the brotherhoods.

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Devisch, Renaat. (1939 - ) Weaving the threads of life: The Khita gyn-eco-logical healing cult among the Yaka. (1993). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Ethnographic research in Congo DR 1991-1992.

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KHITA HEALTH SYSTEM Patient participation Insight and suggestion Cult membership Dance and Music Trance, abreation and catharsis

INTERPRETATION BY DEVISCH Trance is not a device of inducing an extreme suggestibility state where past beliefs and behavioural patterns are erased and new ones instilled.

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Devisch sees trance as a device to give the body over to the senses. The body is an agent.

In this interpretation, there is more space for the things that cannot be explained by colloquial speech and representational thinking, moving through metaphor and beyond language.

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THE LIMINAL FUNCTION OF DANCE AND MUSIC The liminal function is the function which dynamically marks and crosses the boundaries between social, cultural, affective and corporeal domains.

Certain illnesses appear when the liminal function fails to produce the symbolic interwovenness of the body-self, society and culture.

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Illnesses treated by healing rituals close the body in a maze of contrarieties, or they unthread the weave. These illnesses operate in the body beyond cognitive reflection and create a dissonance in the weave.

Ritual therapy that uses music and dance works as it attempts to reestablish this dissonance. Therapeutic rituals renew the spatio-temporal integration of body and mind, of the body-self, the social ties and the world-view.

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DANCE AND MUSIC the body acts as an agent seeking to achieve resonance not only fosters trance gives an opportunity to the body to locate itself in space and time vocal music offers fragments of some mythic narrative

Dance, music and chant in ritual healing reflect in their polymorphous and polyphonic character the same character as the loom of life.

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They have a liminal function in healing practices as they offer the patients body a time and a space to achieve the resonant interconnectedness of body, society and life-world.

CONCLUSIONS / CONCLUSIONES

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Culture encompasses symbolic, societal and technological dimensions, the relationships within and between these dimensions are complex and some beyond language, cognitive processes and representational thinking.

The disruption or merging of some of these interrelationships can generate a dissonance and thus creating an illness in the body of a person.

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The role of music and dance in healing practices encompasses a liminal function as they foster the agency of the body to re-generate the relationships the self has with its body, society and life-world. Thus, they create resonance again.

Where ra/onal reec/on comes to an end the symbolic meanings of the arts reveal their signicance.
Wolgang Mastnak (1993)

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