by Sarah Rohrer
BuildaBridge and Refugee Family Services (RFS) were waiting for the last act of their BuildaBridge Arts Week Celebration, and all eyes were on a smaller boy at the front of Class 4. Kay Do So projected a sense of serenity and calm as he stood with his back to the audience, facing his class, arms high and ready to begin conducting. No one had coached him to stand with such poise; it just came naturally over the course of the week as he became more knowledgeable about what sounds he wanted produced and how to bring them about. With a flick of the wrist, he signaled his classmates to begin.
On the first day of arts camp, their music class had begun with introducing the heartbeat rhythm, but it quickly became a near free-for-all, as each student plucked, banged, and blew on instruments to their hearts’ content, with little regard for any guidance or instruction. While I knew how far the class had come since then, I was curious to see how well they listened to one another and controlled their voices and instruments. Some of the boys from Class 4 were so excited, that when Class 3 went up before them for their music performance, they began chanting along quietly, elbowing each other and smiling. I didn’t need to worry. By the end of the week, Ms. Josie had successfully harnessed that energy, and taught them how to control their music and enjoy themselves. In fact, the class had been planning and plotting their performance earlier that day.
Kay Do So kept his wand and his entire body low to the ground, signaling his friends to begin quietly, as they had discussed. Many of the kids imitated him, ducking their heads down near the drums as they lightly hit it, or bending conspiratorially towards one another as they began saying his name in rhythm to the beat, the same heartbeat introduced at the beginning of the week. Everyone’s eyes were riveted on the wand, and when it pointed to another classmate, they began chanting that child’s name as a single voice, much to her delight.
As Kay Do So raised the wand higher and higher, the whole class strummed, drummed, sang and smiled harder and harder. They had been waiting for this moment, and their eyes shone with excitement, as the whole room reverberated with their rhythm. They ended by singing their version of “We Will Rock You.” Each child had the chance to sing one of the lines of the verses they had written, and they all sang the chorus together, ending with a cheer, “Class 4!”One of the class 4 students, Amanuel, doing visual arts about the heart
BuildaBridge and Refugee Family Services (RFS) were waiting for the last act of their BuildaBridge Arts Week Celebration, and all eyes were on a smaller boy at the front of Class 4. Kay Do So projected a sense of serenity and calm as he stood with his back to the audience, facing his class, arms high and ready to begin conducting. No one had coached him to stand with such poise; it just came naturally over the course of the week as he became more knowledgeable about what sounds he wanted produced and how to bring them about. With a flick of the wrist, he signaled his classmates to begin.
On the first day of arts camp, their music class had begun with introducing the heartbeat rhythm, but it quickly became a near free-for-all, as each student plucked, banged, and blew on instruments to their hearts’ content, with little regard for any guidance or instruction. While I knew how far the class had come since then, I was curious to see how well they listened to one another and controlled their voices and instruments. Some of the boys from Class 4 were so excited, that when Class 3 went up before them for their music performance, they began chanting along quietly, elbowing each other and smiling. I didn’t need to worry. By the end of the week, Ms. Josie had successfully harnessed that energy, and taught them how to control their music and enjoy themselves. In fact, the class had been planning and plotting their performance earlier that day.
Kay Do So kept his wand and his entire body low to the ground, signaling his friends to begin quietly, as they had discussed. Many of the kids imitated him, ducking their heads down near the drums as they lightly hit it, or bending conspiratorially towards one another as they began saying his name in rhythm to the beat, the same heartbeat introduced at the beginning of the week. Everyone’s eyes were riveted on the wand, and when it pointed to another classmate, they began chanting that child’s name as a single voice, much to her delight.
As Kay Do So raised the wand higher and higher, the whole class strummed, drummed, sang and smiled harder and harder. They had been waiting for this moment, and their eyes shone with excitement, as the whole room reverberated with their rhythm. They ended by singing their version of “We Will Rock You.” Each child had the chance to sing one of the lines of the verses they had written, and they all sang the chorus together, ending with a cheer, “Class 4!”One of the class 4 students, Amanuel, doing visual arts about the heart
The class had begun with the metaphor of the heartbeat, that each person and each group has a unique heartbeat, and that music is the heartbeat of the world. That first day, each child played only what they wanted to, how they wanted to, or if they wanted to. By the last day, they came together as a class, listened to one another, and responded musically to one another. They found their class heartbeat.
The next day, I found their community heartbeat. Rosa Dunkley, RFS’s Youth Development Coordinator and one of our lovely hosts, drove Julia and I around some of the apartments where the kids live. Turning into some complexes felt like entering another world, with refugees living together from Somalia, Thailand, Bosnia, Burma, Iraq, Sudan, and Burundi, to name a few. I saw people sharing life together: hanging laundry on a line, walking on errands, talking to neighbors, or watching kids play soccer and bicycle. Some of the complexes looked clean and safe, and even had a pool. Some still had the debris from when one of the buildings had burned down, taking the lives of several of the youth with it. Some, Rosa shared, had landlords that had stolen from the refugees. One no longer had many refugees because of tensions with the Americans also living there. Several times we spotted “our” kids, playing and talking and living. When they saw us, we smiled and waved like crazy people. Whether or not they saw us, I saw them, and I heard them. I had spent a week with them talking about heartbeats, but I had not yet discovered theirs, until that trip. It is strong, communal, resilient, and hopeful, vibrating with vitality.
The next day, I found their community heartbeat. Rosa Dunkley, RFS’s Youth Development Coordinator and one of our lovely hosts, drove Julia and I around some of the apartments where the kids live. Turning into some complexes felt like entering another world, with refugees living together from Somalia, Thailand, Bosnia, Burma, Iraq, Sudan, and Burundi, to name a few. I saw people sharing life together: hanging laundry on a line, walking on errands, talking to neighbors, or watching kids play soccer and bicycle. Some of the complexes looked clean and safe, and even had a pool. Some still had the debris from when one of the buildings had burned down, taking the lives of several of the youth with it. Some, Rosa shared, had landlords that had stolen from the refugees. One no longer had many refugees because of tensions with the Americans also living there. Several times we spotted “our” kids, playing and talking and living. When they saw us, we smiled and waved like crazy people. Whether or not they saw us, I saw them, and I heard them. I had spent a week with them talking about heartbeats, but I had not yet discovered theirs, until that trip. It is strong, communal, resilient, and hopeful, vibrating with vitality.
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