Rock Is Not the Enemy

A neuropsychologist and opera singer teamed up to create a form of vocal training for people on the autism spectrum.

Vania Masías abandoned her prolific career as a professional ballerina to teach impoverished youth in Peru hip hop. “More than 100,000 children have passed through the programme over the years.”

Taiwan, despite housing 23 million people on a densely populated island, claims one of the highest recycling and reuse rates in the world. The government has created incentives for private companies, which throw some catchy tunes in the mix. But whether or not a country recycles remains, largely, a question of willpower.

An initiative in House schools that gives students access to the arts in the classroom has positively affected students' ability to concentrate, write, and even show compassion to one another. The initiative, known as the Houston Arts Access Initiative, encourages schools to provide exposure to dance, music, and visual arts to encourage creative and kind interaction.

Contextualizing artistic representations creates more complex narratives and offers an opportunity to educate about historical memory. The Atlanta History Center has opened an exhibition that illuminates the absence of people of color in the “Battle of Atlanta” Cyclorama, an artwork that celebrates the 1864 Union victory. The museum presents the work alongside interactive guides and films that explain the erasure of African Americans from the memory of the scene.

Martin Agee, an accomplished violinist who has performed at Lincoln Center and on Broadway, volunteers for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and got an idea when he saw how reading to dogs could calm them down. He put his skills to use and began playing violin for the dogs, who instantly relax and respond to his performance.

Dance, karate, and music instructors in Staten Island, New York are adapting and shifting the ways they deliver lessons to work within the virtual landscape their students, and the rest of society are living in due to the pandemic. Some of the new ways these instructors have approached lesson delivery include using Google Classroom, developing a new music-specific learning platform, and incorporating new classes normally not offered.

Doctors and staff at Howard Brown Health, a Chicago health center for LGBTQ patients, is using its years of experience in containing and treating HIV and other sexually-transmitted diseases with contact tracing to help contain the spread of Covid-19. The conversations can sometimes be emotional and difficult. The team has found some people are afraid to get the test and others who have lost a loved one to the virus. They have interviewed over 200 people, with many more in the pipeline, and about 65% of those they talked to also tested positive for Covid-19.

Engaging with music stimulates brain activity and improves mental health. The Me2/Orchestra, a nonprofit organization, offers its volunteer musicians a stigma-free environment to reconnect with their passions and harness the healing power of music. In addition to empowering musicians who have encountered challenges due to mental illness, the Me2/Orchestra encourages community engagement to dispel misperceptions about mental illness.

Dalit hip-hop musicians are using their art and social media to propel the Dalit rights and anti-caste movements to the forefront of mainstream conversation.