Embodiment Workshop for Creativity and Activism with Nicol Hammond
Black Sound Symposium: embodiment workshop to shake off the fatigue that comes from activist work
Teaching music - particularly the music of marginalized people - sets up an environment in which trauma is hard to avoid. The COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing complexities of returning to classrooms with students who are frequently traumatized, dissociated, and disconnected led me to develop the exercises I will share in this workshop. When we are stressed or traumatized, or otherwise in a hypervigilant state, our mind and body work overtime to find environmental clues that confirm that we can safely narrow our focus to the thing we're trying to concentrate on. Consequently, orienting ourselves to our environment helps our nervous system to step down a little from our alertness. By gently orienting to one another, and recalling the materiality of our bodies, we can make space for more creativity, shake off some of the fatigue that comes from activist work. These exercises are adaptable for all types of mobility and fitness, and do not require special equipment.
Nicol Hammond
Nicol Hammond is a South African music scholar working on popular music, race, gender, and sexuality. She is an assistant professor at UC Santa Cruz, and a chorister with the Bay Area Chamber Choir.
The Black Sound Symposium is a 4-day event full of concerts, talks, workshops, screenings, and interdisciplinary dialogue rooted in Black sound and Black sonic space. The symposium aims to create and sustain community; to celebrate curiosity, wonder, disobedience, collaboration, and play in artistic work; to expand anti-racist and activist pedagogy and methodologies in and outside of our institutions; and to honor the long and rich lineages of Black virtuosity that have been diminished and erased from artistic canons and social consciousness.