Community Engagement

In October 2024, I hosted a Music & Movement Workshop at The Hope Center- Women's Campus in Lexington, Kentucky. This project addresses the effect of movement and music on a community of women reentering society. I teach participants coping mechanisms, ways of processing information, how to express themselves, and ways of connecting with the present moment, their bodies, and their emotions. Music and movement improve mental health, social integration, and skill development, and I want to share these resources with a community that could greatly benefit from them. Through the workshop, I used fun, upbeat, and confidence-boosting music that some participants helped me create. From this experience, I have seen how music and movement can positively impact women reentering society after being separated in some way. 

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The most powerful moment of the class is when participants create their gestures that represent an emotion, experience, or feeling. We learn each other's gestures, play the positive playlist, and perform them. We perform each gesture 8 times in a row while increasing the amount of energy each time. After we perform 8 repetitions, we shake the gesture away as if we are shaking away the emotion. This part of the class was the most popular, as you will notice in my Workshop Analysis. 

 

Music & Movement: Its Impact Through Reentry" is a workshop I would love to take to various locations. I want to bring the power of music and movement to more communities, as I have with The Hope Center. After hearing such thankful, happy, and excited testimonies from participants, I knew I needed to bring these experiences to more communities trying to reenter society. If you would like to learn more about this project, I highly suggest reading my Workshop Analysis and my presentation so you can understand the details and specificities of the workshop. 

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Be sure to listen to the Spotify playlist the participants and I have made, and view my lesson plan!