An aesthetic view on interaction between a musician and congenital deafblind children and children with multiple disabilities
Birgit Kirkebæk, VIKOM, The Danish Resource Centre of Children and Young People with Multiple Disabilities
Abstract
The background of this presentation is a project about establishing joint experiences through musical improvisation. The project made as action research has been made possible through collaboration between VIKOM The Danish Resource Centre on Communication and Multiple Disabilities concerning Children and Young People without Spoken Language and The Danish Resource Centre on Congenital Deafblindness. Vokalist and musician Cathrine Lervig and professor emeritus Birgit Kirkebæk have been in charge of the project. In addition, three Children with multiple disabilities and three children with congenital deafblindness have participated. The children have each had ten lessons with Cathrine Lervig where they communicated through sound and movement. She had also given a number of concerts for the remaining children on the two participating schools. As a musician who works through improvisation, Cathrine Lervig approaches the children by tuning in to their existing expressions, and the communication takes place through sound and movement. This approach differs from what you find in music therapy and music educational theory and practice. Reciprocal affective tuning to the universe of the other person takes place together with anticipation of what the other person is about to express and with a joint creation of an expression here and now that involves both parts equally. In the presentation it will be argued that an aesthetic perspective based on the connection between music and communication which has been demonstrated by researches like Colwyn Trevarthen and others, can help many of those children with severe disabilities, who we normally treat and train inspired by behaviouristic strategies or use strategies that only address cognition. The reason for believing this is that an aesthetic approach includes emotional aspects and combines emotion and cognition. However this requires that all expressions are seen and taken seriously.