Bilingual Arts Healing Initiative
Our Bilingual Healing Arts Initiative brings culturally relevant arts workshops to collaborating organizations, to help patients/participants cope with the mental and emotional difficulties caused by structural violence and the tensions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Bilingual Healing Arts Initiative intends to alleviate stressors and address risk factors that are commonly ignored when evaluating one’s physical and mental health. Through this program, ID Studio brings innovative, culturally-relevant arts programming to our community's local hospitals, health centers, schools, senior centers, and service organizations. Through a process of collaboration with health care professionals,, our award-winning artists engage patients in interactive virtual and (virus-allowing) in-person arts programming that complements and enhances their healing process, including music, dance, theater, movement, meditation, and art.
In 2020, IDS hired a Public Health Fellow, who has been working closely with local hospitals & senior centers to research and design social prescription arts programs for our community during this challenging time. This program draws from theories in medical anthropology, narrative medicine, and research in collaborative care demonstrating that addressing all aspects of an individual is key to improving wellbeing and quality of life. A CPIC study found that in under-served communities, participants involved in community engagement programs had significant improvements in their health in comparison to patients with only direct medical care.
The Bilingual Healing Arts Initiative projects include "Cumbia for All," "Black is Beautiful," and "Community Building Theater (CBT) Workshops," which runs in collaboration with Latinx music organization Folklore Urbano NYC and dance organization Pajarillo Pinta'o, long-time collaborators of IDS.
"Cumbia for All" -- Since 2018 IDS has brought "Cumbia for All" theater music and dance workshops to numerous senior centers in the Bronx & upper manhattan, engaging hundreds of low-income immigrants and first-generation immigrant aging Bronx residents in exercises that inspire, uplift, and physically engage them. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we brought these workshops online, enabling us to reach more senior centers and to work with hospitals and health centers to reach their members. We created five videos with original interactive music, dance, movement, poetry, and theater to engage our participants. We also participated in events for Alzheimer’s patients and Latinx Heritage Month.
"Community Building Theater Workshops" - Since 2017 ID Studio has run bilingual CBT workshops for Bronx residents of all ages. With exercises in voice, expression, improvisation, and movement, the workshops empower our community members through theater. The program culminates in the performance of an original play. Since the pandemic, the program has been offered virtually, with participants workshopping and performing monologues that were live-streamed to our community. - "Black is Beautiful" - is a 2020 song and music video by Folklore Urbano NYC Founder and IDS Composer Pablo Mayor, with original choreography by Daniel Fetecua, made during the height of the #blacklivesmatter protests. Inspired by the song, we created a youth summit, workshops and community gatherings around race, identity and empowerment.
