Watch “Sounds of New Haven” performances. This citizen contribution was submitted by Jennifer Mandeville of Sounds of New Haven. If anyone could peek into my mind last Friday after I stepped off the stage as MC at Musical Intervention, my thoughts would be clear and true: I have foun d my purpose. Perhaps, I should say, my purpose found me. Around 50 attendees had gathered at Musical Intervention on Temple Street on Friday for a performance showcase, after unhoused participants had spent months gathering sounds, composing lyrics, and combining their artistry with their activism. We called it Sounds of New Haven. It was August when I was tapped on the shoulder and asked to be a board advisor for a new Yale study focused on integration of creative arts and helping our unhoused community: A group of people with lived experience and allies in the unhoused community would record different sounds native to every New Haven citizen to create an immersive musical experience. Would I like to facilitate?   The study is led by Erica Cao, who conducts postdoctoral research with the Yale Housing and Health Equity Lab, Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health, and Yale Center for Clinical Investigation. The mentors are Danya Keene of the Yale Housing and Health Equity Lab and Annie Harper of the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health. Musical Intervention, including Adam Christoferson and Kevin James O’Brien, and U-ACT were collaborators. “Me?” I asked. “Yes, you!” Erica’s bright smile reflected light onto my baffled face.  Imagine that? Little old me, a woman with a high school diploma, no music theory classes under my belt, a self-taught drummer, yearning activist, feeling as if I had nothing to offer but charisma and some long-stored ideas about how we can help our community. For once, it was beautiful to be so wildly wrong. This journey has taught me about breaking through self-limitation, the importance of creative collaboration, and the essence of human experience. It broke down my pre-conceived notions of how activism can be altered by introducing music and mindfulness into the conversation. It was a pleasure to watch my fellow participants grow throughout this process by letting the artists within them bloom.  Jump back to October of last year, I was drinking so heavily that my body could barely sustain it, my headspace was a pit for snakes eating their own tails, cycles of unrest writhing over and over again as I stumbled through New Haven looking for an open mic. A cold Thursday, wind at my sullen back, the open mic I had stumbled into was at 23 Temple St., a small place called Musical Intervention. My soul warmed as I stepped over that threshold; I didn’t know it then, but that was the beginning of my uphill battle to return to myself. Being drunk, I couldn’t morally manage to mingle among this safe sober space or disrespect these shiny positive people who all looked like they knew what they wanted, so I grabbed a flyer and made a sorry promise to myself as I walked dejectedly back to the green.  That promise? I will return here. I will be sober. I will create, and I’ll love myself once more. I took that flyer with me to rehab and held onto it like a talisman. Anything, anything to look forward to in this long road toward sobriety. Musical Intervention proceeded my imagination and catapulted me into my creative expression, has indeed aided in my desire for healthy community, and continues to introduce me to new ways of accomplishment both small and large.  Coming into my year of sobriety, I look back with gratitude on all of this fettered work, for it has liberated me and brought me to the largest accomplishment so far: Sounds of New Haven. Back to August of this year, armed with templates of previous community Artbuilds, interests of UACT (a top organization focused on aiding the unhoused in every way), and many different voices, we began to formulate what would become all of our brainchild. We tackled the main aspects we wanted to get across to the audience, which were stopping encampment sweeps throughout New Haven, how to gain access to public services in a more direct way, and the importance of community collaboration. We wanted to call attention to the duality of this project, which stands now: People are scared and suffering from lack of action by public officials, yet when we help one another and see each other in human light, we feel more whole, we feel empowered. If the policy does not change, how do we change in order to help each other through difficult times? If those who make the policy would rather lead us blind into deep water instead of providing it, how do we pour into one another instead? How do we get this across in an impactful, intimate, unique way?  There were four groups set within these parameters, all sharing common goals, but the approach for each group was designed by the participants themselves. Each group recorded sounds throughout New Haven, wrote their own lyrics, and composed their own performance based upon those sounds.  Forgiveness, Faith, and Love focused on breaking the pre-conceived notion that unhoused people take advantage of the system by mention of how many people are working and yet still wonder if they will have somewhere to return to when the day is done, fearful that what they’ve built will be gone even when they are contributing to a broken system. It asks a very important question: how do we forgive those who have let us fail? It also provided us with a future chant in time for UACT’s Moratorium, asking for a delay on winter encampment sweeps, which is: Stop the Sweep, Save the Heat! Dignity, Rights, Respect focused on the lack of infrastructure and safety in New Haven, using sirens behind a musical performance, noting how it is all too frequent for our community to hear them without seemingly any respite or actual change proceeding another needless tragedy. They asked a very important question: In life’s low tide, where shall we go? They also touched upon the power of hope, shining light toward the end of their song with an ode to staying mindful, taking a breath, and realizing, “This too shall pass.” Mental Health focused on the struggles of mental illness, especially in the unhoused community. They used a medley of different sounds like crunching leaves underfoot, traffic, and ambient conversation to convey the journey of dealing with mental illness. One of the participants, Dolores, spoke upon her experience as being a survivor of mental illness, calling on the audience to remember that it does not discriminate and we must break stigma around those who need help and access to resources. Action and Accountability, facilitated by Sun Queen, a noteworthy activist and co-founder of the BLM chapter in New Haven, focused mostly on the inaction by elected officials and highlighted in a mix of spoken word and music, the struggles of the unhoused community as if walking through New Haven. They chose the crosswalk sounds we are all so familiar with: Wait, Wait, Wait, and turned it into another hopeful future chant: Why, why, why do we have to wait, wait, wait? We need accountability! After each performance, we had a natural flow of QA style questions for each group to explain the thought process and work behind their finished products. We wanted the audience to hear our journey in a more intimate way, which I believe was achieved, as many of those watching commented on how impactful coming face to face in a low-pressure environment helped them feel more comfortable facing community issues. When we opened the floor for people to share their lived experience, it became a talk among friends, not strangers. It allowed the participants to encourage the audience to see them as human beings rather than an idea or statistic. Alongside that we handed out surveys to see how the audience enjoyed the performance, if it changed the way they view the unhoused community and inspire them into volunteer work. These answers will be used to cultivate even more impactful projects in the next coming months, hopefully years!  We’ve kicked down a creative community door here we intend to keep open! When the participants were asked if they would do something like this again, everyone gladly agreed. I agree, too. It is in our birthright to be able to express through music and art, as it has been for thousands of years before us, and will continue to stand the test of time. Creative expression conveys issues in a way that speaks to the heart and soul. Music specifically has aided in bridging culture, class, and differences, bringing people together who may have never known one another. One thing I do know is that if I am walking through New Haven, I will hear music. When I do hear music, I stop and dance, and no matter who is playing it, they dance along with me. I would like to take the time to thank all of those who took part in this study, you have taught me so much about myself and have lit a fire in my stomach, I call it HOPE! Thank you to Erica Cao for heading this project; Adam Christoferson for providing the space at Musical Intervention; Kevin James O’Brien from Musical Intervention, who truly brought the production together at that soundboard; Sean, Billy, and all those at UACT for providing encouragement and insight into social works; Biz from the Yale Repertory Theater and Yale School of Drama for wrangling us all in to teach us how to conduct ourselves in performance; and the audience for coming to witness this wild, beautiful self-expression!  UACT, We Act!  Any information needed about Musical Intervention or UACT can be found online. The post What Does New Haven Sound Like? appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less