"No one will listen to us unless we bring our drums! No one will listen to us talk about Silimu - AIDS - unless we dance!"

- Aida Namulinda, a farmer, and leader of the local village women's music and dance ensemble

This is a summary of 2 separate but interconnected articles, both published in Exploration (an online publication of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee in the United States), focusing on the work of ethnomusicologist Gregory F. Barz of that same university. At the time of these two articles, published in 2001 and 2002, respectively, Barz had worked with over 45 women's groups who use music, dance, and drama to educate and support women concerning issues related to HIV and AIDS in Uganda.

In the first article, "Singing for Life: AIDS and Musical Performance in Uganda", Barz summarises his presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (Detroit, Michigan, the United States) on October 25 2001. In this piece (click here to view it), he explains that in Ugandan communities women often raise multiple generations of orphaned children while simultaneously planning for the inevitable need for similar care and education of their own offspring. With little or no support from governmental agencies and local and foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs), these groups have been drawing on traditional Ugandan culture (music, dance, drama) as a strategy for educating people about HIV/AIDS (as well as for counselling and healing them).

Barz illustrates this strategy by sharing some words from Aida Namulinda (quoted above), as well as 2 medical doctors who are involved with HIV/AIDS medical research in Kampala, the nation's capital. Barz says, "While the doctors and I set up our recording equipment, Aida continues to mobilize her village's performing ensemble in order for our research team to document several of the group's songs, dramas, and dances." As part of this experience, men bring out a set of kisoga xylophones, panpipes, tube fiddles, and drums from one of the huts to accompany the women of Aida's group as they summon and engage the community of farmers returning from the fields. The women encourage those gathered to dance, sing, and listen to the group's messages concerning proper condom use, faithfulness to partners, and sexual abstinence.

Barz indicates that most groups with whom he has worked compose their own songs and dramas, inspired by local musical and dance traditions. He points to a group which draws on traditional forms of dance, drama, and music to demonstrate the problems that can ensure if one turns to the traditional, local medical model (the "witchdoctor"), rather than embracing the so-called Western medical model. The video clip that Barz includes in this article is excerpted from a longer drama, and opens with traditional singing and dancing, segueing into a middle portion of a drama in which a female patient stricken with AIDS is taken to a local witchdoctor; it closes with a song.

The purpose of these performances is not only to inform but to spur behaviour change. Barz cites the message of encouraging blood testing as just one of many specific interventions suggested in songs recorded in various areas of Uganda. (Other songs focus on community consciousness concerning the immorality of and danger associated with prostitution, approaches to sexual abstinence and/or faithfulness to one partner, local and regional government initiatives, possibilities for developing income-generating activities (IGAs), the histories and goals of many women's groups, and the need for change in behavioural patterns regarding sex.) Barz explains that, "By singing about the need for blood tests, Aida and other women feel that they can fight the spread of the virus, especially in male-to-female transmission. Performance, for many women, is their only weapon, and communicating to others that knowledge of one's sero blood status translates to power is a primary reason for singing."

Music is characterised here as being embraced by village-based groups such as Aida's as "the most effective and immediate means available for communicating, educating, and disseminating information pertaining to medical and health care concerns." As the author watched, Aida demonstrated the way in which a series of songs outlining specific ways in which women can fight back against the spread of HIV/AIDS can be a powerful way of educating people, as well as for inspiring them to reclaim their health. Links to video clips are provided in this article which illustrate how Aida's songs are clearly intended not only to educate, but also to strike fear in, her listeners. For instance, a specific description of the physical manifestation of AIDS features images of the disease, often referred to as "the sweeper" or "the broom," decimating entire villages and "eating its victims".

Quantitative evidence of the impact of this strategy is difficult to acquire, but Barz himself endorses the approach based on what he has seen and heard. He indicates that - when women sing and dance during group gatherings to introduce interventions specific to women and female youths (e.g., using songs that warn against participating in risky environments or engaging in unprotected sexual behaviour, or that outline the support networks available within the greater community such as blood testing, post-test counselling, the effectiveness of condoms, and locations of condom distribution centres) - the dissemination of information, the mobilisation of resources that may occur as an offshoot, and/or the consciousness-raising that may be spurred "often occurs in no other form of HIV/AIDS sensitization or awareness intervention."

Barz concludes this piece by arguing that "Drama and music groups led by women are affecting great changes, and perhaps no greater than at the grassroots. In many cases, the government has not been in a position to act, where women's groups work without any funding have been most successful....Only when supported and encouraged by performances drawing on local musical traditions have medical initiatives taken root in local health care systems."

In a May 2002 follow-up article, "Singing for Life in the Shadow of AIDS", David Glasgow describes Barz's return to the Lake Victoria region of Uganda to demonstrate and document the link between a recent decline in Uganda's HIV infection rate and the grassroots efforts of these rural women's groups. He opens his piece with these words: "In villages, drums beat out an invitation to the locals returning from the day's labor in the fields. With no other promotion or advance work, such calls often are answered by more than 100 men, women and children from the network of small villages surrounding a particular venue. In a culture where the word for music, ngoma, includes singing, drumming, dance and drama, such traditional performances are as much about education as entertainment."

As Glasgow reports, Aida (referenced above) hopes that, by encouraging women to fight back through song, she is presenting an alternative to Western cultures that "deem catastrophic illness as rendering the victims helpless". By singing about issues like the need for blood tests, Aida and other women feel they gain strength and fight the spread of HIV and AIDS. "They have separated the disease from sex and taken away the shame so people are willing to take care of others. This is a model for a more compassionate response," Barz said.

In Barz's words: "Music is a primary form of communication and education. Research that ignores these performances may miss key factors in the way the most vulnerable people make sense of this disease."

Click here to access "Singing for Life: AIDS and Musical Performance in Uganda" (2001), by Gregory F. Barz.

Click here to access "Singing for Life in the Shadow of AIDS" (2002), by David Glasgow.