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- DJ Kid Koala’s Nufonia Must Fall – a show mixing film, theatre and music focused on an automaton obsessed with female roboticist – among children’s productions
- Quirky bird hunt, ‘glimpse’ of musical notes and giant puppet show also feature in Hong Kong’s Cheers! Series of performances in December and new year
United States congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was left unable to speak with severe brain injuries after being shot in the head by a would-be assassin in 2011.
Her slow recovery included music therapy, which trained her to engage the undamaged right side of her brain and pair words with melody and rhythm.
She was able to sing a word before she could speak it, as the music helped her to bypass the damaged parts of her brain and restore her speech.
Brain imaging has shown how music lights up the left and right lobes, and research has found that enjoyable music increases dopamine, the neurotransmitter responsible for governing attention, working memory, and motivation.
Today music therapy helps not only those with severe brain trauma, but Alzheimer’s disease, autism and children with attention deficit disorders. Music is also known to have sparked movement in paralysed Parkinson’s patients and reduce the tics of Tourette’s syndrome.
Colour is another sensory stimulation, which has been shown to evoke emotional responses, aesthetic judgments and associations to objects and concepts.
