[Please Note: Part-conversation part-experiential event. Scroll to the end for more details.]
Life is about rhythm. We vibrate, our hearts are pumping blood, we are a rhythm machine, that's what we are. – Mickey Hart
“Music…is the profoundest non-chemical medication.” - Neurologist Oliver Sacks, MD
By the time she was fifteen, a clear inkling about her life’s purpose opened itself to Ping Ho: she would carve healing pathways for individuals and communities using the arts. Now founder and director of the nonprofit organization, Arts and Healing Initiative, she combines evidence-based scientific research with open curiosity and community practice to develop programs to build social and emotional resilience through the arts.
Ping’s family situation uniquely prepared her for her life’s work. The early loss of her father to stress-related diseases, combined with a practical curiosity in the performing arts sparked by her mother, led her to embrace the polarities of human experience, and even more so as unexpected gifts at our doorstep. All this, while growing in a family of Chinese origin based in an all-white community, taught her to step beyond the normative categories of race and color.
Through her childhood exposures to both internalized suffering and the arts, Ping came to see that human beings are connected to each other in mind, body, and spirit through the universal language of music and rhythm. She brings this tender understanding in her work that draws on, and fuses, trauma-informed and culturally groovy art practices—ranging from music, drumming, dance/movement, poetry, writing, and theater. She utilizes these creative modalities to aid children and adults with self-discovery, acceptance, and empowerment, allowing them to feel seen and connected.
Research has indeed shown that it is rewarding to the brain to be on the same wave length as others through synchrony in rhythm and music. We feel more similar to and compassionate towards those with whom we have shared an in-sync experience. We are even more likely to stand up for them if they are being treated unfairly. Bonus: watch American Rhythms, a 2008 documentary featuring the outcomes of rhythmic synchrony through Ping’s work with the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Equally so, her work thrives on inclusivity: “We sit in a circle to encourage organic synchrony that says, ‘I see you; I hear you; I validate you.’ We also emphasize there is no wrong way to express yourself creatively; our engagement in the arts is not about perfection or mastery. Understanding this encourages positive risk-taking and creativity because it frees us from self-judgment and anxiety that comes from external validation seeking. We all have a heartbeat, so we all have rhythm. When a drum circle is tightly in sync, it feels mesmerizing, and I don’t want it to stop.”
Ping operates as a gifter; during a retreat in 2023, she facilitated a rhythm circle, using her favorite hand-held drum, with a village near Ahmedabad, India – and she left the drum with the hosts for the flow to continue. Keeping gifts in movement is core to her. She says, “This entire journey has felt like an unfolding. I never felt that I was responsible for any of it, and I feel that the only thing I bring to the table is the willingness to walk through the door.”
Her particular vision and methodological approach are a blend of her science-informed education with a foundational openness nurtured by her creative arts experiences. She earned a BA in psychology with honours from Stanford, an MA in counselling psychology with specialization in exercise physiology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an MPH in community health sciences from UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
Ping is Founder and Director of Arts & Healing Initiative, a nonprofit organization where she has co-developed and served as principal investigator of the UCLA research-based program, Beat the Odds®: Social and Emotional Skill Building Delivered in a Framework of Drumming. She also developed the Certificate Program in Social Emotional Arts (SEA) and the SEA on a Shoestring program formulated especially for supportive art, movement, music, and writing for individuals or groups operating with limited resources. She co-authored the 2019 National Parenting Products Award-winning book, The Innovative Parent: Raising Connected, Happy, Successful Kids through Art.
Join a special experiential call with this awakener of universal rhythm in individuals and communities.
[Please note that the call flow will be different from our usual calls. This will be part-conversation along with an experiential rhythm practice, and also feature some interactive prompts. 1) Instead of watching livestream on our website, you will be invited to join the call via zoom webinar. 2) Please bring something pleasant sounding, like a box, pillow, or container, to serve as a drum and/or a bottle filled with rice to serve as a music-making shaker. 3) During the call, the speaker will be offering a few prompts and inviting reflections from the listeners via zoom chat. ]
