A lively and festive “Cinco de Mayo” Music Wellness theme energized, empowered and engaged participants of the Innovative Senior Champion Program at New Zion Baptist Church.
We began and were greeted with shaking maracas to a lively greeting tune incorporating each person’s name in the song. Then the residents were empowered to shake their maracas in various rhythms, parts of the body, to increase range of motion by reaching high, middle, and low for spatial awareness and creativity.
Then we discussed the history, culture and tradition of “Cinco de Mayo” including: Maracas, sombrero (hat), Fiesta, mariachi songs (discuss the mood), Battle of Pueblo in 1862. We then used teamwork to raise and lower a large red scarf to lively Cinco de Mayo songs including: “La Bamba” and “Mexican Hat Dance.”
The song “Mi Cuerpo” “My Body” was introduced … we discussed and inserted the English Translation lyrics and sang while pointing to the corresponding part of the body. Gradually we sped up the song to make it a lively tune.
Then a new Cinco de Mayo tune was introduced to the Tune: Mexican hat dance
Chorus: Cinco de Mayo, Cinco de Mayo!
That’s the fifth of May.
Cinco de Mayo, Cinco de Mayo!
What a happy holiday!
All day long we’ll have a fiesta –
That’s the fifth of May.
Cinco de Mayo, Cinco de Mayo!
What a happy holiday!
All day long we’ll have a fiesta –
During the final “goodbye” song, each resident sang and shared how they felt from the music session. Reflective comments included: “fabulous, spirit filled, wonderful, loved it, come back again, awesome, enjoying our time together was great, and thank you!”
